Looping NZ Style: Three days in Oriental, NC, and Moving On Again.

First Up...I am publishing this without ANY photos until we get to the next Marina, when I can use their WIFI! Sorry...You will have to come back and look at them in three days time when I republish this post and possibly the next one or two. I use too much bandwidth on our Jetpak if I do it out in the middle of nowhere!

Here goes....
Little did we know, when we docked at the almost empty Marina at Whittaker Point Marina in Oriental, North Carolina, that we would fall in love.

It came quite out of the blue, to be honest. The North Carolina coast is lovely, but hold on a moment...this wasn't on the coast. It was the Neuse River! The 'Coast' per se is a long way from this tiny little town of just about 1,000 people.

It is just one community along the banks of the large Neuse River, which, at it's widest is around 5 miles. Why did we choose this one to dock? Well, for the most part, it is all reduced to $$!

It is worth noting that MOST Marina charge in excess of $1.50 per foot, for a night's docking. This doesn't always include the electricity..in fact, mostly not. They also charge between $1 and $2 per load of laundry just for the Washer, and then another $1 for the dryer, which often doesn't get the clothes very dry, in our experience.
This adds up over the course of a month, to be a considerable expense, so unless we have something specific to do in an area, we anchor out in the middle of nowhere.
There was nowhere to anchor out in Oriental, and we had to pick up spare parts and buy boat 'things', and groceries in this stop. Fortunately, this marina, which is about 8 miles from the center of town, charges only $1 per foot. They also had 'free' laundry facilities (except that we were asked to leave a donation, which we did) and the use of an older Van for use for 2 hrs. Again, there is an honor system about putting gas in the vehicle. Fair enough too! There was also an honor system with the coffee that was available in the upstairs 'club room'....50c each cup, was suggested.

One of the interesting things about being docked at a River Marina, is that there is no tide to worry about, therefore the Dock was a 'Fixed' one, vs Floating, per normal in tidal areas.

I have to say this was really nice! (no tides, that is) though we don't like fixed docks in general.

This area is so close to Cape Hatteras, which is famous for being one of the MOST Hurricane'd areas in the USA. The last Hurricane to go through here was 2 yrs ago, and the locals have many stories to tell. Most of the homes are built well above the ground, but of course there are so many that aren't, and they have had so much hurricane driven water through them. The outer banks of the Carolinas are not wide, but they do go some way towards buffering the effects of the Hurricanes that do go through here.

For all the potential devastation, folks around here don't seem too concerned about the 'next one'!

There are so many Creeks that one can take a boat up, that is hardly affected by the Storm Serge (wind blown), and most of the boaters we talked to appeared to take it all in stride. They have their favorite places to 'hide' their boats.

One of the special things that we almost immediately noticed, was that the trees don't have Spanish Moss hanging off them. I think I told you that in the last Blog!

Tall Pines...

Liquidambar...

Lovely conifer..

The trees don't look weighted down by these epiphytes, and it is wonderful to see all the different leaves and colors of green unadorned.

The weather was playing it's part, of course! It was fabulous to have sunshine in our visit here.
Waz and I went walking on our second morning..Friday...to take a closer look at some of the lovely sections (lots) that are not yet built on in Whittaker Point subdivision. The tall pines, Pin Oaks, Liquidambar and other Maple, and trees we didn't recognize were beautiful. You could look through their tall, limbless trunks, out to the water which glittered like diamons...beautiful. It drew us to the waterline where we walked over some of the lots adjacent to homes already built. Not many of them though. This subdivision is another victim of the Financial collapse. What a shame! (See above photos)

The large waterside lots are listed for sale for around $199K each. They are probably an acre, at least. Those prices have been the same for a few years now and we were advised that most people would be happy to accept 1/3 of the asking price!

We met folks who had purchased at what they said were crazy high prices, and reluctantly told us that they wouldn't get anywhere near what they paid, today. This sounded so very familiar. Not many people untouched by the financial woes, anywhere.

Our walk that was supposed to be a short one, ended up with us chatting to the local Nurse, outside her home...she was gardening, and I enquired of the properties for sale...of course! A warm, open, chatty person, Marsha was only too happy to discuss the area, which she and her husband love...and told us a now familiar story of how they ended up in Oriental.

