Carolina Cruising Part II

We left Morehead City early in the morning and we should have checked our route on the chart before leaving the dock.  It is a large seaport with ships coming in and out and there was an inlet to the ocean in one direction and a river to Beaufort in another direction and the ICW in a third direction.  After perusing the chart for a few minutes, we were able to discern that we needed to make a left at the ship terminal and we were on our way.  Our destination for this day was Oriental, NC and we were hoping to be able to snag their free dock for the night.  The city has a webcam pointed at the dock so you can tell, before you get there, whether there are any other boats on the dock.  http://www.towndock.net/harborcam  The dock is in the middle of the picture and you can fit a boat on each side.  Unfortunately it was full when we arrived so we decided to anchor in Green Creek, which was very near the town.  We dinghied in to a dinghy dock the town provides and walked around town.  There wasn't much to the town, but it was quaint.  One of their claims to fame is that they had the first motorized school bus in North Carolina.

Time to weigh anchor and head for our next port in Belhaven, NC.  We were told that we HAD to stay at Dowry Creek Marina because they treat you like honored guests and, if there are enough boats in the marina to warrant it, they will feed everyone a beer-can chicken dinner.  When we arrived at the creek, we were one of six boats that were going into the marina for the night.  We each took our turn going into the dock to tie up while the rest of the boats waited out in the creek.  We definitely had enough boats for a chicken dinner so at 5 o'clock we all brought a dish to share and our own drinks and had a great time eating and making new friends at the clubhouse.

We left the next morning and headed out the creek toward the ICW and it smelled very smoky.  We had heard that there was a wildfire in the Alligator River area, but this was the first evidence we saw of it, or smelled of it.  As we traveled north, the smell and clouds of smoke became even more evident.  This was the view of the fire from the waterway.

Billows of smoke were rising into the air and, since the prevailing wind was from the northeast, the smoke was blowing to the south.  The smell finally dissipated as we passed the area of the fire.  We needed to cross Albermarle sound and it is necessary to make the crossing on a good weather day as it is a fairly large body of water and can become very rough in high winds.  We reached the southern side of the sound around noontime and, even though it was a little rough, we decided to cross it and head for Elizabeth City on the other side.  We bounced around a little, but it was not too bad.  We had heard from many cruisers about how the citizens of Elizabeth City welcome boaters to their free docks.  In 1983 a gentleman named Fred Fearing decided to greet all the boaters who arrived at the new docks the city built with wine and cheese and roses that he grew in his yard.  He has since died but the town is continuing the tradition and as long as at least four boats arrive during the day, they have wine, cheese and roses for them.  It gives all the boaters a chance to get to know each other. 

We met a couple from Connecticut at Elizabeth City on Miss Ruby named Jean and Wes Quigley.  We will be traveling with them for the next week as we get closer to the end of our journey.  They have cruised up and down the coast many times on Miss Ruby and we thoroughly enjoyed their company.  We are welcomed to Virginia as we head out of Elizabeth City and into the Dismal Swamp, but that is a story for another day.

Miss Ruby