Oriental

Next stop was Oriental. We are getting closer and closer to Deltavillle. It wasn’t far but the last stretch, as always seemed to go on for hours. We had to motor across the Neuse River which is very wide.

We finally dropped anchor in the choppy water and spent the afternoon see sawing up and down in the easterly. 

On Saturday morning we had to go the shop to buy the most important commodity on the boat: wine!

Andrew wanted to watch the rugby which was starting at 9am,  Wales against Springboks. So we went early, the Piggly Wiggly opened at 7am. it was a mile walk, which is 1.6km. It is HOT today, no wind. which was a blessing because then there is no fetch on the water ergo we don't get wet!! Bonus.

On the way a guy stopped and asked us if we wanted a lift. Yes please! We hopped in the back on his bakkie. He was not going to the Piggly but dropped us there anyway. Very friendly!!

The Piggly has a free shuttle service to the docks. You have to spend $60 to use the shuttle. HA HA! We spent far more than that on food and other essentials. We got the shuttle back and Andrew was back in time to watch the rugby!

We left Oriental on Sunday morning and sailed for a few hours until we reached our intended anchorage for the night. It was lovely. A big wide space with a few houses on the shore in the distance. 

We played loud music until sunset when we eventually had supper. We were just not in the mood to eat while the sun was still high in the sky. The sun is still setting after 8pm!

There was good wind the following day. We put out the head sail and sailed all the way to Belhaven. We had to enter the anchorage through man made walls, like going over the moat into a castle! 

We went ashore for a walk. Laura hadn’t been of the boat in a while so it was very necessary. We needed to find a emergency care place to get meds for Laura. Her spots on her face were not getting any better.

At first Andrew wanted to get an Uber as the emergency care place was just over 1 mile away, but there are no Ubers or they are not plentiful here. So we walked! And it wasn’t that far. A mere 2 km. We walked much further than that in Grenada to get to the shops!

At the emergency care Andrew got on the scale. He has been wanting to weigh himself for ages. He weighs 89kg! He said he hasn’t weighed that since he was at school!  He hasn’t tried to lose weight, but as he only eats twice a day, I am not surprised!

Slinky Husband!

We got some advice and meds for Lau. They think it is contact dermatitis. She has had this before so it must be something in her system.

The pharmacy was close by. It was not your regular CVS or Walgreens, but a mom and pop operation. It looked like something out of the 60’s. The pharmacist seemed like quite an alternative guy. He told us about using listerine as sanitizer and went on about CBD oil. He even put some on our necks where he says all the nerve endings are. I am not sure what I was supposed to feel, but when we got back to the boat, I had lots of energy and the boat got a good spring clean.

We had heard that people here stop and offer you lifts if you are walking. Maybe it was because there are three of us, but nobody stopped. I did enjoy the walk though!

I decided that the boat needed a clean. I started in Laura’s cabin and found black mould on her hatch (window). She mentioned that there was some on her shelf. I had a look and was horrified. I immediately got the vinegar out and started a deep clean. I have a feeling we have found the source of her problems. 

A few hours later the boat had been cleaned with vinegar water, dusted and swept to within an inch of her life. Hopefully Laura’s spots will go now!

Andrew and I did a few trips in the dinghy to get water. On the way back on the last trip we got wet as the wind had come up, whipping up the waves into a white capped frenzy. But at least the tanks are full and the blue jerry cans on the deck are too.

After phoning Matt for his birthday on Wednesday, 26 June, we upped the very muddy anchor and headed out into the ICW again. It was going to be a long one of 30nm so we wanted to get going quite early.

There wasn’t much wind, so we motor sailed. We spoke to Matt again at around midday when he was opening his gifts. It was really hard not being there. But the upside is we, hopefully, will be in SA for Christmas. 

That night we anchored way off the ICW and had to make our way through a mine field of fish/crab pots to get there. It was quite rough and we were bounced around quite a lot.

The following morning we headed out, once again watching for crab pots. They were quite organized, in lines with a gap in between. 

Storm brewing

Andrew has bought and downloaded something called Bob's Tracks. It shows you the exact line to follow in the ICW. There is a magenta line on the chart plotter but that has been known to take you into very shallow water. Bob's tracks is brilliant. We had been using it since the beginning of the ICW. We got back onto Bob's track but found that the track we are following was not in the channel. We missed a crab pot by centimeters and continued to watch out, dodging more as we went along. Finally they seemed to stop and we were able to relax.

