Beaufort N.C. – Oriental, May 8, 2008

We left Beaufort a little after 11 this morning. Because the 3.5 knot current and 15 knot wind would tend to blow us into 62 Nordhaven next to us, 3 dockhands helped leverage the boat into the wind so we could back out of the marina.

By the way, Beaufort N.C. is pronounced Bofort as opposed to Beaufort S.C. which is pronounced Beufert. Keeping that straight is difficult.

It was only 24.7 miles to Oriental, but we didn’t arrive till around 3. Right away we had to wait for a bridge to open, then stopped for diesel along the way. We paid 3.95 a gallon, which included tax. Believe it or not, that’s a pretty good price right now.

Darrell had checked the weather forecast this morning and found that rain along with 25-30 knot winds was expected late today and into tomorrow. Because of that, we are planning to stay 2 days here. Our next leg is through the Neuse River which is the 2nd roughest passage we would see going up the east coast. The river is very long and wide and relatively shallow and has a tendency to develop a very short steep chop

The marina is nice, with very nice, clean restrooms and showers. There also offer free laundry. There are courtesy bicycles available and we took a couple for a short time. We will explore more tomorrow, weather permitting.