Day 8: 10/18/07 Beaufort – Pungo Rvr/ Slade Creek (64 miles)

We awoke early and watched the sunrise as we drank our coffee and munched a pastry picked up at the restaurant last night. We cast off at 0730 to make the 0800 bridge opening since they don’t open from 0630-0800 for morning rush hour. We should have waited another 15 minutes or so as we had to loiter south of the bridge for 20 minutes. The bridge opened promptly at 0800 but the bridge keeper called me on the radio and asked that I wait for the southbound boat traffic to clear first due to the tidal conditions. By 0810 we were clear of the bridge and heading north. The meandering channel that had made me so nervous coming in was no problem now that we were familiar with it. Another pod of dolphins accompanied us for a while.

We had listened to weather the night before and I knew that a front was coming through within 24 hours so I decided to skip Oriental, push north up the Neuse River, cross the Pamlico River and get a bit up the Pungo River while the seas were relatively calm. Otherwise we could end up being stuck in Oriental for a couple of days as we were in the spring. Both crossings were uneventful, but I appreciated the 75 hp Yanmar as it pushed us along at 7.7 knots without any strain whatsoever.









It is shrimp season and there were a lot of shrimp boats either pulling nets or heading to favorable shrimping waters.







I wanted to try another new anchorage. Between the chart and Claireborne Young’s NC Cruising Guide, I selected Slade Creek (pg 182).
We arrived at the creek about 1600. The wind was starting to pick up and we were getting some white caps on the River. The Slade Creek entry channel is easy if you have a chart plotter, but I wouldn’t try it without one as it is relatively narrow and meanders. There is plenty of depth if you pay close attention to your plotter. We anchored across from Wood and Neal Creek in about 8 feet. There was one sailboat at anchor when we arrived and a trawler arrived just before dark.

Buck and I decided to bathe in the creek before cocktails. Wow was the water chilly. Buck never got his bottom off the ladder. The water was also much saltier than we expected. Our soap wouldn’t lather, so we ended up finishing our ablutions using the cockpit shower; its fresh, hot water felt great!

After cocktails, I went below and whipped up dinner. We had smoked duck breast with a red wine, sour cherry and chipotle pepper reduction sauce, mashed potatoes, salad and sautéed cinnamon apple slices. Not bad for a 2 burner alcohol stove!

Susan and Jack Weilar were nice enough to loan us their portable freezer again this trip and it was great. It really expands your ability to provision and makes you independent for ice. Each day we would transfer a gallon water jug from our large cooler to the freezer. We have four of these jugs. Rotating them form the freezer to the cooler eliminated the need to buy ice and also kept the cooler dry.

This enabled us to use the small onboard fridge for most of the perishable non-frozen food while we kept beverages and larger items in the cooler. Our meat was kept frozen in the portable freezer which works off both 12 volt and 110.

After dark the wind dropped and the salt water mosquitoes arrived with blood on their minds. We quickly retreated to the shelter of our cabin, read for a very few minutes and drifted off.