Oriental NC (2014-04-02)

N35° 01.492', W76° 41.736'

Tonight finds us tied to the free town dock in Oriental NC.



The winds dropped down to dead calm for our night in Wrightsville Beach on Monday, and we had a very peaceful sleep.  Tuesday morning dawned bright and calm, with water like glass as we were leaving.

Morning calm in Wrightsville Beach

We have pretty good luck with bridges on the AICW, as our 15' air draft allows us to pass under most of them unopened.  Yesterday we had two bridges with only 12' of clearance, so we ended up waiting for a bit for scheduled openings.

Other than dealing with a couple bridges (and I'm sure all our sailboat friends are grinding their teeth as we talk about how few bridges we need opened :-)) the day went well, and by about 1530 we were passing through the Camp Lejune firing range that crosses the AICW.  As with our trip south, there wasn't any firing going on at this range, so we were able to pass through here undelayed.  We did hear some big guns booming in the distance though, so it sounds like the boys were playing on one of the other ranges.

Target practice, Marine style

By 1630 we had the anchor down in an spot just to the east of the town of Swansboro.  Again the wind dropped off to nothing overnight and we had another great night on the hook.


Today we had another great travel day, with the temperature actually making it up to about 81 F (about 27 C).  If only we could be so lucky to have these temperatures follow us all the way home... :-)

The water conditions were quite calm again today, other than a little stretch before Morehead City where a strong flood tide current against a light wind made for a bit of a chop.

After passing through Beaufort and turning north the water settled back down as we entered the cut towards Adams Creek.  We spotted this sign in the water a little while later.  Guess we'll never know what the answer was.

Hopefully it all worked out for him...

The North Carolina sector Coast Guard had been making securite calls all day about a deadhead in the water in Adams Creek.  Here's what they were warning about.  It's hard to get a sense of scale from the picture, but that is more than 1' in diameter. 

This would leave a mark

The Neuse River was very nice to us today, and by 1430 we were across and entering the harbour at Oriental NC.  We had hoped to get on the free town dock tonight, but didn't have a lot of hope that it would be free.  Our luck held out though, and a boat had left the dock just before we had arrived.  By 1500 we were tied up to the dock.

Oriental NC free town dock

The sailboat we are sharing the dock with is S/V Roane, a 20' Pacific Seacraft Flicka.  The Flicka is a very capable little craft, and this little beauty is being single handed by a man named Bill.


Oriental has a number of webcams, and one is pointing at the free town docks.  Here we are on the webcam.

Oriental harbour webcam

We're probably going to spend two days here in Oriental before we continue on.  We'll head out on Friday and should be in Elizabeth City by Sunday.