Intracoastal Waterway Day 4

Leaving Slade Creek

In the morning (Sunday 25 November) everything had changed completely.  Overnight the wind had blown at 20-25 knots but when we woke it had dropped considerably and had veered all the way round to the northwest.  Slade Creek had sheltered us well but we now had a few more miles than we had hoped for to make Beaufort before the end of the day.

A more sensibly sized barge!

Passing traffic

So, we got going at 0630 and motored south making light work of the passage down the Pungo River, across Pamlico Sound and into the Goose River – a major improvement on the previous day! In the Goose River we met a barge coming the opposite way – also a major improvement on the previous day’s barge, this one being a much more reasonable size in a much wider stretch of water.

There was relatively little canal work today

Compared to our previous days on the ICW, on this final day’s run to Beaufort we spent relatively little time in canals with thick undergrowth and trees close up to the boat.

The open water of the Neuse River. It’s relatively shallow at about 6m deep, but that’s deep enough not to concern us too greatly. Sadly there wasn't enough wind to sail

Instead, most of the route followed dredged channels in quite wide rivers and sounds.  In fact, for a surprisingly large portion of the route across and along the Neuse River in the middle of the day, the course of the ICW was marked by posts/buoys but it wasn’t even a dredged route and we cut the corners as we motorsailed, trying to make enough speed to get to the marina at Beaufort before the staff went home for the day.

Wacky races at the entrance to Courts Creek!

We weren’t the only ones who could sense the closeness of the open ocean at Beaufort.  Along the expanse of the Neuse River all the boats spread out a bit; some left the loose convoy to go to Oriental, some joined in from there, but suddenly there was a great coming together again where the route entered Courts Creek – the final narrow river/canal stretch before Beaufort.  The few minutes close to the entrance markers were manic with vessels suddenly catching up with each other and motor yachts shooting up from all angles, paying little heed to the ICW rule of passing other vessels at minimum practicable speed so as to minimise wash and disruption.  In fact it was quite interesting how many motor yachts we saw on our ICW Day 4.  We had seen virtually no motor yachts, or commercial traffic on Thursday 22 or Friday 23 November, probably because of the Thanksgiving Day holiday.  There were a few more motorboats (and sailing yachts) on the Saturday and, suddenly, on the Sunday, we were inundated with other vessels!

Part of the final leg up Courts Creek, unaccountably empty of other vessels but probably not for long

The banks of Courts Creek started off very rural and ended quite built up with houses in the northern part of Beaufort.  We got no photos of the passage under the big new road bridge joining Beaufort and Morehead City and then….

In at Slip 30 at Homer Smith’s Marina, Beaufort…..

….suddenly we were negotiating the shallows of Town Creek and making our way gingerly into our allocated ‘slip’ (berth) at Homer Smith’s Marina.  We had made it with 50min to go before the staff left for the evening which pleased us and, better still, despite it being low tide, we just failed to go aground on our way into our berth.  Great news! 

…. and from a slightly different angle!

It turned out that we had been allocated the last available berth in the marina, so when she arrived to welcome us to we gave Dianne Tetreault, the OCC Port Officer for Beaufort, a huge thank you for making the marina booking for us.  Dianne kindly took Nicky up to the nearest supermarket to replenish our milk stocks (we’d drunk lots of tea and coffee, especially on the really cold days on the ICW) and gave her a quick orientation tour of the town.  And then, with an invitation to a meal out the following evening she left us to catch up with the other OCC yachts in residence at the marina and to start doing some longer-range planning for our stay in Beaufort and our departure for warmer climes.

Beaufort, North Carolina, USA