Sucked Into Oriental

Distance: 20 mn/ Time: 6 hours

I had an uneventful departure from the Beaufort anchorage this morning around 9 am for a 6-ish hour passage north through Adam’s Creek to the Neuse River and Oriental. Thankfully, my anchor and chain came up clean.

It was wonderfully cool–almost too cool, heading into the wind all day. Initially, I had to dodge my way through the various Beaufort harbors and anchorages as they apparently allow boats to just permanently anchor right in the middle of channels here, even in narrow channels within a couple hundred feet of a bridge. It was very bizarre. In Florida, those boats would have been required to move within hours of illegally and blatantly setting their anchors right in the middle of a narrow channel. But, this isn’t Florida. However, once free of all that, it was for the most part open and beautiful country the rest of the way.

I planned to stop at the same mid-way marina for fuel that Nicholay and I had stopped at in December. It was a little pull-out in the narrow part of the creek about an hour and a half out of Beaufort. The only thing that worried me was that the winds were blowing 12-15 out of the north, the current was northerly at 2-3 knots , and the fuel dock was on the north side of a very narrow east/west channel. It could be tricky getting on the dock as the wind would be trying to prevent it.

In fact, in anticipation of that fuel stop and getting into my slip in Oriental, I decided to “convert” the boat from anchorage mode to docking mode before leaving Beaufort since trying to do so in a narrow creek with a strong current and winds would be very challenging. So, I lowered my solar panels, pulled out my fenders and set them on deck, and rigged bow, stern, and spring lines on both sides of the boat before weighing anchor.

In the event, while I was still a mile or so from my intended refueling marina, I came across another marina that had a floating dock right on the main creek, and parallel to it. This meant that I could easily pull up (parallel park) while going directly into the current and wind (instead of it trying to pull me sideways). As I passed by, I radioed the marina to confirm they were open before I turned around. The dock hand on the readio answered that they were, but it would take him five minutes to get to the dock. I told him fine, and turned around.

It was very much like a helicopter making a circling approach into an LZ with a strong wind. As I turned downstream/downwind, I blew right past the dock the other way–even at idle–but as I turned back upwind/upstream, I pretty much came to a complete stop, hovering as it were. At this point I was probably 200 feet downstream of the dock, just station keeping waiting for the guy to arrive so I could pull up to the dock and throw him my lines. Sure enough (and what seems like an ongoing theme for me), while I’m hovering there, a motorboat pulls right up to the floating dock and take my place! Granted, they probably had no way to know that I was waiting for the dock hand to arrive, but it still pissed me off as I had to wait 20 minutes for this guy to refuel. But, it was worth it as getting into and out of this dock would be extremely easy, as it so proved. Took on 37 gallons, then continued up the creek to Oriental.

I wasn’t supposed to arrive before 3 pm because the slip would be occupied by a boat until then. Even though I thought I had given myself an extra hour to play around with, the current was stronger than I had guessed (there was no current information for Adam’s Creek on any of my apps) and it turned out that at normal cruise I arrived right at 3 pm.

It was a bit tricky getting into the slip with a tail wind. I could never have done it single-handed. And these were the most dysfunctional docks I’ve seen so far. Nice, long finger pier to tie up next to, but nary a cleat on the whole thing! Just three widely spaced pilings. Which meant having to loop the line around them a few times to put a clove hitch on them. Not a quick evolution. Why they had not chosen to build cleats into the docks is a mystery. They were also non-floating docks because there is no tide in Oriental. But they built them about four feet above the water, so they were above the sides of the boat! It was very poorly designed. It took me another hour and a half after arriving to adjust all my lines to keep my boat from pounding on hard things.

But, I had made it to Oriental, my first real goal. Here is where I planned to regroup, get some rest, have some fun, and decide where I was going to go from here. I had left Tampa on May 26th, 45 days ago and had traveled 1081 miles!

Eventually, I walked to the marina office, on the other side of the small town, to check in. (And this is where the title of today’s entry comes from.) Oriental was, in my experience here back in December, a very unique place. It is completely sailing-oriented. It is a natural waypoint between the Chesapeake Bay and points further south (like Florida or the Bahamas), and so cruisers are stopping for fuel, or to provision, or to get work done at a boat yard. So, conversations, instead of being about politics, or sports, or whatever else normal people discuss, are about sailing and cruising. Remember the kind of people I described earlier, the cruising-types that I like? Well, this is a town full of them.

