November 2 - Wrightsville Beach

Oct 29 – Belhaven
It was really windy and cold again today so we decided to stay put. The kids did school in the morning. In the afternoon the girls went to visit the boat tied up next to us. The boat’s name is Blue Ocean, the people are from Denmark and they have a 12-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. Unfortunately their daughter doesn’t speak English. Their son’s English is pretty good, but he is shy to use it. The kids played Nintendo for a while and then played a bit of tennis. After that, we were going to go for groceries, but the golf cart was gone so we started the laundry instead. Just after we started the laundry the golf cart came back so we left the laundry and went for groceries. We took "Sailor Joe" with us. He is probably 80 years old and sails alone on a 25’ boat. He is quite a character. In the evening the kids from Blue Ocean came over and all the kids played Pit.

Oct 30 – Broad Creek (mile 172)
We left Belhaven around 7:30. It was a nice sunny day and it is starting to warm up. We were able to sail part of the day so that was great. Dave saw some dolphins in the distance but they didn’t come very close. We anchored in Broad Creek, a little north of Oriental around 2:00. Serenus (Noah and Vicky) anchored with us, but Carpe Diem decided to go the marina. It is really pretty here. The land is really flat and there are tall pine trees everywhere. We dropped the dinghy down so Annie, Kristen and I could take Rudder to shore. Noah and Vicky wanted to go for a walk too, and their dinghy was on deck so we took them with us. We had a great walk on a mowed path through the forest. It was really peaceful. We saw raccoon and deer tracks but didn’t see any animals. I made up the beef dish with beef from both boats and we went over and had supper on Serenus. Vicky went through the french book with me and helped me with my pronunciation. They are planning to head for Beaufort tomorrow and then head off shore.

Oct 31 – Oriental (Mile 182)
After much discussion we decided to have a really short day today and go to the little town of Oriental for Halloween. The free dock was full, as was the marina near the free dock, but they had space for us in the marina by the bridge – managed by the same people. We could have anchored, but figured it was better to be tied up for trick or treating. The girls and I went back to the first marina to register and on the way ran into people we had been tied up with in Elizabeth City. They told us there were some young girls on the catamaran tied up at the free dock. After we registered, we went over to say "Hi" at the cat - Miakado. The girls are 7-1/2 twins – Allianna (Ally) and Emma. They were really excited to meet some other kids and wanted to come right over to visit on our boat. Ally and Emma had lunch with us and played for a while and then went back to their boat while we went for a walk in town. After our walk, the girls went back over to the other marina to carve pumpkins with Ally and Emma. Annie and Kristen had supper on Miakado, and Dave and I had a quick supper of fresh shrimp back on Bird. After supper I took Annie and Kristen costumes back to Miakado so they could get dressed. Annie dressed up as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz by using part of her jig outfit (including the red shoes) and part of her national outfit. Kristen dressed up as Laura from little house by wearing her national dress, and my sundress over top. Their costumes weren’t perfect but they were pretty cute! Just as we started trick or treating we ran into Annie and Dietrich from Calliope and Bruce and Annie danced the jig in the middle of the road (with no music). They all thought that was pretty neat!
Trick or treating wasn’t as great as in Pictou – there are so many vacant homes here – but they still had a really good time. We met up with Dave back at the Halloween party back at the marina. There were lots of people we knew from Dismal Swamp and Elizabeth City so that was fun.

Nov 1 – Oriental to Swansborro – Mile 228
It was a beautiful warm day today. We left at 7:30 just ahead of Miakado. After we crossed the Nuese River we saw lots of dolphins playing in the water really close to the boat. It was so cool!! We passed through Beaufort and Morehead City and went down Bogue Sound. The waterway channel is really narrow here so it requires a lot of attention to make sure you stay in the channel and don’t go aground. We decided to stop at Dudley’s Marina in Swansborro rather than push on to the anchorage at mile 244 as there is a really shallow spot at mile 237 that we wanted to do at high tide (and in the morning). When we stopped in Swansborro 15 years ago it was cold and wet and it seemed like we walked for miles to find a banking machine. This was a totally different experience. It was warm and sunny and we had a great walk to the historic district of Swansborro. There are great little shops and the simple architecture of the houses is really neat. We walked back to the marina and barbequed steak for supper.

Nov 2 – Swansborro to Wrightsville Beach – Mile 283
Another beautiful day! Today we had dolphins all around us. A mother and calf were swimming right under the bow sprit of the boat and we could see them under the water! We didn’t have any problem going through the two shallow spots we were worried about. We had three bridges today that only opened on the hour so we had to think about getting the timing right on those. We ended up sailing for the last couple of hours as we only needed to go about 3 miles per hour because of the bridges so that was really nice. We got to the marina in Wrightsville Beach just after 4:00. We were glad to find a place to stay as a lot of the marinas are full and there is very limited room for anchoring here. After we got settled we went for a short walk and got some groceries.