We have spent 2 full days exploring Morehead City and Beaufort, NC. Yesterday we launched the dinghy so that we could repair the rotating arms.
The dinghy is stored on the swim platform, and it actually extends about 3 feet over the end of the platform. There are arms that rotate down to launch and to retrieve (and store) the dinghy. Since we have restarted the trip this year, I have backed the boat into two different docks... Not my best moments at the helm, and even worse, several inches of the starboard (artificial plastic wood) broke off each time. The repaired end of one of the arms is shown on the left in the picture, and the broken piece that was replaced is on the right. The "not quite" round hole allows for a wheel to rotate.
Yesterday, we borrowed the loaner car from the marina to do a quick tour of Beaufort, which is about 3 miles northeast over a high fixed bridge.
I had expected Beaufort to be much more upscale than it is. It has a casual atmosphere with the usual main/waterfront street with lots of shops and restaurants as well as several small parks. I should also say that the summer is the peak season when I am sure it is much more crowded. After a quick tour of Beaufort, we drove back across Morehead City to go to Lowes, Food Lion Supermarket, K-Mart, and the post office. We did this trip in just under the two hour time limit (1 minute to spare) for the loaner car, and no, we did not speed.
Today (Day 143), we started out in the dinghy at about 9:15 am, and headed to Beaufort where there is a free dinghy dock adjacent to the dock for the ferry to Shackleford Banks.
Shackleford Banks is one of the many barrier islands that make up the outer banks, and it is controlled by the National Parks System. The east end of this island contains an estuary dedicated to Rachel Carson who did much of her research there during the 1940s and 1950s. The picture shows our water taxi that runs every half hour. We were particularly interested in this trip as it will be our best chance to explore the outer banks on foot.
The other BIG attraction to this particular island is that it contains a herd of about 110 wild ponies that are descendants of horses that were stranded there after a shipwreck about 400 years ago. I tend to be skeptical about "tourist attractions" like the ponies, but sure enough, we had only walked about a hundred yards before I spotted 4 ponies about 150 yards away. We walked along on a near parallel path with the grazing ponies. Ultimately, we got to within a hundred feet and saw a total of 8 ponies.
We then headed off toward the center of the island where we had lunch high up on a sand dune (?).
The view was spectacular with the Atlantic Ocean off to the southeast (and oh yes, the Admiral is looking good too!).
After lunch, we headed back to the water taxi, and on the way, we had this great view of the wild ponies.
When we got back to Beaufort, we had a cappuccino outdoors in the sun. Then we returned to the comfort of Lucky Us which is docked in Morehead City.
We capped off a really great day with a very nice dinner at Floyd's 1921 Restaurant. Tomorrow we are headed off again after we load the dinghy back on board (and hopefully successfully test our repair).
No comments:
Post a Comment