On the way, in the Alligator River Canal, Andrew called me up to the cockpit. He could see something in the water and thought it might be an alligator. We had been looking out for them and hadn't spotted one yet. I got the binoculars and saw that it was a black bear swimming across the river! Incredible. By the time we got to the spot where he went ashore he was long gone!

Andrew had been talking about Coin Jock for a while and wanted to stop there. It has a dock on the side of the ICW. No marina to worry about. He phoned and booked a spot for us. 

When we arrived we docked without any issues. It was quite expensive at $130 per night so we only planned to stay overnight. I must say it was nice not to be rolling all over the place. 

Once we had tied up and Andrew had been to the office to pay, I gathered all the washing and found the laundry. It was the smallest room ever! There were two washing machines and two dryers. The one machine was being used and the other one was broken! I waited around for the owner of the clothes to come and remove them from the washing machine. He finally came to get his clothes. I mean, what is the policy? Do you take the clothes out and place them somewhere, hopefully clean when the machine has been stopped for 15 minutes? I was going to give him another five minutes and then he appeared.

We bumped into him again a bit later when he was going to take his clothes out of the dryer. He was from a monohull which was moored just in front of us.

The following morning we got chatting to him and his wife again. We were planning on leaving at 8am after the dock hands arrived for work, thinking we would need help. After watching Bruce and his wife get off the dock with no problems, we decided to do the same. And thank goodness we left when we did!

We had lots of bridges to get through. Most of them had to be opened for us but were only opened on the hour or half hour. We missed one by about 5 minutes and had to wait for the next opening. The grumpy bridge master would not wait at all for us. 

The current was taking us closer to the bridge and Andrew had to go astern several times to avoid being too close! The next bridge only opened on the hour, so we had to motor the 2nm very slowly. It was the longest hour wait of my life. 

The most interesting one was a lock. They opened the gate for us and we had to tie up on the port side. Then they let the water in. It didn’t feel like much. I think I was expecting a whoosh of water, which is stupid because if the lock was full of boats, we were the only ones there, then the boats would bash into one another. The gate at the other end opened and we made our way out. 

The next stress was a train bridge and right next to it, a bridge that closed between 3:30 and 5:30 - rush hour! 

When we got there bridge 7 was closed because a train was going through. The bridge master eventually opened that one. We made the next one with 10 minutes to spare! This one lifted up! It was really weird to see. 

We finally arrived in Norfolk at about 5pm. It had been a very long day, but an interesting one. We decided not to go ashore. There weren't many places to tie up a dinghy and some charged a hefty fee. Instead we watched the boats going back and forth. We also watched the T20 final which South Africa sadly lost.

Trump Supporter

On Sunday we set off for Deltaville, anticipating another very long day.

Morehead City

As we had to do an overnight sail to Morehead City we headed out the inlet at slack tide, just behind Sea Dancer, and made our way quite far out to sea past a wide expanse of shoaling. 

We eventually tacked to head in the right direction but after a few hours we had to tack again as we were being pushed down towards the land. This is not ideal as you are basically going backwards again.

We reached our line and tacked just as the sun was setting and set off once again in the right direction.

Overnight sails means beautiful sunsets

Needless to say, it was a frustrating night. The wind was flukey with too much north in it. One minute it was 12 knots and the next 3 knots. After 12 hours of sailing, at one am, we weren’t even half way to our destination! There was nothing to do but carry on.

We made water along the way and apart from the engine sounding really strange, water making was a success. I hope we haven’t damaged something to do with the prop when we motored with only two blades. 

Bev and Andre had tacked much further out and got a good angle. They arrived about 4 hours before us. We eventually got to Morehead City and dropped anchor in 3 meters of water off Sugar Loaf Island South next to Sea Dancer.

Laura celebrated her birthday on Wednesday, 19 June, and for the first time in 27 years, she didn't have presents to open. We just haven’t been anywhere near a shop in ages! The compromise was that she could choose whatever she wanted in the shop we found. 

Two years ago we celebrated her birthday on Mustique. Last year we were in Trinidad. I am sure she would have loved to be at home to celebrate with her friends, but sadly, that was not to be.

It ended up being such a strange day. Apart from finding a shop where we could buy some presents for her we also needed to find a pharmacy. We had contacted our doctor back in South Africa about the rash on Laura's face. He had sent us a prescription via email. The first Uber we caught took us to a CVS that we had found on Maps, but it had closed down. The uber driver was local and knew where there was another one. 

