Day 43-Dowry Creek

Saturday, MAY 1, 2021.
Sunny, Temp: 69/52, Humidity: 53/31%, Top Wind: N13, Precip: none, Miles Traveled: 44, TOTAL MILES 1161

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It’s the first day of MAY already?! 😳 I had to look to see how far away from home we are. We’ve traveled 1161 miles so far. Not bad for six weeks.
You probably wonder why I take pictures when we’re leaving a marina. Well, I’m too busy to take pictures when we’re arriving! 😁.
So long River Dunes! From what we saw on the weather forecast, the wind was going to die down in the afternoon. This is opposite of normal, when we usual plan for calm mornings, and wind in the afternoon. So we planned to wait until about 10:00 for our departure. Our neighbors, First Light, left about a half hour before us. It seemed pretty calm in the marina, so we pulled our lines and set off for today’s journey to Belhaven.

This is a nice channel coming in to this nice protected boat basin.

About that. We headed out, and found that there was wind out on the Neuse River. Yea, it had not died down yet. It was coming at our bow, and Island Girl took a dirty salt water bath. It was pretty chunky, so I went downstairs to secure the cabin and make sure the little red rocket fuel maker didn’t take a dive off the counter. I talked to God for a bit and told Him that I am fully aware that he can calm water and wind, and if He was so inclined to do so today, we’d be thankful. Then He told me that He gave us the information to make wise decisions. Oh. 🙄. But you know what? It did calm down! I’m serious! He did it!

It was really only bad for about an hour, it started to calm a bit, and then we turned inland and eventually got some shelter. Some might say it’s because of our route that it calmed. Whatever. We were still in the big water, and I know whose team I belong to. 😊

We had a canal to travel through before we would spit out into the Pamilco River, and the canal was really calm.

We went past R.E. Mayo Seafood. It is a rustic place, and a lot of Loopers/Boaters like to stop here to stock up on seafood and some even spend the night for pretty cheap. These are pretty rustic looking docks!

We got across the Pamilco River and headed up the Pungo River. That just sound like we should be in Africa or something, right? There was quite a parade of us on Nebo. The one leaving the green trail is us 😉, and were headed to where the blue “2” is.

The water in these rivers looks like the Amazon. It is so dark with tannin. It makes me miss the crystal clear mountain rivers of the Pacific Northwest!!

Last time we were in this area, we stayed at the Belhaven Marina, which is right in the little town of Belhaven. We were on a long dock, and I remember rolling back and forth all night in the wind and waves. I swore we would never go there again. So this time around, we went just a little farther up and stayed at Dowry Creek Marina. I’ve heard and read good things about it, and found out that they are all true. What a gem. The staff are incredibly friendly, the facility is nice, they have free laundry, a heated pool (which opens TOMORROW 😬), a nice store, and they are building a restaurant.

What is not to like?

Except that it is out of town, so there’s no place to eat or get groceries. But that’s OK with us!

This is the boaters lounge, just in case you want to get off your boat and hang out here while you do laundry, or get together to watch a game, or whatever. There was a group of boaters that were having a great get-together down in the pool area. I did a couple of loads of laundry….not that we had much to do, but when it’s free, and there are three washers and three dryers, I don’t feel bad about washing sheets and towels. 😄

While I was scoping things out and doing my chores, Kenny was busy washing the salt off of the Girl. She was a mess!

He has this cool stuff called “Salt-Away”. It goes into a little jug that hooks up to the hose nozzle. He wets the boat down with plain water, then turns on the little jug so that the contents gets picked up with the water spray. It dissolves the salt and leaves the boat with no salty residue. Usually after a trip like today, when I walk down the side of the boat, my legs get covered with a fine salt power. But this stuff is great. No scrubbing or brushing or wiping or anything! It’s amazing. He says it’s expensive, but it works!

Here is what is coming soon to this marina… a restaurant & bar! Once they have a place to eat, boaters are going to LOVE this place more than they already do. In the meantime, they have a car that you can borrow to go to town, or the staff will take you anywhere you need to go, even including the airport in Raleigh if needed, which is a 2.5 hour drive! It’s true! They go out of their way to make sure any needs are met, and they treat you better than family.

I had to take this picture of their shirts. Our good boating buddies in LaConner Washington are Dowrey with an E… just to make them jealous that they aren’t here with us. 😉

This was just my token cute flower picture for today. They had some nice little flower gardens, and music playing on speakers outside, which always makes a place feel welcoming.

We met a couple of new-to-us looper boats and crew here. Right next to us was Table Six. We chatted with them for just a few minutes. Then down the dock we met Godspeed II. They just started their loop in New Bern so haven’t traveled very far yet. They invited us onboard for docktails, so we got to visit awhile. They have a rental car and invited us to go to town for dinner, so we said SURE! Off we went to the little town of Belhaven. I saw this crabby guy, along with crabs painted on the sidewalk. I guess crabs are a Belhaven thing?

We went to the Fish Hooks Cafe.

We each had some pretty good seafood for dinner, and more importantly, we enjoyed the company! Tom & Ceci were a lot of fun, and they asked some great questions about the loop. It was fun sharing info with them.

We keep watching the weather and trying to find a few hours here or there that we can travel. And there are some places we’d rather NOT be stuck if we can help it…. like where we’re going tomorrow. It looks like we’ll have less than 15mph winds prior to about 1:00 tomorrow, so we we’ll get up with the sun and get a move on. We have over 5 hours of travel tomorrow, and the last two will be in the biggest water with the biggest waves. We’re hoping the forecast stays the same or gets better so that we can travel on Monday, too. 🤞. It’s one thing to travel in wind and waves, it’s a whole nother ballgame trying to dock without insurance claims in wind. Island Girl dances like the tango across a ballroom floor in the wind. 😬