Boat Trip: Little River, SC to Plattsburgh, NY – DAY 5: Belhaven, NC

We got a really early start this morning. Backing a boat out of a slip is difficult because the rotation of the propeller tends to kick your stern out. Since we didn’t want to hit the gigantic “Chaz’s Toy”, we used the lines to pull the boat to the end of the dock and hopped on. Just as Mark was ready to go, another boat pulled out behind us…. and then another. Since we had already cast off, we crossed our fingers. Sidekick Sue grabbed a spare fender and waited on the starboard side of the boat, ready to use it to bounce off of old Chaz if need be. Luckily we didn’t drift very far, and were finally able to back out and join the line of boats heading north on the ICW.

To Sidekick Sue’s disappointment, most of the day was spent crossing open waters, first the rest of the Neuse River, around a peninsula and then up the Bay River. There was a relatively short channel , with calm water, which gradually opened up to Goose Creek, the Pamlico River, and the Pungo River. Needless to say, all the travel on the rivers today was wild, cold and wavy. Captain Mark stayed at the helm wearing his insulated coveralls. Even though the sun was out, it remained chilly until late in the afternoon. Because we spent very little time in a channel today, there was only one uneventful bridge crossing where we waved at an oncoming Coast Guard vessel. Sidekick Sue took breaks from the flybridge to warm up in the cabin; it was not her favorite day on the water so far.

Around 2:00 PM, we pulled into the small town of Belhaven. There is a free town dock that is about half a mile from the town center, that apparently nobody uses because they don’t want to walk into town when there is a cheap dock right in downtown. Of course, the Dixons chose the free dock, since they needed to go for a walk to satisfy the Fitbit Gods anyway. So here we sit, in a VERY isolated dock at the end of a huge grassy field. We saw a couple of fisherman on the dock, but no other signs of life. Because the dock had no cleats, and the pilings that were on the outside perimeter of the dock, we spent some time getting creative with our fenders, positioning them sideways against the pilings and making sure that our lines were tightly wrapped and knotted around the pilings. After that we ventured into town.

Belhaven is a little town with a lot of personality. Its downtown area is cute, but clearly many stores have closed leaving a lot of vacant retail space (like many small towns across America). We did did our 5 miles of walking, weaving through the beautiful waterfront mansions, to the “regular” suburban homes and finally to the double-wide mobile homes. The town is very quiet, but the few people we encountered were extremely friendly. Drainage ditches run around the residential blocks, probably for flood control. At one point, a beaver popped out of a culvert, not realizing we were there. When he saw us, he disappeared in a flash. Sidekick Sue stopped to get a ice cream cone at an odd store that didn’t know if it was a restaurant, an ice cream stand or a thrift store. Got a “Pirate’s Treasure” on a waffle cone and chatted with the store owners, that were clearly glad to have our business. They told us that had we been there 2 weeks ago, we would have witnessed swarms of genetically modified mosquitoes that had been released to help control the mosquito population. It’s a good thing we missed that, because mosquitoes and Sidekick Sue do not mingle well.

We returned to the boat, able to use the generator to make dinner since no one is within a quarter mile of us. The Wayward Explorers are VERY tired and will probably call it an early night.

Gives a better perspective of just how isolated we were at the end of this dock, which was accessed through a huge field.