January 11 15 Five More Lay Days in Coconut Grove 1 5 Miles

We spent four nights at a dock of the Coral Reef YC, after one more rough night on anchor in the John Brennan Channel way off from the Dinner Key Marina. We did not even go ashore the day after the botanical garden trip, because it was so rough. This Google Earth picture shows both locations and the route between them, which is not charted, in the northern half of its brief 1.5 miles. (The dinghy dock is clearly visible in the extreme lower left and the well marked Dinner Key Channel -- through which we entered and will leave -- runs in from below the yellow humanoid figure in the upper right, slightly downward to the left, between two islands. The chart does not indicate and I am not sure which of the islands shown is actually Dinner Key.)

 The white dots, right side lower central are moored boats. They are rather orderly, like grave stones, because mooring fields are generally laid out in an orderly manner. We were anchored to the right of them, off the picture, in the anchorage area, where such orderliness does not exist. Our first anchoring attempt (not enough water) was among the white dots at the extreme lower right corner. The dark blue between these two fields of dots is the John Brennan Channel. To got to the Coral Reef YC we motored (1) to the  left through that well marked channel, (2) south of the lower end of the berm that runs sort of vertically past the end of the seven docks of the Dinner Key YC, (3) turned left to pass between the ends of those docks and the island running to the upper right, and (4) hugging the ends of the smaller docks, toward the upper left where we (5)entered and tied on, facing the shore, between the two shoreward docks extending downward from the "E" shaped dock in the extreme upper left.
 After bringing ILENE to the dock we went to the movies seeing Big Eyes (about an female artist who painted children with emotive big eyes and her emotionally abusive husband) and Inherent Vice (which provided a vehicle for actors to act as trashy people doing trashy things which signified nothing and was a waste of time). And we stopped at Fresh Market for take out food to eat at home, i.e., aboard.
We learned the local mass transit system and used it to visit local cultural attractions. This included the rather new, large and very elegant Perez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM).
The 249 bus took us from two blocks from the YC, about a mile, to the Coconut Grove light rail elevated system station which in turn took us to the People Mover, a free elevated loop in the central downtown area, which left us a block from the museum, of which the Miamians are quite proud, having spent $200 million on its construction in prime real estate next to the new concert hall and the new science museum under construction.

Lene hooked up with the same Rhonda who we had dined with on our first night in Miami Beach and three other women. She viewed the art and had lunch with them. I explored the art myself. It rained a lot early in the day but we had our foulies and did not get very wet. Most of the artists were not known to me and most had some Miami or south Florida connection by birth, education, work, residence or death.They had a large collection of pop art, by name brand artists: Warhol, Lichtenstein, etc. which Lene liked. This seemed old to me. These two works, one inside and one out, are based on geodesic domes.

My favorite was this painting, approximately 5 by 8 feet by my guess, by an African artist. Three zig zag lines, two starting in the upper right and one from the top toward the left define the spaces that are painted in. And the bottom represents more, little triangles that I saw as water in this landscape, though the plackard said it could be a TV static pattern. I spent quite a few minutes intrigued by this one.

Another day we visited Viscaya, the seaside mansion of John Deering of John Deere fame, another Breakers-like home of the rich. This one was built during the portion of WWI before the US went "over there" to end it. Deering was a bachelor and imported fountains and whole rooms of walls and furniture from Europe. Quite lovely actually. The big change here in the last century was the erection of a glass roof to cover and hence seal off the central courtyard onto which all rooms of all three floors open -- to keep out the salt air and rain. This, of course, also necessitated air conditioning. And the gardens are not what they once were. I love these marble floors of theseaside and land entryways:

The gardens are nothing to sneeze at either, and here is one of the fountains with "merboys"  --mermaids with boys instead of girls.

A large stone Venetian barge (a place for guests to recline at ease) was built on a sandbank to protect Vizcayas sea entrance, with me at the extreme left and the towers over Government Cut barely visible on the horizon in the between. A bird walked by unconcerned with his proximity to humans.

