Belhaven and waiting for weather

June 5, 2019

Raven is lopping in the harbor at Belhaven, NC as gusty winds and sloppy waves knock her about. It’s our second day here, stuck in harbor because we get cranky motoring into standing waves.

Days 2 and 3 of this trip were spent napping at anchor in South River. It’s so beautiful there, with just a few houses and a gravel quarry of sorts to one side of the river and endless trees on the other. After our first exciting 24 hours on this trip and the wild ride down the Neuse, we were content to watch thunderstorms rumble by on the big river and nap in the breeze funneling down the front hatchway.

A few houses on one side of South River.

On the other side...nothing (but one ghost town and a nice old spooky cemetery and lots and lots of bugs).

Restless by day 4, we upped anchor and headed north, across the Neuse. Winds of 12 and 13 knots invited us to raise the sails and enjoy the morning, which we did, but then the winds honked up to 18-20 and blew from the wrong direction and it got to be work, so we decided to motor. The wind howled right down our nose and we bucked our way across the river into three-foot standing waves that caused Raven to rear like a horse, slam down with a thud and stop, about once every five minutes. Not a calming ride, it was like dragging ourselves hand over hand at 2 knots for four hours until we were finally able to change direction and everything smoothed out. After a calm anchorage at Eastham Creek, we motored along the ICW and slid into the harbor here at Belhaven early afternoon yesterday, just in time for the wind to crank up and knock us around. NOAA forecast more of the same (20-25 knots) for the next couple of days, so we have decided to stay put.

We weren't the only ones who stopped into the harbor.

The reefing lines that David so laboriously installed in Pensacola have been nothing but a nuisance, dangling over the deck and over the bimini and trying to strangle us. Out on the river, as David was bringing in the jib, the darned thing tangled itself around the jib sheet in an actual knot. So one of his first chores was to take out two of the three reefing lines and stow them away in a locker. Some improvements aren’t.

In the morning quiet, David assembled the dinghy and we puttered into the town dock. We have plenty of supplies, but the fresh vegetables were getting pretty low and neither of us likes canned, so we went in search of a grocery. The only one here is over a mile from the dock, so we opted for the charming public library and some free wi-fi instead. They had “friends of the library” books for sale, so I had a nice browse and found several that looked good.

Beautiful downtown Belhaven. Could use some investment if you want to open a business in a lovely place.

Upon hearing that we were afoot and wanting to go to Food Lion, Shirley the Librarian (almost as good as Marian the Librarian in The Music Man) got on the phone and got us permission to use a golf cart. She then took a break and drove us down to the cart, about a quarter mile away! The friendliness and helpfulness of people we meet along the way never ceases to amaze and delight me. David fired up the cart, and we toddled off to the grocery store in the fresh air at about 15 mph. Once stocked up at the store, David dropped me and our bags at the dock, returned the cart, and walked back. By that time, the wind had swelled and the water was good and choppy. We bucked and sloshed our way back to the boat and were glad to reach the relative stability of planet Raven.

Lovely little waterfront town. Down this street is where you go to snag a golf cart.

Our three hours ashore consisted of accomplishing two errands, meeting three lovely ladies at the library, enjoying a three-mile round trip in a golf cart, and taking one moderately choppy and one really lumpy ride across the anchorage in the dinghy. It’s always a surprise at how long things take on a boat, but then we always have some sort of minor adventure, so who cares?

June 6

More waiting for weather. The wind has finally clocked around to a different direction, so we have stopped hobby-horsing. It’s supposed to be calm tomorrow, so we intend to set off early for a long (30+ mile) day. It turned hot today for the first time since we left New Bern. David has hooked up the wind scoop (imagine a kite flying from the forward hatch, acting as a wind funnel to send the breeze down into the cabin) to cool us off. We are wearing the absolute minimum of clothes and are grateful for the breeze and the shade of the cabin. A couple of shandies helped, as well. :) (To the uninitiated, “shandies” are a mixture of beer and ginger beer, served cold.)

Today’s accomplishments were making chicken salad, having a bath, and washing my hair. It’s great to feel clean and powdered and to have stuffed my wilted clothing into the laundry duffel. Baths on the boat are, by necessity, brief, using about 4 cups of water when I clean head to toe. When I was a kid, we called this sort of abbreviated wash “spit baths” because of the limited water. I spent a hot summer at our farm when I was about 12, and when the well went dry, we hauled water from the pond to flush the toilet and for baths used a tiny amount of water in a basin, filled from the big jug we bought in town. So spit baths are not new to me! I wash my hair in river water, rinsing with vinegar, and it comes out well and doesn’t use up anything from the tanks. David hooks up the wash down hose on deck and has a “shower” with the river water. This arrangement works great until it starts getting cold, at which point we tend to hunt for hot showers ashore!