Beaufort 32:22.156N 80:40.459W
Lotus
Wed 23 Jun 2010 12:53
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After a night at anchor on the ICW, we set off for
Beaufort and arrived with the lashing down rain and thunder and
lightening. This didn't last long so we were soon able to pump the
dingy up and go ashore for a tour of the town and a beer. Beaufort is
a quaint little town with bench swings all along the sea front,
great to sit and watch the sun go down, perhaps not so good to treat like a
playground swing and try and get as high as possible. Fortunately, we
stopped before we broke it, or ourselves.
Our Scottish friends had told us about a cheap
phone deal where you paid $30 for a phone and got $30 worth of call time,
costing only 15cents a minute to call England, so we set off in search
of 'Wal-Mart' which was a few miles out of town. We hitched a ride
with a local politician, who offered to wait for us and give us a ride back,
such is the generosity of the Americans, but we declined, confident that we
would be able to hitch back. Wal-Mart was the wrong shop so we were soon
back on the highway looking for another ride to take us to 'Dollar
General'. Before too long two redneck guys picked us up in their pick up
truck, I'm calling them rednecks because they'd just been out shooting cans and
were smoking a legal herb (apparently a marjarauma subsistute) which had 'not
for human consumption' written on the packet. We didn't find this out till
later on so we jumped in the back of the truck as the rednecks
dog was taking up the back seat. When we got to the store, the two guys
offered to wait and take us back to the boat. This time we accepted as
there was a nasty black cloud approaching. After we'd bought the phone,
the rednecks had moved the dog into the back so we could sit with them in the
cab, where they insisted on taking us to the local diner for a meal even though
we'd eaten, they even said that they would pay. So, off we went to
the local diner which shortly after our arrival had a power outage due to
the enormous thunder storm (worst of the year so far). We left intending
to go back to the boat, but they then kidnapped us, 'deliverance style' and took
us to their house. When one of them got out a banjo we really started to
worry! They were a pair of really nice working class guys who wanted to
show off their home and be our friend as they had very little interaction with
anyone foreign. They dropped us back off at the boat and we gave then
a short guided tour of lotus before bidding our fair
wells.
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