One evening some young men strolled past our boat and started up a conversation because they recognized ILENE. Russ and Tom had sailed with my late son-in-law, Julien, and sung his praises and those of my daughter who they asked me to convey their good wishes. Small world.
We spent a pleasant afternoon lounging at the YCs underutilized swimming pool and, after some wine aboard, had a nice dinner at the Yacht Club with Jerry and Louise, who came over from Miami Beach and took us to Publix afterwards so Lene could get some products that the very nearby Fresh Foods does not stock, e.g. frozen blueberries and sugarless peanut butter. We lucked out that this was an all you can eat pasta plus night for only $17.00.  I have yet to learn how to avoid over stuffing myself at such affairs, though. The eighteen percent service charge is added to the bill automatically. This club has lots of helpful friendly staff to serve its 800 members, most of who do not keep boats here. It has fixed concrete piers against which we put up the fender board. The docks are busy by day with contractors and many people in suits apparently use the club day and night as a venue to do business. The only drawback is that on sunny days numerous black birds sit in the rigging and emit the remains of their fruit based diet, staining the deck. I washed it off over and over and will use bleach on the remaining stubborn though by now faint stains.
Another evening we were visited by Janet (who had taken us to the Chihuly exhibit) and another member of Lenes grade school posse, also named Rhonda. Rhonda was in town from New York to visit her Mom. After wine and cheese and a tour of the boat, I had, among other things, a single stone crab leg, my first, a delicacy here, and not as good as other seafood to my taste. This was at the well known but not excessively expensive (except for stone crab legs) Montes, on the water, less than a quarter mile away. Photo to be added. Janet and ?Ed may drive down to Marathon to visit us there, and perhaps to fish, though access to the boat on anchor or mooring will be more difficult for Janet than dockside. Also, yesterdays news about Cuba has started us thinking about getting the charts and cruising guides we will need for such a visit, though our insurer, Pantaenius, has not yet come around on this issue. They have several weeks to do so. Life is very very good.

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February 3 6 3 5 Lay Days in Key West Zero Miles

Im calling it 3.5 lay days because we got in so early on Feb. 3, shortly after 1 pm. We strolled Mallory Square and Duval Street -- the heart of the islands tourism. The cruise ships tie up at Mallory Square. The buskers perform there. The town is jammed with tourism. Countless bars (someone said 400), restaurants, shops (chi chi and otherwise), B and Bs, and boats selling trips to fish, sail, look through glass bottoms, dive, snorkel, or jet-ski etc. Most of the  B and Bs and restaurants are in former homes in residential neighborhoods. There are also many larger hotels, new and old.  This town is SO changed from my navy days here, the two months of August and September of 1965.  Possibly this had something to do with the season. Then it was hot -- the seaweed that washed ashore rotted on the beaches giving off  sulfurous fumes that peeled the paint off houses!

When a hurricane came through, my ex and I were ordered to evacuate the little cinder block house we inhabited and stay in the navy school, perhaps the sturdiest structure on the island. We parked our little red Triumph Spitfire on the navy bases baseball field, which was on high(er) ground. I went looking for the squat hot cinder block apartment where we lived but sometime in the last 50 years it had been replaced, with a larger more upscale structure.  It was right down the street from a large parcel of land that was all boarded up in 1965.

When next I visited this island, in the mid 80s the Bar Association Section meeting was held behind those boards -- in the newly renovated Marriott Casa Marina Hotel. The original Casa Marina had been built by Henry Flagler, at the end of Flagler Avenue. The road, Highway 1, which ends (or begins) here, was not a road 100 years ago, but a railroad. The Casa Marina is now a Waldorf Astoria Hotel after an additional renovation.

It was from the beach of the Casa Marina that I had my first sailing lesson, only five minutes long and not long enough: we capsized the Hobie cat several times, righted her, beached her on off-limits property of the Navy base and told the hotel to come and get it and us -- a better solution than going the other way -- to Cuba. And I learned through that experience that I needed lessons to become a sailor.

