We arrived in Wrightsville beach on May 30th and found our old cruising
friends s/v Serenade were here. We dropped the hook and let them know we had
arrived. We had chosen to detour to here because we needed some parts from West
Marine, the most important being the Chart chip for our electronic navigation.
We ordered everything and needed to wait 5 days for it to arrive, so we had time
to burn. Thankfully Wrightsville is a lovely stop with a great beach and easy
walking to stores and supermarkets, they even had a famers market on Mondays but
not as nice as Georgetown. While we were waiting s/v Slow Flight and s/v
Providence came into the anchorage and we had a great time at the local Mexican
restaurant catching up.
 |
| Wrightsville Beach at play time - amazing stuff |
 |
| And some real characters too.. |
 |
| Wrightsville Beach |
Also a Tropical Storm named Andrea spooled up in the Gulf of Mexico and set
it sights on us in Wrightsville. It’s a good enough anchorage and has plenty of
room to wait out a good blow. So we re-anchored to the middle of the river to
give ourselves a little more room from shore and other boats. The storm was
pretty strong with up to 50 knot gusts but not for that long. It was over pretty
quickly and by the end of the day it was just windy.
 |
| TS Andrea with white caps inside the river |
Our West marine order didn’t all come at once so we had to wait out the
storm anyway and the part arrived the day Andrea did and we collected when it
dried up the next day. Such is life when you live in the outdoors.
Our next stop was Beaufort, NC. We decided on another outside route so we
left Masonboro inlet and headed the 60-70 nm to Beaufort. It was light wind
sailing all morning but picked up to 20-25 knots as we approached Beaufort inlet
for a nice fast ride in. The inlet is wide and safe so no issues. We found a
busy anchorage in Taylor Creek so we went quite a way in to get away from too
many boats. Beaufort is a very nice town with a great waterfront for sailors
starting with a free dinghy dock. We enjoyed the historic streets and graveyard
as well as the maritime museum. The following day we walked the island trails
on Carrot Island and saw more wild horses and lots of tiny fiddler crabs.
 |
| Beaufort Waterfront houses |
 |
| Maritime museum Beaufort Waterfront |
 |
| An odd request - typically British |
 |
| Cemetery at Beaufort |
 |
| Wild Horses |
 |
| Beautiful wild flowers on Carrot Island |
The next stop was going to be Oriental, NC. We left through a bascule
bridge at Beaufort and headed up Adams Creek for the Neuse river. We had done
this part of NC before when we bought Moosetracks in 2007 so it’s the only piece
of this trip on the entire East Coast we have done before! Unfortunately when we
got to Oriental the harbor was very small and the only anchoring was taken by 3
boats already there. So we had a back up plan and moved 10 miles north to Broad
Creek. It was a great spot amongst lots of trees and much fewer homes. Wifi here
was a challenge though but we got enough to see the radar images of the next
pending low and frontal system. So we stayed here 2 nights and rode out the blow
comfortably.
 |
| Adams Creek on a still day (motoring) |
After Broad Creek we wanted to see Ocracoke so we headed on a long day sail
across Pamlico Sound to the outer banks. It was a great sailing day with again
20-25 knot winds and Moosetracks started to show off her speed again. We arrived
nice and early and found plenty of space to anchor in the harbor. Ocracoke was
fabulous, good free dinghy docks and lots of free national park attractions. We
spent time listening to Park Rangers talking of local history and visited the
Preservation Society Museum which were all great. We walked around town
afterwards and had quite a surprise. A man at the Ice Cream shop said “ you look
like cruisers” and of course we had to admit we are. We got chatting as they
were too were cruisers and we asked where they had been and where they were going. It was
wonderful to find out Dena & Myron on s/v hold Fast had cruised with our really good friends Bruce and Gina
on s/v Dreamcatcher and had heard us all through the Bahamas and just missed us,
it was neat to finally catch each other.
 |
| Forever a part of England |
We also walked the paths to Teach's hole which is where Blackbeard (Edward Teach) kept his ship the Queen Anne's Revenge. It was a lovely walk and we watched the locals renourishing the oyster beds to try to get them growing again. Afterwards we walked onto see the lighthouse up close and talk to the park ranger.
The next stop was Shallowbag bay near Manteo, NC. Our good friends Harry
& Melinda had given us this tip as well so we had to come see the place.
They really love cruisers with a free dinghy dock and free 24hr pier to tie off
too. It makes you feel very welcome. We decided to anchor out as we wanted to
stay 3 nights but there was plenty of room for us. We walked the lovely waterfront
with lots to see and do. There is a large replica sailing vessel the Elizabeth
II from Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet that brought the Lost Colonists to Roanoke.
We got our bikes out and cycled to Fort Raleigh and had a wonderful time at the
visitor center and walking the trails. It is a great attraction and if the
weather had held we would have seen the Elizabethan Gardens as well but sadly
they are outside and it started raining earlier than we though it would. So we
took our break in the rain to cycle back to Moosetracks and made it fairly dry
with several stops for shelter.
 |
| Lots of Duck Hides on the Neuse river |
 |
| Bodie Lighthouse on the Outer Banks |
 |
| Roanoke Marsh Lighthouse at Manteo |
 |
| They race these in Bristol Docks England too.. |
 |
| Roanoke / Manteo Sailing Academy |
 |
| Biking the trail to Fort Raleigh |
 |
| Fort Raleigh Theater |
 |
| Wind Mill on the trail to Fort Raleigh |
 |
| Replica ship Elizabeth II |
 |
| Repoduction Chad boat from the Sailing Academy |
 |
| Shallowbag Bay and Manteo Harbor |
So that’s up to date for June 18th and we are now looking at leaving
tomorrow to go up the Virginia Cut to Portsmouth over the next few days.
By the way we have now added a new page for Maps up in the top right
corner, click on “Maps” and it will give you a list of the Google maps we have
made of our journey so far. Also here are the links for April
http://goo.gl/maps/Be6Z2 and May
http://goo.gl/maps/V1F7J. A small statistic for eveyone, we crossed over 2,000 nautical miles so far this trip on June 1st!
Again we hope everything is wonderful in your world too.
