Day 27 - How to Fill a Day

Current Position: 34° 42' 54" N  76° 39' 59" W

How do we ever fit so much into one day????

1. Dinghy over to Beaufort City Dock - (free) and lock up the boat - still a little nervous of leaving her alone.

2. Walk along Front Street - the Historic District.  Houses built between 1711 and 1771.  All black and white.

3.  Visit the Historic Cemetery.  So many different grave styles. I love reading the stories on the stones that are still legible.

It's hard to tell from the picture but this is a curved cement covering over the grave. 

This one is like a picture frame

4. Stop at the Beaufort Docks and meet several fellow Loopers.  One invited us to use their internet to download the files Bob thought would fix our chart plotter as our internet signal was too weak.  While we waited for the files to download they made some great suggestions on places to visit and anchor along the route.  So much great information.

5.  Visit the free Maritime Museum and learn about:

      a.Blackbeard the Pirate, who used Beaufort as his rest and relaxation port.before he was captured and beheaded.

A model of his ship QAR - Queen Anne's Revenge

    b. Whales - Their hearts are HUGE:

  
    c.  Rescuing people from shipwrecks.  How brave the rescuers had to be.
 They would shoot the line from the shore to the wreck with a gun, then attach the life car or breeches buoy and haul the people ashore.  All this usually in the dark of a stormy night.

This is the breeches buoy - you put in on like a pair of breeches (pants) and then go zip lining.  Not the most fun thing to do in the middle of a stormy night but better than the life car, I think!

 The life car can hold 5-6 people all lying down.  They are shut into the car - total darkness and are pulled through the rolling surf to shore.  They are tossed around like rag dolls and I'm sure the stench from the ensuing illness is intolerable!

6. Stop for a quick lunch.

7. Walk through an art gallery for local artists.

8. Go back to boat so Gail can write her blog post and Bob can test the chart plotter - IT WORKED!!!  Yippee!

Notes from Bob: Nautical charts are great for trips in open water - or even in large bodies of water like the Puget Sound. However, for narrow bodies of water like the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the charts just don't provide enough detail. Below is the chart for a section of the ICW:

Below is part of the same section of the ICW. Notice where the ICW goes from fairly deep (about 10') from almost bank to bank, to a very narrow deep channel (in white) with shallow water (in blue) outside of the narrow channel. That is the extra details that I missed when our chart plotters weren't correctly displaying the chart information!!

9. Wait out a little rain storm then take the dinghy over to the island next to us that is a nature reserve with a wonderful nature trail.  A little on the muddy side occasionally, but interesting.  We saw 3 wild horses and thousands of Fiddler Crabs!  It looked like the ground was moving sometimes!

Here is our boat from the island - can you find her?

10.  Back the boat, pull up the dinghy, work on the blog posts.  We are still too full from lunch so just a light snack will do for dinner.  

Good night!

Anchored in Taylor Creek, Beaufort, NC