Beaufort, NC
Friday 6th November 2020
By necessity this post will be brief. We are anchored in Taylor Creek off the waterfront in Beaufort, NC and are preparing to head offshore early tomorrow morning to sail south to Wrightsville Beach, NC, so we have a few jobs to do and need to get to bed early for a 5am departure tomorrow.
Today we left the tranquil anchorage off the Neuse River and motored down through Adams Creek and canal to the marshy waterways north of Beaufort and onwards through the often changing channels to the town itself. It wasn’t a particularly long journey but it seemed to take forever. There was quite a lot of boat traffic including numerous barges and power boats. The currents were against us so that we were only making 5 knots over the ground despite doing close to 7 knots through the water. Then there are complex channel systems and numerous shallow spots due to constant silting that need to be negotiated. Last but not least, the anchorage is quite narrow and fairly crowded, and we had to select a position quite carefully that was just out of the channel but still deep enough. As it is we have just 12 inches of water under our keel at low tide.
We did manage to dinghy ashore this afternoon and had a pleasant walk around town. Beaufort has a number of good restaurants but the only grocery store seems quite a distance from the center of town, so we didn’t bother with that. After returning to Cotinga we pulled up the dinghy, deflated it and tied it down on the deck. We tightened up the temporary lifeline and prepared the self-steering system. Then it was time to cook dinner for tonight (pork chops, mashed sweet potato and green beans) and also some ratatouille to eat whist underway tomorrow.
We’ll let you know how the offshore passage goes in our next blog!
Mike
34 42.872 N, 76 39.915 W
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