Belhaven, North Carolina – 41 nautical miles sailed, 1 kilometre walked, 1 mile in dinghy
It was time to knock down some more miles so after leaving a note with our contact details on the perp’s boat, we were back on the water in unseasonably cold temperatures. We’ve been running the diesel heater in the evening to warm up the boat and we ran it again this morning as it dropped down to 6 or 7 degrees last night. We haven’t had to think much about heating in the previous months, but as we inch closer back north, it’s back on our minds.
The winds were far stronger than forecast – gusting to near 30 knots and steady in the mid-20’s so there were some rough patches of water through the open bays we traveled through which gave SeaLight a good rocking and knocked Ana’s suitcase full of clothes upside down onto the ground. She has this elaborate system of bungees, pulleys, cords, come-alongs, barriers, mechanical stabilizers, slipknots, netting, and movement sensors she rigs up in the v-berth whenever we’re likely to go through rough water. It’s all meant to hold her suitcase in place but somehow it never works, and I’m usually the one to deliver the bad news when I leave the cockpit and go down into the cabin to take a leak or heat water or make a snack and I look into the v-berth to see her beautifully folded clothes and large inventory of grooming supplies now scattered haphazardly on the ground with the suitcase flopped on top with its wheels slowly rotating in synchronization with the giant waves we are smashing through. There is one benefit, though. It takes her about 90 minutes to restore order so that burns up a chunk of the dreadfully boring travel time for her.
Belhaven was just as we left it five months ago - even the weather was the same. Like Oriental, it is a town custom made for boaters. Free dinghy docks, free town docks for big boats, a main street with the ICW Brewery, a classy steakhouse for those with large cruising budgets, the groovy Bad Moms Coffee shop, a well stocked hardware store, Farm Boys burgers and fries, and a few ladies fashion shops. Further afield are two full service marine stores and a big grocery store. We wandered downtown, had a browse through a couple of shops then stopped for an extended coffee visit at Bad Mom's. We struck up a conversation with the young girl working there and she asked us if we were locals or visitors. That's the nice part about being Canadian in the US - you can blend in easily. When in the southern states, people assume by our weird accent that we're from Maine. When in the northern states, they assume we're from down the street. We told her we were transiting boaters and she said a lot of boaters come through the town. She then passed on a story from a few years back when an English sailor delivering a boat to the UK ran into major mechanical problems and pulled into Belhaven. He was stuck here for an entire year, waiting for parts and repairs. She got to know him very well.
Our last stop for the afternoon was Farm Boys, where we picked up two burgers, fries, and an order of Hush Puppies to go. We’ve been seeing Hush Puppies on restaurant menus and also pre-made mixes in the grocery stores, but we weren’t sure what they were. Well, Hush Puppies are little football-shaped blobs of deep fried premium corn dog batter and they are delicious. Like, really good. Ana swooned over them and I considered sprinting to the grocery to pick up a box of mix so we could make them on the boat. But then we’d have to get a deep fryer too and I wasn’t willing to go that far for decadent little fat balls.
We decided on a crazy Saturday night back on SeaLight so ate our burgers as we watched a new Black Mirror episode, then played a board game, had a rum and coke, did some route planning for the coming days, then broke into a hot disco strobe light party that took us late into the night.
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