Last Repeat Stop

Some spotty cell service has had us disconnected for awhile 😁

 

November 4

On to Beaufort, the place Joe wanted to move!  We are in North Carolina… Voted the South’s best small town by Southern Living readers in 2017.  Pronounced “BOW-fert” or  “BOH-fert.  South Carolina is pronounced “BEW-fert”. Don’t say it wrong, you will be corrected!

After a rather rough docking experience, we are tied up in Beaufort Yacht Basin again.  We were actually remembered by a few folks, Terry, the dock master, Jerry the manager and Joe, a regular.  We met several people right away as lots of help was needed to get Pursuit into her slip.  Very High north winds!  Tried to back in a few times unsuccessfully.  It is much easier to get off the boat this way.  We ended up putting her in bow first.

The couple next to us on a very large Grand Banks had just completed The Loop.  They noticed our Looper Flag so they were interested in what we were doing/where we are going.  Lee and Jan, the Loopers, were two of the people who helped us dock.  We have not changed our Port of Call on the back of Pursuit so everyone presumes we are from Rock Hall, MD.  Saying, no, we are actually living in Wisconsin opens up a whole new dialect.  Jan was born in Minnesota and lived in Wisconsin.  She was excited to talk to us as she said they did not meet anyone from either state in their whole Loop experience.  We are having cocktails with them tonight.

What is the Loop?  It is actually called the Great Loop and is a 6,000 mile boating adventure.   The AGLCA webpage indicates “it is an adventure dreamed of by many but completed by few.”  AGLCA is:  America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association.  We joined a few years ago and feel it is well worth the $75 per year.  There is a lot of information on their website and discounts available. The daily forum postings from members are informative, funny or Bitchy.  Lee and Jan fly the Gold flag meaning they have completed the Loop.  There is also a platinum one for those who have accomplished multiple Loop completions. Ours is white and we only started to fly it recently–why does it have to be so ugly?? 😏   This photo of the flag outlines the route of the loop.

We probably will never actually complete the Loop as we have little interest in cruising the Mississippi and want to do the Great Lakes on our sailboat (I know, that’s not working out so well and we ain’t getting any younger).  We have met a lot of people because of the AGLCA association.  All good.

Ok, Sharon and Rob, on “Ka Why Knot” are in the Marina next to us.  We toured their boat, a 36′ Albin–love the floor plan and especially the Stateroom–and made plans to meet up at the local pool hall.  Joe and I had already discovered this gem (dump) on our last tour.  Hey, they have $2 hamburgers.  I believe a good time was had by all 😙  They will be leaving in the morning so we may not connect with them again until possibly next Spring but you never know…  Fun times.  Also Sharon, love the red kitchen aide mixer and you’ll see I omitted the sink photos!!!

The Royal James Cafe is listed as the oldest continuously run cafe in Beaufort.  It was not “Royal” or anything near a “cafe”.  I needed to switch the below picture to black & white to make our friends’ faces visible.  Very dark and seedy.  We all loved it!!

Enterprise delivered our Ford Escape earlier in the evening.  This is considered a “full size” vehicle.  So tomorrow, we are making the journey back to Portsmith to get our truck.  We know, a bit nuts.  But, you get an AGLCA discount on a car rental.  $35 for a 24 hour rental.  I think car rentals have gotten cheaper.

Yet another fabulous invention!  The Sea Legs!  A pedal pub with a paddle wheel.  How cool is this?  Our boat neighbor Lee said he and Jan went on it and had a great time.   They saw horses and a pod of dolphins.  Two things:  I didn’t know wild horses were this far south and you would never see a pod of dolphins on the pedal pub in Minneapolis…..  I will try to keep all this good old American ingenuity coming 🤔

 

 

 

November 5

We left the Marina early for a 3.5 hour drive which took more like 5 hours.  It rained a bit.  On the way back, we drove out to the Outer Banks.  OBX  get it?   What a reward.  It was fabulous.  A whirlwind tour but we really enjoyed the area and hope to be back with more time.  We walked out to the beach at Kitty Hawk.  Fabulous beach side town with “regular people” homes.  No giant condo buildings or monstrous houses.  It reminded us both a bit of New Syrmna Beach except for the lack of white sand.  Of course the main highway was lined with shops and restaurants but it really had a great beach-side feel.

We crossed the bridge over to Roanoke Island to check out the little town of Manteo.  This was one of the places Joe wanted to see but wind/waves prevented it by boat.  A great, historic little town that only recently (according to our waiter) began to cater to tourists.  It was a fishing town.  We have heard everywhere we have been that the fishing industry has really taken a hit with the hurricanes and Dorian really did a number on the oyster beds.  The town did a great job.  Lots of waterfront decks and docks and plenty of spaces to sit a spell.   We had a great lunch with the tour guide waiter who gave us a good run down on boating in the area.  Manteo calls itself America’s oldest settlement.

One area on this island did have mansions and a row of condos with docks.  Each dock contained big, bigger, biggest Sport Fishing boats.  Apparently, Andy Griffith had a home here. Andeee…

We did not get nearly enough time here and still had 2.5 hours to drive back and return the rental car in the rain.

Joe also got to see the condition of the Dismal Swamp.   We stopped at the visitors center on our way North.  He was happy we chose not to go this way. I think I already said seeing Rob’s boat’s strainer reinforced our choice.

 

 

 

 

 

Our last blog entry last year was here in Beaufort.  From this point, all the way to St. Augustine, Florida will be new to us.  We don’t have a plan–that’s the plan.  We are hopeful to be able to spend longer periods now at each stop.  The boat needs one upgrade first, new refrigeration.  We think it’s the original unit.  It’s old, rusting and runs on AC only.  This means we need to have electricity to run it.  If we switch on our invertor to run it on the batteries, it would drain them down to a dangerous level overnight.  We could run our generator to recharge the batteries but we really don’t want to as it annoys everyone. This is the stuff a shakedown cruise is all about.  We want to be able to anchor out and take advantage of Cities’ free docks (where there would be no electric hookup).

Unbelievable to most of our fellow cruisers our freezer is actually too big.  We could utilize some of the space for a nice tool cabinet.  So, research begins and a few boat bucks fly away.

An F-18 fighter just flew over from the Cherry Point Marine base in Havelock.  We see/hear this stuff all the time.  One word:  Impressive!

I hope with new places to explore, our blog becomes more interesting than refridgerators and rental cars.   Thank you all for following us.  Your comments, contacts, emails and texts mean a lot to us!!

Here is one of the greatest Boat quotes I have heard “if you own a boat, there is something on board you need to fix–you just might not know yet it’s broken”

Lee, boat neighbor (who admitted he read it on the AGLCA forum)