Five Days in Beaufort NC - 2018
Nov 14 thru Nov 17
--Blogpost written by Bob
Our first night in Beaufort was after our arrival on Tuesday afternoon, November 13, which was covered in our previous blogpost.
Wednesday, November 14
The day started out with an overcast sky and an outside temperature of 52 degrees F. It was windy—maybe 15 knots worth of wind! It looked like rain was on the way (and the weather forecast agreed). We slept like babies last night in the comfort of Beaufort Docks, particularly after our harrowing ordeal (high winds and anchor dragging 500 feet) the previous night.
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| This is an image from our chart plotter of our 500-foot anchor drag early in the morning of November 13 in Adams Creek. (The green arrow is the direction and length of our anchor drag.) |
As I walked to/from the showers this morning, I noticed that a lot of boats departed yesterday afternoon. I also noticed that a lot of boats in the marina (possibly the majority at this time) are (probably Bahamas-bound) Canadian boats. They have certainly come a long way to get here—it makes our trip (about 355 miles so far) seem short by comparison.
Following are some images of boats currently docked at Beaufort Docks:
Beaufort is like a scaled down version of Annapolis and, for this reason, I love this town! We went out for lunch again today.Following are some images of boats currently docked at Beaufort Docks:
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| This has to be the most attractive sailboat here in Beaufort--s/v Miniskirt from the Cayman Islands. |
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| There are many hailing ports represented here, including this boat from Portland, OR. Annapolis is well represented here as well. |
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| One of many Canadian boats here in Beaufort at this time. |
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| The far east end of the dock at Beaufort Docks. |
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| Boat bows. |
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| Boat bikes on deck of a sailboat. |
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| We had a terrific Four Cheese Pizza at the Black Sheep Restaurant on the Beaufort waterfront. |
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| We got new (embroidered) boat hats at Harbor Specialties on Front Street |
I realize there are a lot of photos in today's blogpost but tomorrow it will rain all day and there is likely to be none at all.
Thursday, November 15
Rain was in the forecast for most of the day today. I’ve been thinking about extending our stay here by another day and leave on Sunday (instead of Saturday) and reducing our planned stay over at anchor in Wrightsville Beach by one day.
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| This image looking out through our enclosure at the boat docked next to us sums up the most of the day pretty accurately. |
In the morning during the driving rain, I checked the fluid levels in the engine—everything was fine. The engine controls registered 1042 engine hours—it was 969 engine hours when we left Baltimore, a difference of 73 engine hours. (This means we consumed about 43 gallons of diesel fuel to this point since we use 0.6 gallons per hour at cruising speed.)
I’ve started to make a list of Charleston Projects and I’ve been collecting items in my Amazon cart to purchase and ship to our marina in Charleston after our arrival.
We went out for lunch and afterward the weather cleared!
The rain stopped for a short while then started up again for a short time. Bailing the rainwater out of the dinghy was a big job today! At the end of the day we had a beautiful sunset with a big bank of clouds that were all lit up.
Friday, November 16
It is cool (47 degrees F) and windy (15 to 20 knots) outside but the sun is shining brightly. I wish it was warmer though. Lots of boats are leaving the marina this morning, which is unusual considering that it is a Friday (considered as bad luck for sailors). Quite a few of the boats are going offshore from here.
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| We are currently in Beaufort--under the big blue dot in the lower third of the above GOOGLE map. |
We have two simple goals for today: (1) get our cell phones switched over to Verizon and (2) top off our fuel tanks. We accomplished both goals by lunchtime.
In switching our cell phones to Verizon, it cost us a little more than T-Mobile but we received a one-time $150 rebate for each of our two lines plus we got a $35 per month discount for my being a military veteran. In addition, I believe that we got much better coverage!
In the mid-afternoon I enjoyed the simple pleasure of sitting in the warm sunshine inside our cockpit enclosure watching all the activities in the marina. A Lagoon-brand catamaran just docked next to us, taking up two slips. It was single-handed, which is always amazing to me. Of course at a transient marina like this one, there is always a lot of help available for docking. Our cats were outside in the cockpit with me—their sights were set on seagulls landing on the adjacent piers.
Saturday, November 17
This morning we went to the last day of the Olde Beaufort Farmer's Market for the season and after that we completed our grocery shopping at the local Food Lion, using the marina's loaner car.
We got back to the boat in time for lunch at Black Sheep and then the Penn State-Rutgers football game. Penn State beat Rutgers (20-7) this afternoon but it wasn’t the blowout I expected and Maryland gave Ohio State a hard time (52-51).
It is amazing how empty the marina is at the current time—when we arrived at Beaufort Docks it was fully booked. The beautiful weather (sunny and 57 degrees F) we are experiencing encourages boats to be on the move—we should have this nice weather pattern all the way to Southport (Wednesday afternoon).
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