This morning before daylight, the water was glassy calm. The further north and east we are, the earlier the day lightens up. At 0500 I enjoyed the tranquility of the harbor and watching the day come alive.
A little after daylight, you could hear what sounded like mosquitoes buzzing as outboards began their treks from the mainland through the marshes and shallow waters of Core Sound, running towards Cape Lookout, and the fishing grounds. The inlet where the current flows out of Lookout Bight seems to be a very popular spot.
As we began picking up the anchor, I quickly realized that the anchor was not on hard sand, as I had imagined, but rather, the black mud that our neighbors to the north are famous for. While the mud is excellent holding, we spent twenty minutes washing the mud off the anchor chain as we brought it up. I'd put out a lot of chain, thinking it was sand, and hoping to sand off a little of the rust on the upper portions of anchor chain. Oh well.
We got underway and headed back into the Atlantic Ocean, and down to the Beauford Inlet ship channel, through the inside, past the working pipeline dredges, and into the ICW between Morehead City and Beauford.
From there we wound through Core Creek, a cut canal, Adams Creek, and crossed the Neuse River into Oriental, NC.
Oriental is known as the sailing capital of North Carolina. Oriental has had a free dock for awhile, but, just installed a second one, doubling the available tie up space. While the old dock was full of smaller outboards, the new dock was empty, and we pulled in, and made ourselves at home. The folks in town are friendly, and obviously love their town. As we walked down the street, many folks said hello, and wished a great day. At one intersection, as we were standing, studying a map, a woman in a care stopped and asked if she could help us find something. We visited an art store with a variety of displays of local artists, and a large marine hardware store.
We decided we would rather anchor than be at the dock, so continued out the Neuse River. The wind had freshened considerably, and there was a sailing race taking place in the wide Neuse River. We ambled toward the Pamlico Sound for an hour and a half, and turned into Bay River, then Bonner Bay, and went up into Spring Creek to anchor.
There were two pontoon boats going back and forth from around the bend in one direction, to up Long Creek in the other direction, retrieving a variety of ATV's, including one with traks on it like a bulldozer would have. A couple of their trips had large plastic containers. It was all I could do to not launch the RIB and follow them to find out where they had their camp!.
When the last of their wakes died, the wind once again dropped to stillness, and we enjoyed the sounds of whippoorwills through the night.
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