We stayed at a marina in Oriental overnight after almost running aground on an unmarked shoal in the harbour (it's bad when we in our shallow-draft catamaran almost hit bottom!). Oriental is a small old coastal town with friendly people.
Just after leaving Oriental on Tuesday we came across a sailboat that had not followed the buoys leading it to stray from the channel and then to run aground. Having a much shallower draft, we tried to pull the boat off - we were successful in doing so, however, it very shortly afterwards ran aground again! After checking with the skipper left we left him this time as it was clear he needed more help than we could provide (he ended up calling Towboat US).
Later on that day we had a momentous moment as we saw our first dolphins of the trip in Beaufort harbour - a few dorsal fins appeared and quickly disappeared again in a smooth rounded motion just as Ruth was negotiating strong currents underneath a set of two bridges. She yelled "Dolphins!" and became teary-eyed as she had been looking forward to encountering these wonderful animals since we started talking about this trip. Our evening was spent anchored in an affluent subdivision of Morehead City. Beautiful large homes were backing onto the creek we were anchored in. It felt like we were living on land again because of the morning rush-hour traffic noise, which was a sound we hadn't heard for a while, especially not on the boat.
Spooner's Creek Anchorage (Morehead City)
The things you see on the water....