We were on a budget back in the mid 60s. Movies on the navy base and reading of the NY Times Sunday edition were our primary leisure activities plus swimming in the base pool and shopping at the PX.  The Jewish high holy days took place during our time here. In my Ensigns white uniform my ex and I attended the local synagogue, which has long since been replaced by a larger modern structure. The congregation raised funds by offering ritual honors to those who could afford to buy them. One man gave his honor "to the Navy boy".  Later, my ex said: "Hes taken!" when the gentleman, a local merchant, tried to introduce me to his daughter. Another merchant invited us to the post-prayer feast at his home following services. There I ate my first gefilte fish, home made by his black maid. My father was right! I didnt know what I had been missing.

The island was at a nadir in the 60s which I imagined got worse when the navy shut its base and pulled up stakes here. Duval Street was undergoing a repaving job which lasted most of our two months. Sloppy Joes, on Duval, Hemingways favorite bar, was a stop for us then, no trouble finding a place at the bar.

But I have been told that it was the departure of the navy which created the start of the tourist boom here. One thing remains the same: the roar of navy jets taking off from the naval air base on adjacent Boca Chica Key, due east of here. LOUD! Another thing is new -- I dont recall it in the past: as in the Caribbean nations, chickens roam the streets, their crowing ringing out in the night. you might call them free range chickens.

OK, Roger; enough nostalgia!

We visited "The Little White House",  Harry Trumans favorite retreat during and following his term of office. We enjoyed an excellent informative tour by docent Rene. The navy came to Key West early in the 19th century, long before Florida was a state, and created a base to fight our enemy -- pirates!

The place had become a submarine base and when President Truman was ordered by his doctors to take his first vacation after many months in office
-- in a warm place -- Key West was chosen. The position of base commander being vacant, that officers residence was used. The President loved it here and the navy improved, expanded and redecorated it for his future use. Other executives have used it too, most recently, Collin Powell, as Secretary of State, to work out the settlement of the Balkan War. The place was sold to a developer who wanted to develop Tank Island, across the harbor. He needed easements and the State said: "Sure, IF you fix up the Little White House and give it to the state as a tourist site."

We had a pretty good dinner on Lenes birthday at "Flaming Buoy".  The original proposed name was "Flaming Buoy and Hot Grill." Key West, like Provincetown, has a lively gay segment of its population.

We had breakfast at "Blue Heaven", highly rated and decent and a lunch in a very nice retro Chinese restaurant (when have you last seen Chow Mein or Chop Suey on a menu?) because we were cold walking home during the rare all-day rain. We do not eat deserts so we were not able to patronize a desert restaurant named "Better Than Sex."Its menu has suggestive double entendred names.

The rain came after the day I scrubbed ILENEs topsides. I used FRS to get the rust stains out near where the anchor rode has been shedding pieces of rust. It worked well.

We visited the two iconic sites of Key West:

We had a nice dinner aboard with Alice and Danny. Well, left over sausage, pepper and onion with pasta, red sauce and cheese, plus salad, wine and fresh fruit. No one went to bed hungry. Alice is a friend of Lenes from NY, now living in North Carolina and married to Danny. I had never met either of them before. They are here on a land vacation, found we were here via Facebook and we got connected. Lovely people and a nice evening.

Ernest Hemingways house was a repeat tour for both Lene and me, though we had each visited it in the past with others. The crowd there reminded me of  the Sistine Chapel in July. Another excellent informative and entertaining docent with what might be called Key West attitude.

One of the 45 six toed cats that have  the run on the place, on the marital bed.

His study in loft above the caraige house where he worked from 6 a.m. each day and wrote most of his books

Papa Hemingway surrounded by his  four wives, one of who bought this house for him.

