North Carolina -  May/June 2007

Our first stop in North Carolina this year was Southport, a small town located just south of Wilmington at the entrance to the Cape Fear River.  It was settled in 1792 with the original name of Smithville.  The town was renamed Southport in 1887.  

The town prospered in its early years as a fishing village as well as the home of many of the river pilots for the Cape Fear River. The entrance to Cape Fear is fairly tricky with shoals that shift over time with the currents and storms - so the river pilots of this area were, and still are, considered very important members of the community  here. 

One of the most successful and best known pilots from this area during the mid 1800s was Thomas Mann Thompson, pictured to the right.  Thompson  was one of 77 pilots who guided blockade running steamboats through the shoals at the entrance to the Cape Fear River during the Civil War.  Pilots during that time could command as much as $3000 in gold per trip - equivalent to approximately $40,000 today. Thomas piloted 9 different steamers through the Federal blockade making a total of 34 successful runs, which was more than any other pilot at that time. It's no wonder that Thomas was able to build a beautiful 2-story house along the town's waterfront.  The house, shown on the right below, was built around 1868.

Thompson's house had both a widow's walk as well as a copula with which he could keep a lookout for ships coming into the Cape Fear River. I read on one of the signs in the area that ships would fire a cannon or a gun to signal that they were in need of a pilot, although I would have thought that this method was probably not used during the civil war when they were trying to run discretely into the river. 

An 80-foot high tower once stood near the water which pilots could climb and look out for ships. The tower was replaced in 1940 by a steel structure - but this was eventually rendered obsolete with more modern communication tools.  The top section of the tower was finally removed at the end of the 20th century, but the elevated wooden building continues to serve as a dispatch point for river pilots today. 

To the left below is the home of Captain J. J. Adkins which was built in 1887.  To the right is a picture of a quite neighborhood street in the town of Southport. 

Wandering around town, we came to the Provision Company, a waterfront seafood restaurant in town.  The owner mentioned that the next time we came through we could dock for free at one of the docks behind the restaurant.  We had heard about the free dock. but couldn't figure out where it was when we came into town.  I guess we know for next time!

Our next stop was at the Carolina State Park, which was just a bit farther up the Intra-coastal Waterway from Southport.  This is a lovely quite park that was recommended to us by some fellow cruisers.  We came in around mid-tide, so didn't have any problems - but it does get a bit shallow inside (about 4 feet) at low tide. We had an interesting time tying up since the large pilings held the boat off the dock by quite a way.  Fortunately the park provides a gangway on the dock - so once we got that rigged up it was easy to get on and off.  Good thing that Jeremy has long legs.  He was able to jump off and take the lines when we came in and then set up the gangway so that I could get off!  

We saw some interesting 'yard art' in some backyards along the way north. I especially love the life-size giraffe.  I want one of those in our back yard when we eventually move back on dry land.  Of course Jeremy may have something else to say about that...

We spent a night once again in Mile Hammock Bay in the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base.  We were treated with a spectacular show with lots and lots of Osprey planes buzzing us from above. These are truly unique planes in that they can rotate their props so that they can either fly like a plane or like a helicopter, as is shown in the pictures below.  Mile Hammock Bay is really close to their landing site, so we got to get 'up close and personal' with these very interesting aircraft. 

Traveling through North Carolina, we visited Morehead City and Beaufort again, as well as Oriental, Washington, Bath, and Elizabeth City.  There are lots of pictures of these wonderful towns on the North Carolina page of our site from last year. 

This year we were able to dock at the Sanitary Fish Market in Morehead City.  This is a seafood restaurant and fish market which has a guest dock along the back of the restaurant.  They only charge $10 a night to stay here, so needless to say it's pretty popular and usually full.  We were lucky this year when we got there, there were only two boats tied up to the dock - I Love Lucy and Cabernet - who are traveling together and doing the loop this year.   They were kind enough to take our lines as we came in to tie up. 

The fish market was opened on February 10, 1938 by two partners, Tony Seamon and Ted Garner. They rented a small building for $5.50 per week with the understanding that no beer or wine would be sold and that the premises would be kept clean and neat. The name "Sanitary Fish Market" was chosen to indicate the partners' compliance. They still have some of the best seafood in the area.  

Fortified with an excellent lunch, Jeremy and I walked over to Beaufort - which is about a 2.5 mile walk including crossing a couple of very high bridges. 