They refused to fill the prescription because it was from overseas and it had to be a paper copy. A very nice lady directed us to the nearest Emergency Care centre, which was close by, walking distance, but it was over a highway! There was no place to cross and the robots didn't have the little green man option! 

So we called another Uber! This one also took us a roundabout route but we eventually got there.

The Emergency Care waiting room was packed full of people, some wearing masks, other coughing into their elbows. We were told we would have to wait two hours to see the doctor. Laura was already feeling like her birthday was a series of Uber rides, so we decided to see a doctor another day. We went into the Walgreens next door where Laura had a look at stationery. 

While Laura was looking at Squishmallows, a woman walked past her and made a comment. Something like, "Oh those are cool Squishmallows." And carried on to the pharmacy counter.

The pharmacist also refused to fill the script so we asked if there was an over-the-counter cream we could use. He showed us a few and also said we should get a cream to deaden the pain. There is no pain. In fact, I don't think he even asked Laura if there was pain! Anyway the woman overheard him and said what about CBD cream and oil? He dismissively said no.

When we got to the till she was there paying for her purchases, so we asked her about it. Then, wow, she put her bags down, got out her phone, took a pic of Laura’s face, sent it to her mom who is a nurse. Phoned her mom for advice. Googled the best emergency care place. She went above and beyond trying to help us. When we got outside, she called her girlfriend who was in the car and told her all about us! We did do the introductions, her name was Elizabeth. Such a lovely human!

Then we had to get another Uber to go a few miles to the Harris Teeter where Laura found some pencils and a few notebooks. Not the best birthday presents but what can we do! We did some food shopping and got another Uber back to the boat.

We treated Laura to lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We seldom if ever eat Mexican food so it was a new experience for us. The portions sizes are huge! 

I had bought some candles which we lit, phoned Matt and sang Happy Birthday to Laura.

We were planning on going to the Maritime museum in Beaufort and it would have been easier to get there if we took the boat to an anchorage which was closer. So we upped anchor late afternoon on Laura's birthday and headed off.

Andre and Bev had set off just before us, but sent a message to say the anchorage was full. So we turned around and motored back to where we were.

The following morning, we met Andre and Bev on the dock and took an Uber to Beaufort. It wasn't far away and was far prettier than Morehead City. 

We wandered around the North Carolina Maritime Museum, which was very interesting.  Divers have recovered over 250 000 artifacts from Blackbeard's ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, which was sunk off Atlantic Beach in North Carolina.

Blackbeard was one of the most fearsome pirates to have ever lived. Little is know of his early life, but after the War of Spanish Succession, he joined Captain B. Hornigold's ship, honing his pirating skills.

Captain Hornigold put Blackbeard in command of a captured sloop. A year later he took control of a frigate which was being used as a French slave ship called Concord. He renamed the ship Queen Anne's Revenge and spent a few years creating havoc and carnage wherever he sailed. The ship was one hundred foot long, with three masts, 40 guns and a crew of 300. In 1718 Blackbeard scuttled the ship near Charleston, North Carolina and moved his crew to a smaller sloop. 

He obviously wasn't given the name of Blackbeard at birth. So how did Edward Teach get his name? He had an enormous black beard in which he would put lit fuses, giving him a crazed appearance. Tales of his pirating spread far and wide, with each story embellished on the retelling. Soon the legend of Blackbeard was known far and wide, with stories of him torturing prisoners and turning on his crew for no reason, creating an excellent method of maintaining order on his ship and terrorizing his enemies.

Blackbeard

Blackbeard eventually angered Alexander Spotswood, the governor of Virginia, with all his pirating. The governor assembled a group of pirate hunters to capture him and his crew. Lieutenant Robert Maynard was in charge of two ships hunting for Blackbeard.

They found him on Ocracoke Island and tried to capture him by blocking all exits and entered the inlet hoping to spring a surprise attack. Blackbeard had seen the ships and he cut his anchor and attacked the ships first. A fierce battle ensured during which the pirates boarded Maynard's ship. Maynard had expected this and had hidden most of his crew down below. They ambushed Blackbeard and the other pirates and Blackbeard was wounded. Blackbeard had been shot at least five times and received over twenty blade wounds, making it difficult to tell which one was the final blow. The head of Blackbeard was hung from the mast as a warning to other pirates.

Then we walked around the town for a bit. Andrew was hankering after a beer, so we stopped at a place that was a beer and wine bar on one side and a coffee shop on the other, all in one space. It was lovely chatting to Andre and Bev, finding out about their plans and reminiscing about the past. 

On Friday morning we upped anchor and headed out. Next stop Oriental.