And while the light house has been here since the mid 19th century, it was not on the tourist list until recently.  Unlike the lights of Scotland described in a book review in a recent post, this one was set way back from the sea, on high ground, and made of brick. It was decommissioned in the 1960s. The  picture of it is from the Hemingway House balcony. We climbed the 88 steps and saw the museum in the keepers house.

We will be here in the Bight for a few more days.

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October 26 and 27 Elizabeth City to Deep Point to Slade Creek 43 5 and 33 NM Respectively

From Eliz. City we got a late, 11 A.M. start, due to marketing.  It was mostly motoring but we put up the genoa three times for about half of the passage, once even turning off the motor. We arrived at the anchorage after the sun had set, but before it got dark. Our route was to continue down the Pasquotank River, traverse Albemarle Sound and go south (up) the Alligator River to a place off Deep Point which is deep enough to anchor, moderately protected from potential winds, outside the ICW channel and reachable before dark. The little white space to the left of the word "River" in the upper right quadrant of this chart segment hit the spot. It is 2/3 of a mile long and about 700 feet wide at its widest spot.

There are about 8 boats here. We are in 11 feet of water with 60 feet of chain out. We have a potential problem because when we tried to use reverse gear to set the anchor, we heard only strange sounds. So we laid out sixty feet of chain, which, with the weight of the anchor, held us in place all night in very gentle air. If we had dragged, there was a lot of room behind us toward the channel in which the anchor, hopefully would have caught. No internet access here. Dinner, card games (Lene almost always wins), reading and in the morning we emptied the aft compartment so I could take a look at the "no reverse gear" problem. I saw how, by disconnecting the end of the cable from the shift lever at the helm, one could manually shift the boat at the engine itself. And while we had access, I added distilled water to those of the cells of the batteries that looked like they could use a few sips.
Among the boats here were "Whisper," who we met in Elizabeth City, and their buddy boat "Piper."

In fact, two of the three adorable kids who played with Witty belong to Piper, not Whisper. We accompanied them most of the next day, toward Slade Creek through the Alligator-Pungo Canal and somewhat down the Pungo River, but they had elected to go elsewhere the second day.
The AP canal is quite a bit wider and almost twice as deep as the Great Dismal Swamp Canal.

Our only scary moment was crossing under the Wilkerson Bridge, near its southern end; unlike all the other fixed bridges over the ICW, which are 65 feet high, this one got short changed and is only 64 feet high -- and we are 63.5 feet high!

Slade Creek is wide and over a mile long. We got here first, at about 2:30 after a totally motoring day, and anchored in the first bend after entry, where the wind protection was good, in eight feet of water and were later joined by two other boats. There is lots of room here.

Then chores: I dove into the brownish, tannin dyed water and cut several lengths of line from around our propeller, but the boat still makes a chattering noise in reverse. We will get this checked out in Oriental, our next stop. (Also the harvesting of leaves in the Great Dismal Swamp Canal whacked our wind speed and direction instruments making them even more in need of calibration.)  I went up the mast to reattach the halyard for the Harlem Yacht Club burgee because the halyard had worn through in the strong winds in Yorktown, completed the wiring of our two million candlepower flashlight for finding buoys at night, hung a picture, fixed a cabinet and organized our cabinets. This last in the course of looking for the two white LED interior lights that we replaced with red ones to preserve night vision. Lene does not like living in a red light district. But we have not found the white ones yet.
The problem here is flies, lots of them. Lene killed about a hundred that had invaded ILENE. She is fully screened but they got in while we were underway and the companionway was open.
Also Alphie gave Lene a scare. She was missing, Lene was crying. I looked in both the aft end and the forward end of the stack pack tube that holds our mainsail when it is not in use. No Alphie. Finally I unzipped the top of the tube to raise this sail and there she was, in the middle, perturbed that her nap disturbed.

