Story - Ockracoke 8 June 2010

Kalandia Web Diary
Bill Peach
Wed 9 Jun 2010 02:57
Story – Ockracoke Island 8 June

Last thoughts on Charleston South Carolina
A charming town with charming people. People like to fly the country flag
and sometimes the state flag outside their houses. Couldn’t find anywhere to
buy a camera, but I could if I went to an out of town shopping centre. Saks
of Fifth Avenue closing in the high street. Oh oh.

Must mention Charleston Harbour Marina on Patriots Point which I recommend
if you want a berth rather than an anchorage. Helpful and friendly staff, a
hotel attached with the Reel Bar and restaurant if you wish, courtesy
‘trolley’ bus into town every two hours, last returning at 2015hrs and they
will pick you up/drop you anywhere en route, especially good as the Harris
Teeter supermarket (a bit like Waitrose) lies en route. Free WiFi. People to take your lines

We parted company with Bert and Leni from Heimkher as they had people to
visit in Charleston. We do hope we see them again soon as they are such
good company. I expect we will again in Chesapeake.

Beaufort North Carolina
Worth a short stop. We used the Beaufort Dock Marina which also has free
WiFi, people to take your lines, use of courtesy self drive car because, you guessed it, shopping was
out of town. $2.25 per metre, set charge for electricity and they will lend you a cable
splitter if you need one as they use both 30 amp and 50 amp connectors. The shops within the cute streets of Beaufort were clothes, souvenirs and craft shops as well as a plethora of seafood restaurants.

A kind driver who saw us walking to the edge of town supermarket stopped to
give us a lift. We were the only ones walking so he must have guessed we
weren’t from these parts.

Fishing again is a big pastime but here it is also commercial, especially
shrimp (prawn, see pic of boat). By the way, when ordering prawns make sure
they are not battered, which seems the most popular way of serving them –
scampi style. We overhead a fisherman (don’t know if he was commercial or
not) describe tipping out the nets and seeing all sorts including sea
horses. I suppose they can’t discriminate what is dredged up when supplying
our appetites, but it seems such a shame. I read a paper aimed at sports
fishermen which talked about handling fish if caught for sport and how every
minute after 60 seconds the chances of the fish surviving if thrown back was
decreased. Also the advice was not to make the fish struggle to exhaustion
(the struggle is the whole point of the game) as this releases too much
adrenalin (I think that was it) into the muscle and when thrown back would
likely mean the fish wouldn’t survive anyway. Remember they are not fishing
to eat but to enjoy battling with a shark, marlin or other big game, which
they photograph and throw back. Well, at least the fishermen themselves are
talking about it and finding ways of improving their sport. Us, we will
just fish when we want to eat.

See the pic of the US Coastguard boat which parked on the dock to get their
breakfast. I do hope Solent Coastguard never have to resort to such
measures.

Ockracoke – still North Carolina
I am sitting here listening to two things – one, the spooky sound of the
lighthouse (there isn’t fog but it booms out every so many seconds anyway) and the other is
country music from the Jolly Roger pub. The island has chosen to remain without a bridge to the
mainland and has retained its Englishness. Although very watered down now
because of extraneous influences (TV is one and the influx of seasonal
holiday population) the accent goes something like, apparently and I
haven’t heard it yet, high tide is hoi toid. Blackbeard the pirate
lived and died here.

The approach is so difficult. To land on the ocean side of any of these
islands is an absolute no no. But to get into Pamlico Sound (which is like
a sea really as you can’t see its sides) is through sand banks which shift
all the time and so ‘they’ have to keep repositioning the markers. It’s
like having the Goodwin Sands all around you except you see pelicans. We
touched bottom at one point but Bill reversed out of it OK and if not we
would have had to call TowBoatUS to which we have subscribed – RAC for
boats. Pamlico Sound will not be navigable apart from this visit and we
will have to leave it the same way we arrived. Some of its depths are 2 or
3 foot – most of its depths are! There is a channel north to Hatteras
Island which is next in the string, which the ferry takes but we won’t be
able to because we can’t pass through the other inlets. Another bizarre
place in Pamlico Sound is Roanoke Island where descendants of the ‘lost’
colony have been discovered. I will find out more but it is all to do with
one of the first colonies from England who were forgotten when their leader
had to return and didn’t come back because of some war or other. The people
inter married with some native Indians.

A word about the coastline. I didn’t properly realise that the eastern
seaboard is actually strung almost its whole length by outer islands such as
this one – some more accessible than others. I had heard about the Intra
Coastal Waterway (ICW) but I thought it was a very long canal whereas in
fact it is in the greater part the waterways between the mainland and the
string of islands, although canals have had to be created for some
stretches. It is our regret that we can’t travel it at all because there is
only one stretch that doesn’t have a fixed 65 foot clearance bridge
(Chesapeake/Delaware canal). The other bridges are bascule bridges, lifting
bridges and swing bridges – but at some point or other there is a fixed
bridge. Our mast is 73 feet. Freighters do use it though, but are
obviously lower than our mast height.

Tomorrow I look forward to going to the ocean side if possible, to walk the
empty beaches, then to visit the British cemetery where WW2 sailors who were
washed up are buried (HMS Bedford was notably sunk by a U Boot around here)
There is an annual commemoration apparently. I wonder who attends from our
navy? To finish we will enjoy eating some fish at one of the restaurants and
going to the Ocracoke Opry.

We plan to move on by Thursday afternoon (which is a shame) but we must get
into the Chesapeake Bay to secure the boat for our forthcoming trip back to
England. We have been planning our hops to avoid bigger winds but that has
meant motoring because most of the little wind we have gone for these last
few days has been from behind. We will risk higher winds (and round
the capes this can be problematic – Cape Fear, Cape Lookout and next, Cape
Hatteras ) and sometimes they are accompanied by thunderstorms which today
meant waterspouts somewhere a little further north and a coastguard warning to head immediately to safe berth. I had for the second time to call up US Coastguard because they speak so fast when doing their
Securites. Unlike at home where you can easily tune in to the areas being
mentioned, they are not familiar to us, so while you are trying to figure
out one thing they have rattled on speaking very fast, to the next. Anyway, we concluded the storm would bypass us although the forecast says storms for us tomorrow.

An addition to the lexicon: as dock = pontoon, so slip = berth

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