Oriental NC
Here's an update on the last couple of days. After ew left Lollipop Bay we moved on to Swansboro. Nice town but a medicre meal was had. I have developed a penchant for shrimo and grits. The Ice House was only mediocre. Our anchorage was fine but the sailboat next to us thought we were too close. So we moved over a bit. At the closest we were at least 3 boat lengths from them, but I moved. I have learned that sailboaters tend to be pretty snarky and like to take up the whole waterway. We moved on to Beaufort NC and for the first time since leaving Brunswick, picked up a slip in a marina. Beaufort Yacht Basin. It is new, only 2 years old nd clean, extremely friendly, but a little difficult to get into navigationally. The directions we got were shaky, Robert told us to keep the R/G buoy to our right on our portside as we approached, which made no sense, but we did get in, approaching there was a sunken sailboat which gave me great confidence. Anyway, a nice marina on a Sunday with Robert manning the docks. I swear to God, he was Festus Hagen from Gunsmoke re-incarnated. But a really nice man. We had electrical issues though. The 50 amp service there kept tripping the GFI when I put our battery charger on. As long as I left the charger off, things were fine, the air conditioning worked well, but if I tried to put the inverter/charger on it would trip. This morning I ran the generator for a half hour to charge the battery bank so we could make coffee. I suspect their is a minor "voltage leak" on the boat responsible. I will figure it out. We toured the maritime museum in Beaufort and it was amazing, I need to go back. Found a good brewpub for an IPA on a hot afternoon. Today we moved on to Oriental NC. Stopped at Sea Gate Marina for fuel and put on 500 gallons. It was a little marina just off the ICW but had amazing prices on diesel so we loaded up. Shouldn't have to fuel up again until next spring. The lady there I swear was Festus's mother. We are in the southern part of the country and everyone is friendly, but what characters we have run in to. This afternoon we pulled into a free dock in Oriental. Pretty quiet town, with a maritime history but their museum was closed. They had a nice marine supply store though and a marine consignment shop we went into, but left. Cindy was afraid she was going to inhale something that might grow in her lungs. it was pretty bad. We are at a free dock and it stipulates no generators, so I asked our dock neighbors if they minded if I ran it for an hour anyway to charge the batteries (I want to watch the hockey game and have coffee in the morning). They were on a sailing catamaran and both pretty looped, but clearly had no objection, so will charge things up afer a bit. This is a beautiful part of the world though. At times the shoreline and trees look like home. Tomorrow hopefully another free dock in Belhaven. Our days are pretty relaxed and we are way ahead of schedule.
Engine Hours 5091.0  (oil/filter change soon)
Genset Hours 5593.4

A neat pink house we passed

Amazing history

This is Revolutionary War vintage

Loos a little like home

A neat shrimp boat we passed