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HYC Cruise Day 5 July 29 Noank CT to Block Island RI 21 Miles

Calm conditions grew windier in spots between our 9 am departure and arrival at about 1:30. Blast passed us as usual. Our sails were up but not helping much. Tide was helping though. We heard from Bennett on "Ohana". He had left the Harlem at about five pm the night before and motor-sailed through the night;  he was only a few miles behind us.

When the winds filled in and strengthened we turned of the engine and sailed the last hour, including through the cut into the new harbor of the Great Salt Pond, making 6.5 knots. Maybe not the safest way to enter a crowded channel but thrilling. 

We were fortunate enough to capture an available chartreuse mooring, about fifteen seconds after a departing boat dropped its pennant in the water. And Ohana rafted to our port side.
Here is how the rest of the fleet is arranged in Block: North Star and Shanghai are on their anchors, and Blast is wedged into a tiny dock space at Paynes Marina. Good job Ernie!

Ohanas dink is not holding air so we used mine and efforts to find the hole have been unsuccessful so far. I took Bennetts three guests (niece Laura, her husband Rolo, and his son Chris) to shore -- to get snacks. While there we met most of the crew of Blast, after their lunch at the Oar. Then I took the three of them across the pond for a beach landing, so they could walk across the narrow spit and swim in the ocean from the beach just north of town.

A problem: while landing the three folks in the small surf,  the dinks painter got caught on its prop. When I put the motor in forward, it shut down. And I couldnt tilt the engine up to unwrap the painter from it because its ability to tilt was constrained by the painter. What to do: row! But lets just say that inflatables do not row well, especially into a stiff wind. If you put your back into it, the pads holding the oarlocks are likely to rip off. So Im making about two inches per stroke and have the best part of a mile to go. Plan C: hitched a tow from a friendly power boater with wife and small dog in his dink. When we got to his boat, about a third of the way to ILENE, and secured the dink to his boat with my spare line, he cut the painter with his knife. We were then able to tilt the engine, unwrapped the line from the prop and I was back in business! Back at ILENE the new painter was  installed.

The crews of ILENE and  Shanghai, with Bennett, went to shore for dinner and wandered to the restaurant at Paynes Dock. Food pretty good and not expensive. Waitress very friendly and helpful. And then the folks from Blast serendipitously wandered in and so there were nine of us.  No one goes hungry on a Harlem cruise.

Roger, Bennett, Marty, Ghennie, Ernie, Camille, Lene, Jennie and CJ

It was a windy night with high winds predicted for tomorrow so Shanghai elected to stay another day with the fleet.

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HYC Cruise Days 11 and 12 August 4 and 5 Westbrook CT to Milford CT and Lay Day There 19 Miles

 I had a bit of trouble backing ILENEs stern to starboard in order to get off the Westbrook dock; bit more wind than I had thought, but no harm done. ILENE motor sailed south, past the east side of Duck Island before tacking to the west. I had hoped to clear east of Fishers Island and its shoals on their south side, but there was too much west in the SW, and we had to clear that obstacle on its north side before tacking south again. This time Lene intelligently pointed out that the wind was too light to make the sailing part of motor sailing worth the game and so after a bit more, we headed west, just on the edge of being able to sail. So it was a motoring day until the last fifteen minutes, when the wind came more southerly and we close reached with the engine at idle speed.

North Star had passed us early, much closer to shore, and we were assigned a slip very near her. But a failure of communications and Lene commenced the turn to port into the slip too late. We missed the assigned slip and were floating sideways, north, to the shallow end of the Milford Landing Marina. Not a problem. North Star and ILENE were the only boats in the marina (two more came in the next day) so we just pulled in to number 13 instead of number 7. Perils of Pauline!
Underway from 9:45 to 2:45.

Next up was a party with North Star and Stu and Barbara, who came by car from Westport. We had a big round table with six chairs in a shady public spot, lots of food and wine, and the enjoyment of renewing old friendships. It was one of the high points of this cruise, in my opinion. Bruce and Stu are Past Commodores and senior to me in the Club and I joined in 1990. Everyone present except Lene and Barbara knew Stus late wife, Deena. And everyone except possibly Barbara knew my ex, Dorothy. So we all go back a ways but never fail to enjoy retelling old stories of funny and exciting moments from past cruises. This is not to say that newbie cruisers would be unwelcome. Indeed, they would be most welcome.

