4/26/18: What a beautiful calm day on the water! We ran with Ned Pepper and Total Eclipse up to Belhaven; just over 40 miles in less than 5 hours. Pamilco Sound was really calm and beautiful. We had just a little breeze following us, so we were plenty warm in the sunshine up on the fly bridge. From the Pamilco Sound, we then went up the Pungo River. That just sounds like we should be in South America or Africa or something.
The scenery was nice today. We saw this seafood dock along the way. We had heard that it is a great place to stop to buy fresh seafood, and you can dock overnight there. We still have shrimp in the freezer from McClellanville, so we did not stop.
I thought my boys would get a kick out of this. I always pictured a ‘duck blind’ as being on the shore near the water. But I’m guessing that this structure out in the water with the dry frizzeled up branches is used as a duck blind during season. We saw a couple of them, and have no other ideas for what they might be.
We arrived in Belhaven around 1:00, with still pretty calm winds. The marina is really just a channel with a long face dock. So we all came in and are tied up in a row. Captain pivoted us around very nicely so we are pointed out for our quick escape in the morning. 😉
This afternoon was kind of breezy, which we only noticed because the boats have been rocking like crazy! There is no other reason for us to rock- there is not a bunch of boats zooming by the marina. It must just be from the wind outside of the marina channel. We all decided to go out to dinner – which I thought was a great idea because the boats are rocking so much. We walked around ‘town’ a bit. It is a tiny little town. The fanciest looking place is The Tavern at Jack’s Neck (on the right in this picture).
Apparently “Jack’s Neck” was once the name of this town!
There are several little boutique shops, with all sorts of things. This was outside one of them. Quite an unusual bench!
The police station is pretty basic. We wondered if the caboose (on the right) serves as the jail.
Captain and I were just going to go to the tavern for dinner, but the other folks had a recommendation to go to “Spoon River Artworks and Market”. It is a place that doesn’t have a name that sounds like a restaurant nor does it have a standard menu. They source as much as they can locally, so whatever is available becomes the menu. I was a little nervous of the white table cloths. I can’t eat a lot of sauces and fancy things because they’re usually loaded with garlic. And we just are not foodies. We have basic bar and comfort food palettes – burgers, chicken, steak, pizza, salad, BBQ… that’s our wheelhouse…but we said we’d give it a go. The place was really cleverly decorated, and the service was great.
The prices were higher than we are used to paying, and the portions were huge. Kenny and I split a rib-eye steak dinner. It was very good and it was plenty for both of us. They had very fresh vegetables that were lightly steamed, so they still had good crunch. We only had the one entree and water, and with the tip it was $59! Holy smokes! We will definitely pay more attention to what we’re getting ourselves into! Here’s our dinner gang. Eddie & Kate from Total Eclipse on the left; Tammi, son Andrew is visiting for a few hundred miles, and Mike from Ned Pepper. They were all equally shocked when they saw the menu. Oh well. We had great company and tasty food. Tomorrow, we’ll have peanut butter & jelly. 😋
We got back to the marina (just down the street 1/2 block) and the boats were still rocking. We decided to have some after dinner coffee and sit & visit in a nice gazebo that was there. The marina had a big lawn and said they had croquet – that would have been fun!
So we’ll get up and go in the morning around 7:00, and head for Alligator Marina. It’s about 47 miles. We’ll have a 15 mile canal to travel, which we’ve heard is narrow and can be challenging if there is a tug/tow going through. Passing is tricky. Let’s hope for no company in the canal tomorrow! This was our journey today. At the bottom, we came out into Pamilco Sound. Then up through a channel where the seafood dock was. Then out and across the Pamilco River, and north into the Pungo River. Tomorrow, we’ll go east on the Pungo River to the straight ditch looking canal. We’re headed for Alligator River.
