Crew Log for November 16th – 17th, 2022
Trip Summary:
Long Creek, Bonner Bay – Beaufort, NC
Trip Distance of 39.8 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 1,749.1 NM
Departed at 06h30, arrived at 14h00
Way back in Old Saybrook, Tanya, the Manager of the Yacht Club, said she really like Beaufort, but didn’t care much for Beaufort. We couldn’t remember which Beaufort she liked, so we decided to form our own opinions after visiting both. Today we were headed to the first Beaufort, pronounced Bo-Fort which was in North Carolina.
We had been 5 solid days without touch land, making our way from Great Bridge Village to Beaufort. This section of the ICW is very populated, and you rarely have to travel more than 15 – 20 miles between towns. We had intended to visit places like Coinjock, Belhaven and Oriental along the way, but we were wanting to make up time, so we continued to push south. We added some of these stops to our list for the way home. Despite the development, our nights have been in quiet anchorages where the only lights were the occasional anchor light from a neighboring boat.
Long Creek in Bonner Bay was particularly secluded. It was a dark overcast night when we arrived, which seemed to make the anchorage seem even more remote. However, it was well protected with good holding with no wake or waves to rock the boat. We were however, looking forward to a couple of days on the dock.
The trip to Beaufort was uneventful. We did manage to pull out the headsail a couple of times to help us along. It was also nice to hear some familiar boat names on the radio as people moved between Belhaven – Oriental – Beaufort. As we made our way into Beaufort Harbor, we heard another familiar voice yelling out to us from the anchorage.
Our friends on Magali, who we last saw weeks ago in Annapolis were here to greet us. As we got settled, they dropped over for a visit and a sundowner. They had been here several days and were planning an outside passage from Beaufort to Charleston the following day. They were traveling with a couple of “kids” (20 and 21 years old) who were on a 36 foot boat that was loaded with bikes, paddle boards and kayaks, in addition to the normal assortment of gas, diesel and water jugs and a dinghy. While our visit with Magali had been short, it was good to reconnect and we look forward to seeing them down the way in some place warmer.
We were staying on the Beaufort Town Docks. They were right on the waterfront, literally a few steps from the downtown shops and restaurants. In addition to power and water, every dock had access to diesel which eliminated the need to move to a fuel dock. The washrooms were a little rough, but there were plenty of showers and lots of hot water. When we checked in, they also gave us 2 wooden nickels that got us free beers at the marina pub.
It was in the pub that we met Doug and Lori from Michigan who had recently decided to become fulltime live aboards. They were on a rather large trawler that had seen a lot of use. It was completely decked out with 2 Christmas Trees and strings of lights, which had recently replaced the Halloween themed decorations. Doug had commented that he was having problems with 1 of the engines. He thought it might have been a valve issue. It was pretty obvious in the morning that something was wrong. As they tried to make their out of the slip, the boat roared and spewed black smoke, leaving a black slick on the water. We aren't sure how far they made it, but we never saw them again.
We also met Josh and Tamara. Both originally from BC. They had recently sold everything and moved onto sv Honu Time, a new to them, Hunter 460. After completing a lot of work to the boat, they had spent the summer in the Chesapeake and were now working their way south for the winter.
The only other visitors we had on our first night was a egret and a night heron who seemed to call the docks home. They confined themselves to the docks, and not the boats, which was likely a good thing for the deck swabbing crew.
One of the other great things about the Beaufort Marina was the access to loaner cars to use for provisioning and other errands. I hadn’t driven a car in 3 months, so I was naturally a little nervous. I did relax a bit once I caught a glimpse of the loaner fleet. While ours was mostly the same color, there were others that had different color doors and in some cases, large sections missing altogether. They never asked me for a driver’s license or any type of identification, although it did occur to me that they had our boat as collateral.
Given that the grocery store was a couple of miles out of town, we did appreciate the car, regardless of its state of disrepair. The cars were in high demand, so we were asked to limit our trip to an hour, which was plenty of time to provision and include a stop at Macdonald’s for breakfast.
In the afternoon we made our way up to the marine store, mostly for the walk. We got chatting with the 2 owners who seemed to know a lot about Nova Scotia. It turned out their research came from watching the Hunt for Oak Island Treasure show on TV. They loved the show and thought Nova Scotia looked like a great place to visit. They questioned whether there was any real treasure on Oak Island though.
Speaking of treasure, Beaufort also has colorful pirate history. Researchers are convinced that Blackbeard’s pirate ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge sank off the coast of Beaufort, although there is some debate about whether the loss was intention or accidental. Artifacts from the ship have been recovered and were on display in the Maritime Museum in Beaufort along with a nice collection of displays highlighting boat building, the fishery and marine life.
We enjoyed our stay in Beaufort. We got to connect with old friends, made some new connections, reprovisioned, cleaned ourselves up and the boat, and learned a little bit about the history of this area. However, it was the middle of November, and we still had a long way to go.
We were off to see the marines at Fort LaJeune tomorrow.
But more about that, next time.
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