 
Another quiet night, but from a side port, when I went to the head at midnight, I saw the visuals of a big thunderstorm over Long Island. Too far to be heard, but quite the light show.

During the lay day, we had more visitors by car. Joan and Jerry drove up and had lobster rolls for lunch at the Milford YC with Bruce and Diane. Lene got a haircut in the AM, and we had lunch with a classmate of hers from Lincoln HS at a local eatery before I gave ILENEs top sides a thorough scrubbing. Dinner aboard.

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Nov 1 5 zero miles Five More Laydays in Oriental

We end up spending eight nights here. Thats the way it is in shipyards. It takes longer and costs more than expected.  Deatons however, is a very fine yard. Small but bustling with activity, with friendly competent and helpful staff, free electric which we used to warm the boat through our heat exchanger on the cold nights, and a small lounge with a washer dryer $3.50 per load), good shower, TV and a small desk and sofa. We really became friends with the staff who all cheered the news when Witty was found. John Deaton and his wife, Karen have owned and operated the place with service manager and master teacher Greg, their son Steve, Rita, who was the most helpful about Witty and maybe about 20 -30 other folks.  We had business and they let us fax letters and photocopy others -- no charge.
And despite the gloom of Wittys potential demise, or perhaps because of it (and after his return) work on the boat (and life) went on.
Our friends, Bill and Sando,

saw how ratty looking our small jib sheet had become and gave us a new one, from his old Saga, which had been offered for sale in a consignment store. A very valuable gift. I whipped its new ends when I cut it into two pieces to serve as the sheet and as a line to better secure the dink. Bill also taught me a better placement for the shackle at the clew of the sheet and Lene helped me pull the new line through its under the deck channel with a snake.
 I saw that Oriental has a dealer for AB Inflatable dinghys and scored a valve cover for ours and I used electrical tape to enlarge the washer and thereby make a better fit for the air pump nozzle to inflate our dink. I tried to change the zinc in the refrigerator unit but needed the yards help when the old zinc twisted off in its holder (a new brass holder at $7.50 was a lot cheaper than the labor needed to melt the zinc out of the old one). Lene ordered the electronic versions of Waterways Cruising Guides to the Intercoastal by Mark Doyle. I polished and waxed the stainless steel of the bowsprit and bow pulpit and cleaned out the bilge. This in addition to overseeing/assisting the yards workers who hauled the boat two more times, replaced the lip of the Strong Seal (dripless stuffing box) in an attempt to stop the leak, aligned the prop shaft with the engine by shifting the engine on its mounts, and took ILENE out for a test drive which shows that we have good alignment --but we still have a leak, The cause this time is believed to be a distorted plastic disc bolted with four bolts to the transmission and four more to the shaft. It is plastic so it will shatter to prevent harm to the transmission if we hit something. Our choices were to get a replacement disc, or one of steel to take up the space, or get a new longer propeller shaft so no such spacer would be needed. We chose option A, and it is being sent to friends in Florida for me to try to install there.

But it was not all boat work and Witty worry. We had a tour of Bill and Sandos big new 45 foot dual engine DeFever trawler, named Lucille, like her predecessor, their Saga.

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Bill loves that it has easy access at dock level from the stern, does not have an open fly bridge (which he would not use), and has wide, safe, covered, exterior passageways. He is a perfectionist about his boats, keeping them pristine and making many improvements for comfort, safety and convenience. A minor example of these is the port side rear view mirror shown in the first photograph. M/V Lucille was in Maine this past summer and we hope to join Bill and Sando there in the summer of  16. I continue to very much admire Bills gentle, intelligent advice over the years and Lene says he has the best sense of humor.  He prefers to make longer off-shore passages to get to the desired cruising grounds more quickly, a very useful philosophy as we head south trying to get where it is warm before it gets too cold up here after a delay of a week.