The problem is that this can be so comfortable for such people, that many get here and like it so much they never leave! They get a local job, perhaps buy some property, and while never technically give up cruising dreams (or continuing cruising dreams), they never seem able to throw the switch and launch. (It is similar to Marathon in the Keys in this regard.) As soon as I started walking through the town to the marina office I could feel this sailing-community vibe again. It is very enticing, very comfortable, and fun.

And here is how they get you: My original thought was to spend a few days here to provision, do laundry, wash the boat and top off my freshwater, visit some friends, plan on where to go next, and so on. Then I discovered that Oriental is having its famous Croaker festival this weekend, so I wouldn’t want to miss that, so that meant more like a week. But, as I discussed rates with the dock master, I could see the little evil gleam in his eye as he revealed to me that staying for seven days at the daily rate of $2/foot/day ($82 for me) would be $574. But, the monthly rate for my boat was only $577. (You see!?!) And you had to decide right then whether you wanted the daily or monthly rate. Of course, it didn’t make any sense to choose the daily rate, even if I still planned to leave after a week because one can get delayed for any number of reasons. So, I opted for the month and laid down my money. Wow. Just like that.

To get back to my boat, I had to pass no fewer than four drinking establishments¹, the first of which was a cute outdoor Tiki bar right outside the marina office in the middle of the pretty adjacent hotel grounds.

As it was about 4:45 pm, there were only a couple people there, so I thought I would just head back to my boat and finish with my dock lines, setting up my air conditioner, get a shower and some dinner and hit the sack early.

But it was such a splendid day, and I was very glad to have finally made it back to Oriental, that I thought I’d sit down and have a quick, celebratory, Dark & Stormy. So, I turned back around, grabbed a seat at the Tiki bar, and ordered a Dark & Stormy. Feeling in a great mood, I reached outside my introvert shell and started a conversation with the guy next to me. He told me that I looked very familiar but he couldn’t place me. I told him I had been there back in December to help my son, Nicholay, move his boat to Tampa. At the world, Nicholay, his face it up and he said he remembered me, and after he refreshed my memory a bit and introduced himself as Eric, the manager of the local boat yard, I remembered him very well. We had had a long conversation at a bar one night about being divorced fathers!

In time, people started filling in the place, and I engaged in easy conversation with others at the bar (something which usually isn’t easy for me), as everyone was a sailor. As I was surprised and a bit scared to hear myself saying “This is my place! I’m going to stay here for at least a month!” Yikes! I had only been here two hours!!!!

I eventually returned to my boat to complete all those tasks and to hit the sack early. As I laid down to do some final reading, I decided to open up the NoForeignLand app to see if Cirrus and Tempo had departed Beaufort. I knew they were both planning to head north of here into Pamlico Sound. When I left this morning, they had both still been at anchor. But, the app said they were not there now. I searched for their location, it it said “0.2 nm from you”. What? Sure enough, Tempo was anchored about 200 feet from my slip and Cirrus was tied up at the town free dock. I decided to throw my clothes back on, walked back across town, and said Hi. Turns out Cirrus is going to stay for a day or two and Tempo through the festival. It will be fun to meet up with them again–especially the kids!

So, I finally went to bed with some mixed feelings about Oriental and my plans. It was nice to know that I had a full month here if I wanted it. I really did need sort of a big…reset. Physically, I was fatigued and out of shape (and out of my yoga and meditation practice, which has proven very difficult to do on a boat). I could use the opportunity to get my body strong again. There were also a lot of little, but important things that needed done on the boat (as always). And, I really needed to do some research on everything north of me, specifically the Chesapeake Bay, which would be my next stomping grounds. I had zero knowledge about anything north of here. So, I could use these weeks in a very productive way–to reboot, as it were.

But, I also needed to keep focused on my reason for leaving Florida this spring instead of waiting for the fall: Hurricanes. If Beryl was any indication of what this season would be like, I sure didn’t want to be caught by one. The one thing I guess I did know was that the northern Chesapeake, like the Annapolis area, had gotten their last hurricane in 1954 or something, thus would be a relatively safe place. So, couldn’t take my eyes off the target. I could justify spending a month here if I were using it for a really solid recharge. But, spending a month just hanging out at the bar, getting too comfortable, loosing my motivation–I would have to watch out for that.

So, other than going back to fill in the last few missing early days of the trip in my blog, I’m not sure how often I’ll be updating it while I’m here. It will likely be rather dead until I start off again.

1. Did I mention that drinking is very much a part of the sailing lifestyle? Oriental was no exception. As Eric said to me, “Oriental is a drinking town with a sailing problem.” Lol ↩︎