Just about everyone we met, in the three days, told us similar stories. They also told us that this community is one of professional, intelligent, well travelled and interesting seniors. We might be a good 10 years younger than most of them, but a vibrant community they certainly make!
Apparently there are more 'Clubs' in this little town, than all the surrounding communities put together! Reading the 'Local Rag' newspaper, that was very evident.

It is also a political community that isn't afraid to speak up about the quality of life they expect from their community. Nice!:)

We used the Marina van for several outings to West Marine, groceries, Hardware store etc.

On Saturday (yesterday) we met a couple who were checking on their 40ft Manta Catamaran (which is for Sale). They live locally, and we got chatting for some time. Eventually, they invited us to join them for a game of Mexican Train (Dominoes kind). Waz still hadn't changed the oil, so we asked them if we could get back to them later in the day...of course we could.

We arranged for Dick (the husband) to pick us up at the Marina around 5.30pm. He took us to their lovely home where he and Penny, his wife, showed us around and we eventually ate the steaks I had taken along with a lovely salad of spinach and Kale, which Penny made. I had made a sugar-free Lemon/citrus Mousse with fresh berries for dessert, and in the process of our chatting, discovered new friends with whom we have so much in common.

After dinner, the neighbors arrived to complete the party to play the Mexican Train Game. It was 8pm. We finished our final hands at just on 11pm...so much laughing, ribbing, fun conversation and so much competition!!! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Dick had to take us back to the Marina, of course, and we are eternally grateful to this lovely couple for taking us into their homes and welcoming us like old friends.

We managed to get the use of the van again this morning, and we went in search of a new Gasoline container...the one we bought in Port Charlotte (for the dinghy) had died, and we needed a decent one with a spout that worked. We finally found that at West Marine..filled it with 2.5 gallons, and put it into the van. We made a visit to the Walmart that the locals had worked so hard to stop coming into town, and bought the last of the fresh groceries. We then went in search of this place everyone told us to find...The Bean.

It is THE coffee joint in town..well, it is almost the ONLY one. It is also opposite the town Docks...some of which are free, but we are too big to get in there. We got our excellent Latte and walked down the dock finger closest and got talking to a couple in their Sailing Yacht. The wife grew up locally and talked of how much she loves the area still.

The Free Town Dock on right.

The Old Village waterfront.

Finally, we went for a last tiki-tour of the waterfront in The Village. The old homes, lots of Victorians, are on every street in the Old Town; some in excellent renovated state and so many in run-down state, which is such a shame. Not much money around?

We were so reluctant to leave this place. We felt so 'at home' here, and have vowed to return.

We told the dockmaster we would be untying the lines around 1pm, and we managed to leave the dock just before the hour. We pivoted off the forward rope, with the wind swinging the stern out. One of the other boaters tossed the front rope to me, and Waz turned our baby around in the small space we had, and we headed back the way we had come through the narrow channel, out into the middle of the Neuse River.

Here we are retracing the path we went into the Marina, as we leave the channel and re-enter the Neuse River, turning east (it looks like west, here)

The Town Beach, on the waterfront at Oriental.

You can see our path out of the Marina, bottom left. As you can see, we left just around 1pm.

Of course we followed the Magenta Line (ICW) as close as possible...well, it wasn't THAT important, today, as there was plenty of water under us...if you call 15ft plenty!?

The Neuse is so wide, that there wasn't any way I could take photos of the area that would even look like anything...so I didn't. I did take some photos when we had closer things to record, but for the most part of our journey today, it was more of the same.
Our anchorage tonight is Sandy Point, 1/3 of the way to Elizabeth City, where we will stay for potentially ONE night. We are waiting on a package there! Following that, we are moving through the Great Dismal Swamp..that in itself is a whole other story.
Time for me to put this thing back on mains power..my battery is dying!
Ciao for now.

Addendum.

The sunset last night was spectacular..one of the most fantastic I think I have ever seen. We were out in the middle of a natural oval on a river, with the wind coming from the South west.

Here we are parked! Not far off the main River, and we rocked and rolled a bit during the night.