As we were walking into town I saw this sign from the street  which at first glance (at least with the view from the street) seemed to indicate that Beaufort was North Carolina's Oldest Town.  This didn't look quite right to me when I saw it. The town of Bath which we'd visited last year billed itself as North Carolina's oldest town.  We'd also visited New Bern, which had claimed to be the second oldest town in the state (as well as the birth place of Pepsi). So what was up with the sign??? 

Working my way around the bushes, I was able to fully see it. Of course this part of the sign is not at all visible from the street!  

Leaving Morehead City, we made our way to Oriental - a great town full of many interesting people and critters.  This is Shadow, a gentle old dog who spends much of his day sitting in his chair on the porch of the Bean Coffee shop.  The Bean is the place where everyone gathers starting in the morning for coffee and later on for ice cream as well as to read the paper, exchange gossip, pet the dogs, and in general just hang out. 

Oriental is a very dog friendly town, to say the least. Dogs are always found wandering around town - ready to play tour guide should you need one.  The town has even published a calendar of the Dogs of Oriental with the profits going towards the local animal shelter. Shadow is in the calendar - sitting up and awake in his picture showing off his handsome face with his distinctive eyes - one brown and one blue. . 

The Bean faces out onto the waterfront and the town dock.  It's kind of small - with only enough room for a couple of boats, one on either side - but it does have one wonderful characteristic in that it's free to stay there for 48 hours. There is a wonderful website www.towndock.net that includes a web-cam of the town dock so that those boats equipped with wireless internet can check to see if there's space available before heading in.  We did not stay on the dock this year - but our two friends shown in the picture below did (I Love Lucy and Cabernet). We ended up anchoring in a protected spot up under the bridge near town.

Leaving Oriental, we headed for Washington, North Carolina - affectionately called 'Little Washington' by the locals. This was the first town in the US to be named after the man who would become our first president.  My brother lives in near Raleigh was kind enough to drive out to Washington for the day so that we could get together.  While we were wandering around town, we kept seeing lots of interestingly painted crabs - part of the Crabs on the Move exhibition in the county here.   I especially  liked the crabby chef below.

Leaving Washington, we headed for Bath, which we also visited last year.  Bath, incorporated as a city in 1705,  is the oldest town in North Carolina. With a population of about 650,  is also one of the smallest towns in the state. The town may be small, but it has a rich history.  It was the home of Edward Teach, better known as the Blackbeard the pirate for a short time in 1718. It is also the subject of a curse that was placed on it by a traveling evangelist named George Whitefield. 

Whitefield, one of the most passionate evangelists of the time, preached openly against the evils of cursing, drinking, and dancing. The controversial minister believed that dancing,  more than any other sin, was the vehicle by which the Devil sent frivolous men and women to hell. 

The itinerant reverend, who had a far-reaching reputation for preaching to the masses, was not cordially received upon his visits to Bath—especially by the more affluent villagers. Earlier in the century, the bustling little port had felt the corrupting influence of Blackbeard. Times were good, Bath was prosperous, and the townspeople looked upon Whitefield with suspicion. They also found him more than a little odd.

The good citizens of Bath noticed that Whitefield carried his own coffin in his wagon. The preacher, it was said, wanted to have the box near at hand when the inevitable happened. The villagers also found it a little strange that Whitefield slept in the coffin, so as to avoid the questionable goings-on at the local inn. Eventually  the preacher was asked, in no uncertain terms, to leave town.

Having failed in his attempts to reform the people of Bath, George Whitefield gave up and left the tiny village for the last time. He climbed aboard his wagon, took off his shoes, and shook them defiantly at his sinful surroundings. "There's a place in the Bible," the reverend warned as he drove off in his wagon, "that says if a place won't listen to The Word, you shake the dust of the town off your feet, and the town shall be cursed. I have put a curse on this town for a hundred years."  It is said that the Whitefield curse is the reason that the town failed to prosper and grow.

It may not have grown, but the townspeople who live here today really love their quite little town.  The town also sports the first public library in North Carolina. The Bath Community Library was established in 1701 with a library of 176 volumes of parochial material sent over from England through the efforts of Reverend Dr. Thomas Bray.

The kitten in the picture to the right doesn't care - as long as she has a nice sunny spot to stretch out for that much needed afternoon nap.

