We anchored for the night in the most remote place I’ve ever been at on the boat. It was nothing but marsh grass and water!!
It was still a nice night and we were staged up to motor the Pungo canal then anchor in the small town of Belhaven NC for a couple days. I’d been told by the Pegu crew that there was a breakfast place there that served the most awesome breakfast sandwich ever so I was looking forward to that!! The trip down the Pungo canal was about the most boring part of the trip so far as it is a straight cut about about 7nm, turn slightly to the right, and go another 12nm into the next little bay. Again, there’s nothing along the canal except for trees, logs, and turtles. 🥱.
We made pretty good time though and eventually came out of the canal and into the Pungo River (gotta love the names of things down south…Pungo River, Stumpy Creek Bay, Alligator River) heading towards Belhaven. It was a pretty easy motor to the town and soon enough we had the anchors down and were taking the dinghy to the dock so we could walk around and stretch our legs a bit.
The next morning we took another ride back to shore to sample the best ever breakfast sandwich in the world!! We walked into the place and took our seats at a table. The next table over was a group of people that looked over at us and said good morning, asked if we were cruisers, and where we were from. Very pleasant and very unexpected but that’s how things are in the South!! We made life easy for the waitress as all the of us ordered the exact same thing!! I got to admit, I’ve had some excellent breakfast sandwiches before and this one ranked in the top 3!! I have no idea how they made their biscuits but OMG was it fantastic!! The ones I make are nothing like these and I will definitely stop there on the way back north just to have another one of these sandwiches (it was better than the Waffle House…lol). Later that evening we met up with some cruising friends of Pegu Club and played cards on their boat. It’s really cool how you just randomly run into friends in these out-of-the-way places while cruising.
The next morning came early as we wanted to get across our next hurdle, Pamlico Sound. It, too, is notorious for getting rough if the winds are up but we had some great winds forecasted that let us do some sailing across it. We then entered another canal that would take us to the other side of the Pamlico Sound and then up the Neuse River to our planned stop at Oriental NC. First, we had to stop at R. E. Mayo’s to take on fuel and get some fresh shrimp (I passed on the shrimp but did get a box of Twinkies!!).
We continued on down the canal and turned out into the southern part of Pamlico Sound. Well, the winds had picked up and the seas were starting to get a bit agitated. We motored on until we decided we weren’t going to make Oriental and ducked into a protected anchorage to wait out the winds. Once we were anchored, I did my normal end of day stuff that included looking at the engine to make sure it was good. I noticed that the front of the engine was a bit wet and there was salt from the water caked up in a few spots. The only place that it could be coming from was the raw water pump that brought sea water into a heat exchanger to cool the antifreeze that cooled the engine (it’s the same thing as the air that blows through the radiator on your car…). I wiped everything down and figured I’d keep an eye on it as the journey continued.
Our next stop was Beaufort NC and after a spirited ride across the last of the Pamlico Sound, we motored the rest of the day to Beaufort. The anchors were dropped in a slightly crowded anchorage but everything worked out ..kinda. I went below to check the engine and the raw water pump was leaking a lot worse and needed to be repaired. I didn’t have a spare pump or kit onboard so I had to figure out how I was going to fix this without making a huge delay in travel time. Long story short, I ordered a rebuild kit and had that sent to the house. I then ordered a new water pump and had it overnighted to a UPS location in Beaufort. It was the best $900 I’d ever spent (said nobody ever…). Remember, boat stands for Bring. Out. Another. Thousand. in cash to fix things. Anyways, we walked to the UPS store for the 11:30 delivery, picked up the part, walked back, and 30 minutes later we were back in business.
Next up…we head offshore to make tracks south and the evil engine gremlins strike again!!
❤️❤️❤️
Sailing Infinity 