Day 8

The sunrise this morning was beautiful.  That orange orb of the sun, rising in the sky casting its glow over the water creating a sparkle effect in the ripples.  The water was dead calm at 7:30 when we left.  The air was crisp and chilly, but not nearly as cold as the day before.  Nonetheless, I opted to operate the boat from the lower helm anyway.  After I got the boat out into open water, I turned it over to Rick.  We decided some bacon and eggs were in order for breakfast this morning, so I fired up the generator and put the bacon on to cook while Rick drove.  A couple of days ago we did the same thing, only Rick cooked.  That turned out to be a mistake.  The bacon was burnt; the eggs were dry as sawdust. All he could say was “I’m not a cook”.  So I decided I would cook this time. The meal was much better this time.  We motored on, trading off every now and then, while the other either relaxed, checked out the charts, or went to use the head.  Oriental N.C. was our intended stop over today; I estimated it was approximately 50 miles from Belhaven. Since we left a little early, we arrived in Oriental about 1:30 p.m.  Since it was still early afternoon, I pumped up the dinghy, lowered it into the water and went the half mile or so to the dinghy dock.  We walked around town checking things out and stopped at the “Bean”, a nice little coffee shop where Rick got a cup of ice cream and I got a milkshake.  We went across the street to the Toucan Restaurant and made a reservation for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day.  Oriental is a friendly little town, we’ll spend an extra day here, it is a holiday after all, and just relax.

Today turned out to be a really nice day, sunny with temps in the mid 50’s, and little or no wind.  Tomorrow looks to be even better, mostly sunny with a high temp of 70 degrees.  I will definitely take that.  Tonight we are again without heat, but hopefully the temperature won’t get as cold as the last several nights.  It looks like the daily temperature is moderating and more like what I anticipated.   

All in all, today’s trip was very uneventful.  Just how I like it.  Tomorrow I plan to sleep in a bit, do a couple things on the boat, and maybe dinghy into town in the afternoon and walk around a bit before dinner.

Today we traveled 49.7 miles bringing our total to 402 mile.  The travel time was 6hrs. 7mins.

I’m not sure when I will get to post this or tomorrows blog entry since I can’t seem to get internet here on the boat.  I’ll post as soon as I can.

Until tomorrow.   

Sunrise in Belhaven

Shrimp boat in Oriental harbor