We hooked up with some very nice folks from South Carolina while we were in Washington and again in Bath.  One of the couples had a very nice Nordic Tug on which the ports had been customized to have stained glass windows built in.  I LOVE these!  Need to make some patterns so we can make some for our boat next time we're back at our friends Julie and Lee's house in Reno. 

We've been doing a lot of work on the boat lately installing some new equipment, including a new pair of air horns. 

We had a pair of AFI electric horns - which, even when they worked, were not very impressive.  They sort of made a puny little 'excuse me' sound when you tried to use them.  One of the horns quit working about 6 months ago, and the other one joined his buddy in the 'Great Horn Resting Place in the Sky' about a month ago.  

We did some research and decided to replace them with a pair of Buell air horns - like the ones they use on real tug boats.  Took some doing to get them installed.  I learned a few new words as we worked to run the air hose from the fake smoke stack at the top of the boat down to the compressor in the engine room.  The boat's only 34 feet long, but it took nearly 50 feet of air hose to get from the top of the boat into the engine room.  

It was all worth it, though.  These new horns are GREAT!   Now, when we blast our horns - folks take notice.  We've even seen people come out and look for the ship that must be somewhere nearby.  Just us - sorry if we woke you up!!  

I made the mesh covers to go over the trumpets after a fellow boater told us how his nice new horns almost got wrecked with a family of mud daubers took up residence in them.  

 We saw this interesting junk rigged boat crossing the Albemarle Sound on the way up to Elizabeth City.  They had some sort of frame rigged over the cockpit on which their dink was perched.  I don't think I've ever seem anything like that before!

We headed into Elizabeth City with the intention of spending a couple of nights there.  Mother Nature had other ideas, and with a storm approaching (the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry), we headed into the protection of the Dismal Swamp. 

 I did get a chance to see Fred Fearing again and was able to get my rose - shown in the picture below. I got the neat window vase last year when we were at St. Michaels in the Chesapeake Bay.  

Entering the Dismal, we went through our first lock of this trip (we went through 146 of them last year!).  We had LOTS of company - locking through with 8 other boats.  It seems like we had all seen the weather forecast and were looking for a safe place to wait out the storm.  The Dismal Swamp is actually the safest place to be in any hurricane. The locks protect the boats from tidal surge and the tall trees surrounding the swamp go a long way in protecting you from the winds.   

The boat shown in the picture to the right is Ibis - which is owned and run single handed by our friend Mark.  It always amazes me at how easily he seems to come into a lock (or a dock for that matter) and get his lines attached by himself.  We sometimes struggle - and there's two of us!

We were traveling down the rather narrow canal single file when the front boat called and said there was a huge boat coming the other way.  It turned out to be the Bonnie Blue, which is a 70 foot tour boat that operates on the canal.  We all pulled off to the side to let her pass - the pictures show more space between us than it felt like at the time.

Turtle spotted on a log along the way.  The second (rather blurry) picture is of a snake that swam across the water near our boat.  I'm not going swimming in this water!!!

This is a picture of all of us docked and rafted off (3 deep) by the visitor's center in the Dismal Swamp.  The picture to the right is of a cool stuffed otter that was in the visitor center. 

The Dismal Swamp canal is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States. The picture to the left is of one of the original mile markers cut when the canal was built. The 22-miles long canal connects the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina with the Elizabeth River in Virginia.  

George Washington was one of the original surveyors of the Dismal Swamp and was among those who proposed that the canal be built to connect the Chesapeake Bay with the Albemarle Sound.  The picture below is of Janet, John and Mark blowing conch horns in tribute to the end of the day at the town dock at the end of the Dismal Swamp in the town of Deep Creek.  Deep Creek was named when George Washington slipped on the side of the bank and fell in.  'My, what a deep creek!!' , he said  - or so the story goes.  I'm thinking he may have said something else - but perhaps that would not be a suitable name for a town.

Yes - I finally did learn how to blow a conch horn.  I had a good teacher in my friend Cindy Staffe.  Now I just need to get over to the Bahamas next summer and pick up a horn of my own.

I'm trying something new and have included a video clip of us playing the conch horns. 

Disclaimer Notes: 
1 - You'll need Windows Media Player or some other software that will play MPG files.  
2 - You should only do this if you have a high speed connection - don't try this with dial-up!  
3 - Jeremy was holding the camera sideways - so you'll have to tilt your head to the left to see us. (You just can't get good staff these days!!) 

A three horn tribute to the Dismal Swamp canal

Updated July 12, 2007

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