After two days at sea, we were happy to get a good night's sleep. When we woke up this morning, we agreed that going ashore in search of breakfast was a good idea.
We found a nice little cafe on Front St, where we could sit waterside, and map out our day. The first order of business was to find a longer-term berthing for the Black Dog. After breakfast we returned to the city docks, and paid our tab. From them we got a list of locations where the boat could stay for a while. We set off to check them out, and after deciding on one, spent an interesting couple of hours at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.
The museum is contained in two buildings across the street from each other. The building that is waterside hold a historic boat building shop, where they still build boats the old fashioned way, out of wood. They do workshops, projects for historic societies, and such. A very interesting place to visit. Across the way is the museum proper. There's an interesting exhibit dedicated to the shore rescue crews, who used to risk it all to bring in survivors from wrecks along the Carolina coast. The also had many great exhibits on boats used in the area throughout history, but of most interest to me was the exhibit on the Queen Anne's Revenge. This was one of Blackbeard's ships, which sank off the coast near Beaufort. The ship's location has been discovered, and there is an excavation and conservation project that has been going on for a while. They had several preserved artifacts there, as well as a lot of great information on Blackbeard, and on how they perform the underwater operation.
We spent a little more time walking around. Beaufort has quite a few little sold and galleries that make it a very nice place to spend a little time. It would be easy to lose yourself here for a week or so.
Lunch found us at the Queen Anne's Revenge (are you sensing a theme here?), a nice little restaurant on Front St. The food was quite good, and the beer selection was incredible. Two 7 foot bookcases filled with the bottles of beer available in stock. I wound up with a Poet Oatmeal Stout, which they consideratly chilled for five minutes before serving. I need to acquire some of that stout for home use.
After lunch, we moved the boat to the marina we had arranged with, and secured a rental car for the trip back to Charleston. We then spread out the spinnaker to dry on a grassy lawn at the marina before re-stowing it.
We were contemplating our dinner options, however, while having a cocktail, we
noticed the boat developing a distinct list. After confirming that the list was not alcohol induced, we went out to investigate. It turns out that there is not enough water for us here at low tide, but just by a foot or two. We will get up early tomorrow to adjust our position to resolve this issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment