"2000, November 13-14 Anchored Out in Town Creek" Beaufort Travelogue by grandmaR

Houses north of Beaufort NC

We finally got away from the pier at 9:11. The engine hour meter stopped working yesterday and isn't working today either. Also the oil pressure and temperature are not right. Bob starts taking things apart and gets down in the engine compartment twice. Eventually he finds the loose or broken wire that isn't making a good connection and everything is fixed.

We have all the side curtains and dodger up because it is warm nice weather. Before we get into the canal, a cruise ship, Niagara Prince(American Canadian line) passes. A boat with a blue and white stripe from PA named MANDOLIN comes past and the lady gets her toy poodle to come up and bark at us.

On the starboard there are big fancy homes with piers, riprap and landscaped lawns.

Sandy edge of the ICW

The port side we see sand dunes and scrub pines and it is mostly deserted.

PRIME INTEREST with grey topsides stays behind us. TERRAPIN STATION, from NC and LUMBER I from Poughkeepsie NY, two sports fishing boats pass in the Adams canal about 11:25, and the shrimp boat FOXY LADY from Norfolk comes north. A big boat named CHANGING CHANNELS (with dolphins for the "C"s) does that - passes us and the goes into a marina ahead of us.

Amphibious vehicle

We heard a really big racket - a throbbing noise. Bob has been into the engine room and thought he fixed the engine electrical stuff which runs the gauges -- what is this racket?? Is the engine coming apart?

We look around and it is a BIG amphibious vehicle with big spinning tires that is making the noise - it passes going north.

We pick up the range in Core Creek, and TERRAPIN STATION and LUMBER I pass us again. I tell Bob that this is like driving west in the Plymouth. Faster cars would pass us, and then stop for lunch or something (in this case probably they stopped for fuel) and we'd get ahead of them, and they'd have to pass again.

Beaufort Anchorages and Gallant 's Channel Bridge

As we are going down towards Beaufort, I suddenly look up and find that Bob is going to go the wrong way. We quickly alter course, and go down into Town Creek in back of Beaufort. The more popular (and larger) anchorage is Taylor Creek right on the waterfront, but I've decided that the less popular anchorage is better. SANTA MARIA is already here along with a couple of moored boats, and a live bait shack (abandoned).

We anchor exactly in the middle of an anchorage between black and white markers A, B, and C (marked BW on the chart) which form a triangle at about 1:30 after 23.9 miles at 5.8 mph and a total trip of 306 nautical miles.

Land side of Town Creek in 2005 & Beaufort bridge

The folks from SANTA MARIA tell us to be aware that the boat next to them (with a bicycle on the deck) has a somewhat scruffy man living aboard. After we anchor, JOY B comes in and anchors behind us and GEMINI anchors in front of us. A new looking big boat with(apparently) a single man aboard anchors off to one side. Maybe he is a delivery skipper.

The guy from JOY B rowed over after he got in to thank us for asking the bridge tender to hold the bridge for him. We can neither one of us remember which bridge it was, but I do remember vaguely doing it. He apparently anchored on the front side of Oriental last night because he had a bad experience with the marina that we were in last night.

He says his dog (a piebald mutt) has no difficulty doing his business on the foredeck, and doesn't have to be taken ashore like Dreyfus of SANTA MARIA.

We are in the habit of eating dinner while watching the sunset and then going to bed. We also listen to "All Things Considered" and "Fresh Air" on NPR each night - we can get it most places on the FM radio, and we get better local weather than most other radio stations, plus we don't have to listen to music that one or the other or both of us don't like. In a marina, we watch the TV of course. We still don't know who won the election, but we don't really care anymore.

Taylor Creek 2005

When we woke up this morning all the boats were rearranged in the anchorage. The moored boat that we were in front of is now in front of us. GEMINI that was in front of us is behind us. JOY B that was behind us on the port side is now beside us on the port, and SANTA MARIA that was beside us on the port is now on the starboard, and not pointed the same direction as we are.

GEMINI leaves early before 7. I think they went back to the split in the channel and went down the other side under the fixed bridge. I call the Gallant's Channel bascule bridge which is right next to the anchorage to find out when the next opening is. He says he will open at 7:20, and opens at 20 past the hour, 40 past the hour and on the hour, except he doesn't open at 7:40. So we hastily pull our clothes on and pull the anchor and go through the 7:20 draw.

Bob had some trouble with the wash down pump (which is a cheap Ruhl bilge pump that he plugs into a 12V plug in the Vberth and puts over the side into the water and pumps water up out of the creek or whatever body of water we are anchored in to wash off the anchor chain and anchor), so he didn't get the anchor actually washed off.

Come down past Taylor Creek and there *are* a lot of boats anchored there. Then go south toward the Atlantic past Bird Island. There are lots and lots of pelicans there. It smells like heather. We have breakfast in the cockpit while motoring.

Spoil island south of Swansboro

As we turn back up into the Morehead Channel, the tide is coming in and the current has us up to 8 mph. We pass mile 215 at 9:03 and are into Bogue Sound by 9: 11. Bob goes to see what is wrong with the wash down pump and finds that the plug had a short which caused it to blow a fuse. So he fixed that. We pass the 220 mile marker at 9:51.

Bogue Sound is very shallow, so in order for there to be 12 feet, they have dredged the Bogue Inlet Canal and put the spoil over on the port side forming some little islands. Sometimes the spoil shifts back into the channel. We see a boat ahead (BIT OF HEAVEN) which seems to have run aground. They get off before we get there. Of course they may just be anchored in the channel. It's hard to tell.

Next: Mile Hammock Bay in Camp LeJeune (Snead's Ferry).