North Carolina

Sunday 18th May 2014  36:17.904 N  76:13.111 W    Distance sailed 363 miles.

Thursday 8th May Shelduck left Georgetown at 06.30 for the 180 mile passage round Cape Fear to Beaufort North Carolina. I set a waypoint 35 miles East North East of Cape Fear to clear the Frying Pan Shoals. Shelduck had a wonderful sail across Long Bay in a 10/15 knot Southerly assisted by a current to the waypoint where she arrived in darkness to be greeted by many ships also making the turning. We gybed around the buoy marking an unlit abandoned exploration platform and reached on to Beaufort where we arrived on Friday at 13.00. A fast passage averaging 6.3 knots. The entrance to the harbour was restricted to a minimum width by a huge suction dredger working the channel. Anne and I were tired after a very busy sail and as she reflected on this passage, the cruise in general and the fact that she had shared the helming day and night for 1500 miles joked "to go anywhere I want now all I need do is learn to row a punt"  Beaufort Docks is a publicly owned transients facility, very well run and therefore very busy. Saturday evening we dined at an excellent local restaurant Beaufort Grocery Co. and were booked in by a young girl whose mother was from Tralee by name of Barrett. She had immediately recognized our accents as Irish. Anne bought me a present of the restaurant cookbook called Closed on Tuesdays. Sunday was a day of rest for Anne in her bunk while I blogged and we listened to Aedin Gormley's Sunday Matinee on Lyric FM coming in on my Iphone on the excellent internet access here in Beaufort.

When I called Anne early September 2009 to invite her to cruise on Shelduck in Portugal she surprised me by saying "OK but not more than 30 miles a day"  That is how we cruised in October 2009. Remembering that I planned a similar ending to this cruise with passages of 30/40 miles for the final 10 days. Monday 12th at 10.30 went through the Beaufort Bridge and had a beautiful 39 mile passage motor sailing on the ICW North Carolina wetlands to Bear Creek which is so remote there was no phone signal. The creek also had many bird watching hides on land and in the water. Anne and I were eaten alive by bugs, even the common fly bites here. Tuesday 13th a 27 mile passage to Bath in Bath River off the Pamlico River. Sailed 16 miles west of the ICW and docked at the town's Free Dock which Shelduck had to herself. We visited the Visitors Centre to check in and walked a mile to the nearest shop which as is usual for the towns we have visited was outside town on a highway. Asked for a lift back to Shelduck with our provisions at the checkout and the person next in the queue gave us one.

A European Settlement near the Pamlico River in the 1690's led to the creation of Bath, North Carolina's first town in 1705. The first settlers were French Protestants from Virginia followed by English inhabitants. By 1708 Bath consisted of twelve houses and about 50 people. Early Wednesday morning Anne and I had guided tours in the Palmer-Marsh house of 1751 and the Bonner house of 1830 and we also visited St. Thomas Church begun in 1734 and the oldest surviving church in North Carolina. St. Thomas is an Episcopal Church and there is also a Baptist Church and a Methodist Church in town. These are the principal Churches in the South. We were also told that Church members can be segregated by wealth and colour so some towns would have nine churches, one for rich whites, one for poor whites and one for people of colour of each denomination. At  midday Shelduck left the dock, sailed South out of Bath Creek, East along the Pamlico River and North up the Pungo River to anchor for the night in Pungo Creek. A beautiful wide easy anchorage with no bugs. Just one other boat anchored nearby. Sailed 27 miles for the day.

Thursday 15th left Pungo Creek early for the long motor sail down Pungo River/Alligator River Canal and anchored for the night inside Catfish Point. A difficult winding entry between sandbanks marked by tree branches stuck in the sand. Shelduck had logged 41 miles. There was a poor weather forecast so I thought we might have to spend 2 days there. I set a second anchor off the stern to help avoid going aground during the night in a channel which was very narrow. Next morning we were aground because my kedge had dragged in the 25 knot winds and the warp was under the hull near the keel. I could not retrieve it even with the help of a winch. I had to get afloat again so started the engine to get off and my rope cutters cut the warp like butter and soon Shelduck was afloat again. I had lost a small Danforth anchor which had given sterling service since I bought it for my quarter tonner Warship in 1972. I have fond memories of the difficulty releasing it in Derrynane where it had dug in so well in the sand there. Poor conditions or not I was moving on and back out into the Alligator River and joined two other yachts through the River Bridge and into the Alligator River Marina near the bridge in torrential rain. Logged just 11 miles.

This well designed small marina is attached to a Shell petrol station on a highway which crosses the bridge and is 12 miles from the nearest town. It does have a restaurant which opens for breakfast at 05.00 and with last orders for dinner at 19.00. Dined there and had fun with two interesting American couples at the next table. Saturday 17th, with the weather improved, Shelduck left the marina at 07.00 and had a great close reach across Albemarle Sound to the turn up the Alligator River to Elizabeth City where she docked at another free dock in the city centre at midday having sailed 30 miles in 5 hours. This may have been the last sail of this cruise as Shelduck's next passage is through Dismal Swamp to the Atlantic Yacht Basin where we leave her. Elizabeth City was alive celebrating it's Potato Festival  and we toured the many stands and listened to the bands. Dined aboard and afterwards watched a great fireworks display over the harbor from the cockpit.