Then, we had drinks and snacks at their lovely spacious modern home, raised about five feet above their lawn, which reaches to to the seawall,
which in turn is five feet more above sea level, with a commanding view of the Neuse River and all the boats that necessarily traverse it on the ICW. All told we enjoyed three dinners out with them, at half the local eateries, "M and Ms," "The Silos" which is built in two connected silos and "Toucan", and two breakfasts with them aboard ILENE.

And I played with the blog and determined that on the ten separate days that we made passages in October since we left Annapolis on October 12, we totaled 351 miles -- compared to the 268 we made in less than 48 hours from the Harlem to Annapolis on October 8-10. We went shopping for groceries several times and took Witty to the vet. Lene has a cold and visited a local emergency medical place and the Walmarts pharmacy. I try to not patronize Walmart whose owners get rich by paying their staff so little that we taxpayers subsidize them through food stamps etc.  But here we shopped at their store which was one of the places that put up a the lost kitty poster.

People in Orient are friendly and honest. The Yard leaves the keys to two of its old vehicles with a signup sheet for use by residents. I put some gas in the tank. I asked the man in the chandlery if I could return the valve cover if it didnt fit. He said: "Dont pay me now: come back and pay me if it fits". When I took our propane tank for a refill, the hardware store man said it was a flat service fee for filling, that the tank seemed 3/4 full and he couldnt charge me $12 for only $3 worth of gas. While walking around on the afternoon after the big storm, I saw folks gathering pecans that had fallen off of trees during the storm. Later I stooped to pick one up and Lee gave me a bag of them from her tree and invited me into her house to meet her husband Billy and their family, who were eating their dinner. They relocated here about a month ago from Orange County, NY. See, it doesnt take long here for the friendliness habit to set in.

I visited the Oriental Historical Museum and took most of one of their walking tours, past the towns historic houses. Oriental was a poor town founded in the late 1870s by hard working fishermen and farmers. This house, with its metal roof, like many of them, was the home of a prominent citizen in its day and is still very well maintained.

Mr. Midyette was the founder. When the post office was established here in the 1870s a name was needed. Mrs. Midyette thought of the steamer "Oriental," which had been wrecked (without loss of life) while carrying people and property for the US government during the Civil War in 1862. This wreck was on the outer banks, about 30 miles from here but Mrs. Midyette suggested the name and it has been so ever since. The name gives rise to the Asian theme including dragons. Here is a view from the middle of Broad Street, also known as Route 55, the main drag, looking west.

 I took a shot looking the other way, which was equally devoid of activity. You can get the idea that traffic jams are the not a big problem in this town. I did not get the full picture when I asked about population. The lovely, dedicated and knowledgeable volunteer at the museum told me it was 750. The Census Bureau reported 900 in 2010. But Im thinking both omitted the people who live in newer larger homes outside, but have Oriental mailing addresses, such as our friends, Bill and Sando. The town still has fishing but its farming gave way to lumber mills which were located where the public dock is now and from which I took this picture of the 1970s era bridge, which replaced the very much narrower wooden bridge of the depression era.
There are several  marinas on this side, the upstream side of the bridge, but not for us, because the bridge height is 55 feet.

 After the mills were shuttered the town was rescued by the boating community. 2700 boats is a lot of boats for what is still a very small town. I believe that much of the money in town nowadays comes from folks who retire here to live with their boats in a moderately warm place.
We plan to stop here again on our return trip back home.

