After almost a week at anchor in the idyllic Cape Lookout Bight enjoying dunes, unspoiled beaches and marine wildlife (especially the loggerhead turtle that stayed near our boat the whole time), we moved Fregata a short 11 NM back to civilization in Beaufort.
In North Carolina, Beaufort is pronounced something like, “Bo-fert” whereas in South Carolina, where there’s also a Beaufort, it’s pronounced “Bew-fert”. Tomato – tomahto.
The small town of Beaufort (however you pronounce it) is a quaint but busy little seaport. Here, the land and sea are truly intertwined with a network of islands with small passageways between them. There’s a steady flow of tour boats, private boats, island ferries, paraglider boats and shrimpers.
It’s also a popular staging area for sailing yachts getting ready to make the passage around the Outer Banks (see next post).
We met several such crews including George & Lisa aboard Bay Wind, a perfectly maintained Hylas 54 from Annapolis, Maryland, Réjean & Fiora aboard Vagamonda, an Amel 54 from Montréal, Québec, and Brum & Lisa aboard Winter Wheat a St. Francis catamaran from London, Ontario. It’s always interesting to know how unusual boat names are chosen. When we asked Brum & Julie about Winter Wheat, we learned that they were farmers and, as they put it, winter wheat paid for their boat! We decided to make the rounding in a loose flotilla, which was reassuring given the nickname of this passage, “the graveyard of the Atlantic”. We were within AIS and VHF radio distance most of the time, and visual distance some of the time. It’s always reassuring to know there are friendly boats a radio call away.
We stayed at Beaufort Docks, right downtown. The marina had courtesy cars for guests. Although rusty old beaters, they were good enough to get us to the local Piggly Wiggly for provisioning. We were tempted by the array of Piggly Wiggly hats, t-shirts and stuffed pigs available for sale but somehow resisted the temptation.
We enjoyed a few good restaurants, including Dan’s favorite, Mezcalito, and the best black cherry ice cream on earth (you know, the kind with big chunks of cherries in it) in our humble opinion at the General Store.
We visited the maritime museum where we learned about the maritime history of the region as well as Blackbeard the pirate, who supposedly lived in Beaufort.
On Friday evening, we were joined by our new close friend, Tom (see prior posts) who would join us aboard Fregata for the Outer Banks passage.
2 Responses
As a fourteen yr old grocery bagger at my local “Pig”, I received my first $100 tip from a 80’ish year old very nice lady. This for using “yes ma’am” repeatedly toting her groceries to her car. Here we are now.. 80’ish doesn’t sound too bad and $100 bucks doesn’t sound as grand as it did in 1974. Have always loved “The Pig” since!
Me
Tom, If you were as good a bagger as you are crew member, it’s no surprise you made the big tips! D&S