After
a short (20mile) run we stopped in Oriental.
We first visited this unique town in 2009 and made instant friends at
the Tiki Bar in the small marina. Ever
since it is like walking into Cheers. It
is always like old home week with the same people in the same seats. The dock hand here is Capt Easy. Our friends that have spent much time in the
Abacos may know him from Guana Cay where he worked at both Grabbers and Nippers
for many years. We enjoyed reminiscing about
our times there.
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| Debby with Capt Easy |
One
of our friends at the Tiki Bar is head of the Pamlico County Music Society and she told us of an outdoor concert to be
held at River Dunes about 10 miles further down the Neuse River. So the next day we moved to the wonderful new
marina there. Unfortunately, the weather
was not real cooperative. We had to
watch an outdoor concert in intermittent rain!
The band called Adrian Duke Project was worth it. They had a great black female jazz vocalist
and Adrian did good Ray Charles numbers.
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| Adrian Duke Project Band |
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| Rain reduced the crowd |
River
Dunes is an upscale development in the middle of nowhere. All the public facilities are first class and
the few homes that have been built are massive.
We are not sure that many wealthy people will want to settle in such an
out of the way place however.
Belhaven
was the next stop. We like the marina
there with free wifi, free golf cart, and free laundry! Normally you would not expect to find a
famous restaurant in a 1 red light town. Spooner’s where we had Sunday Brunch is truly amazing
for its location.
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| Eclectic Decor at Spooners |
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| Sunday Brunch at Spooners |
From
Belhaven it is a 2 day trip to Coinjock with not much of interest in
between. We did, however, see a deer
swim across the canal between the Pungo
and Alligator rivers. Coinjock is
another “middle of no where” spot, but it is a popular natural overnight stop
on the ICW. The marina restaurant has a
well deserved reputation for roast beef.
As
we have plowed this field before we moved on to Portsmouth and then Deltaville,
VA, intent on getting to new cruising territory on the Potomac River. Our first stop was St. Mary’s City on the St.
Marys River, about 8 miles up the Potomac.
St Mary’s was established in 1636 by colonists for Lord Baltimore. It was the capital of Maryland until
1696. It has a beautifully calm
anchorage and provides a great walking tour of what remains of the old
village. It is home to the replica
sailing vessel, Dove, representative of commercial ships of the time.
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| Dove Under Sail |
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| Dove doing a tack |
As it rained all day Memorial Day we decided to spend one more day at anchor in St Marys before pushing off to Cobb island as an intermediate stop on the way to Washington DC. Cobb Island is very small with not much to offer the visiting yachtsman other than two crab houses. On June 1st we pushed off for the final leg to DC. Perfect weather made for an enjoyable cruise up the scenic Potomac. Mt Vernon is a site to see along the way, and the homes nearby are on a grand scale.
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| George Washington's Mt Vernon |
