Day 257
Tuesday morning, 05/25/21, was hot and sticky when Legacy left her tie-up at Town Creek Marina, in Beaufort, NC, at 7:00 am. At least there was a breeze as we headed back out Gallant Channel to the AICW, toward our next destination of Belhaven Marina, in Belhaven, NC. Steve had arranged with that marina for Legacy to spend the following week there, while we drove a rental car over to Navarre, FL, for our annual beach vacation with the girls and all the grand-kids.
The morning skies turned cloudy and dark with a threat of rain in the forecast for later in the day. We hoped to be safely tied-up to a wall in Belhaven Marina before those showers began.
We headed north back into Harlowe Creek to Core Creek, to the NC Highway 101 bridge, where Core Creek becomes Adams Creek. Adams Creek is roughly an eighth of a mile wide for quite a distance, which made it seem more like a river than a creek, until we reached Merrimon, NC, where the “creek” began to resemble the proverbial lake. We had our beloved dolphins surfing our wake again through here! 🙂 Very soon, Adams Creek spills into the much larger Neuse River, south of Oriental, NC. We had heard several good things about the little town of Oriental, but were unable to stop there this time, due to timing. (Hopefully we can stop there on our way back down this fall.)
The Neuse River is humongous! It almost appeared we were cruising on one of the Great Lakes! As we passed south of Oriental, we were heading northeast towards Whortonville and the massive Pamlico Sound. I could tell that the scenery was dramatic, but it was way too cloudy and hazy to get any kind of decent pictures. 🙁 Plus, the Neuse River is so incredibly wide, the waterfront homes are much too far away to photograph, anyway. They looked like tiny dots on the far shores to us.The Pamlico Sound is bordered by the mainland to the west, and by the NC Outer Banks to the east. It is an intimidating expanse of water that can get dangerously rough in bad weather – just like it can out in the ocean. On this particular day, the wind had increased, so the air was blustery and the waters in the sound were choppy, creating 2-3 foot waves, which rocked Legacy like a roller-coaster ride! It was actually COLD up in the flybridge, so that I had to go down (wearing my life jacket and holding onto the rail, of course) to retrieve a light jacket and a blanket to sit under until the sun reappeared to warm things back up.
Finally – after at least an hour of rolling – we left the Pamlico Sound and cruised into the Bay River (which was calmer), and then eventually into the Pamlico River, past Hobucken, NC, once we’d passed Upper Spring Creek and Goose Creek. The Pamlico River was completely different from the Pamlico Sound, thankfully!
The familiar waterfront homes began to reappear through this area, although very widely-spaced apart. Prior to these homes, we’d seen mostly wilderness all morning long. The sun FINALLY made its appearance, which let me shed my jacket and blanket. Once we left the Pamlico River, we traveled north on the Pungo River, toward Belhaven, NC.
We arrived at Belhaven Marina about 2:30 that afternoon. Belhaven is a unique little marina, with just two long fixed walls for tying boats. Since Legacy was arriving for an extended stay, the dock-master instructed us to move her all the way to the very front of the wall, where she’d be safe and wouldn’t prevent other boats from coming and going, while we were away from her. I liked that position – right there in front of the marina office. 🙂
After showers, we walked down the street in tiny Belhaven, for dinner at the only restaurant in town open on a Tuesday evening, Fish Hooks Cafe, where the food and atmosphere were mediocre at best, but at least filling. We were both exhausted after six long, hard days in a row of traveling, and looked forward to relaxing in place for the next several days before we picked-up the rental car and hightailed it to meet the family in Navarre Beach for a week.
Position: N 35° 32.187, W 76° 37.317
Distance traveled: 68 SM
Total distance traveled: 3603 SM
Total marina nights: 234
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27