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April 23 24 Wrightsville Beach to Beaufort NC and Lay Day There 80 5 Miles

Underway from 6:45 until 4:00, outside in the Atlantic. Raised main in the harbor, because we were motoring directly into the wind. Then a brief two minute torrential downpour, a right into the inlet and another right outside put us on course for Beaufort. A straight shot at about 60 degrees for 69.1 miles across a good part of Onslow Bay, which is an 80 mile crescent from Southport to Cape Lookout. Out came the genoa and we were doing fine, on a port beat. But the wind was veering very slowly to the right, forcing us a bit more and more off course, not that this was dangerous: thousands of miles of the Atlantic were to the right. But then the winds came up strongly. The clinometer measures us while heeling 39 degrees.

The effect is more dramatic than shown of the clinometer.

We "buried the rail", i.e., water was rushing over the side deck on the leeward side.

So we furled the genoa, put a reef in the main and put out the small jib. Normalcy and safety restored. When the wind diminished a bit we were at a slower speed. Our objective was to be on our dock before night fall, so we turned on the engine and motorsailed. At one point we were pushed so far off course that it was time to tack. Then, instead of being pushed to the right of where we wanted to go, we were being pushed toward the left. As the wind continued to veer or "clock around" to the right, we were able to change course to the right, two degrees at a time, until our course over the ground matched the bearing to the Beaufort inlet.
We met two interesting boats in the inlet, a tug going in and a shrimper coming out.

Beaufort Docks is the municipal marina of Beaufort, with a large,friendly and knowledgeable staff. They gave each of us a wooden nickle, good (with a dollar for a tip) for a free glass of wine at the restaurant/bar of the marina. I had the house red both nights because Lene does not drink. Their showers are not fancy or spacious but clean, with lots of hooks, seats and plenty hot water. They provide a quality wifi at the docks. We used their courtesy car to get a propane refill at a fish store. And also, a delicious fresh flounder that the store fileted for us and Lene cooked that night. We also got groceries. and fresh engine oil for the next change. We each got haircuts from Rachel of Enchanted on the Lane. A mechanic came over to try again with the engines intermittent rattle and did less but charged more than Leo of Jekyll Island -- nothing, except he gave his opinions.
Our other diner was at a restaurant called Queen Annes Revenge, its food adequate. It was named after Blackbeards pirate ship, that sank just outside the inlet through which we had entered.
The North Carolina Maritime Museum had a good exhibit on the recovery of the remnants of that ship along with pirate life generally -- free admission.

There is also a lot there about commercial fishing and outboard engines, but the best part of this museum was about what they called "indigenous boats." These are boats built of locally available wood and designed to do the work needed by the local population and the water conditions they are likely to face. It started with dugout canoes with the best explanation I have heard on how they are created and ended with the sharpies, a type of flat bottomed fishing boat first built in New England but modified and popular in NC waters. They had several full size boats and models in the display. Worth a lot more time than the two hours I had for it.
I also had taken a stroll through the historic town, three blocks by ten blocks in size along the waterfront. Strip shopping malls and other attractions and probably some lovely suburbs are outside of this historic area. Front street is at the waterfront, its business side full of restaurants and shops and, across the small park area to the right, the marinas docks. The kitties did not enjoy it here as much as they had hoped to because a man on our neighboring boat is allergic to cats and was not pleased when he discovered Alfie exploring his cabin. They had to remain aboard.

Old placarded homes, are on the other streets.

The Allen Davis house of 1774, picture above was used by General Burnside in the Civil War but it did not say which side he fought for.

A historic triumph for this rural town was when the Railroad was built here, allowing inland produce to be shipped to market. The Depot remains beside where the tracks used to run

and is now a civic meeting place with a museum including this recreation of the RR office. Both the Railroad office and our barber reminded me of my maternal grandfather who was a barber when young and retired from the railroad office when he got older.
As sections of the Atlantic coast of Florida have been nicknamed the gold, treasure and space coasts, Beaufort and several surrounding towns now call themselves the Crystal Coast. Someone told me this was because the Atlantic water is so crystal clear.
In 2012 we anchored out off the docks here and did not go ashore. We made up for that oversight this time. From here on until Norfolk we will be inside.

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