Memsahib's Voyage

Faithful Readers Cathyrn and Bob pointed out after our last post that there are only two versions of the Neuse River — the Nice Neuse and the Nasty Neuse, although in the cold, windy spring that has infected the South this year, I have yet to meet anyone who has actually encountered the Nice.

So we finally broke out of Oriental into the Nasty Neuse, Pewky Pamlico and Punky Pungo rivers for eight hours of three foot waves and spray over the pilothouse getting to pretty Dowry Creek Marina in Belhaven, NC.  Actually we hit a “good” day compared to the next two of high winds and thunderstorms that some of our shaken fellow cruisers described after kissing the docks in Belhaven.

Then coming into the slip an ominous “thunk” that I immediately identified as a sheared coupling stud, the same problem we faced back on the Tennessee at Midway Marina.  Not as bad this time, one bolt gone and two bent, but obviously the nuts holding the engine to the shaft had worked loose again.  The question was why, but the answer did not lie with the entire population of marine mechanics in Belhaven, NC, since all two  of them were totally booked and one had a reputation for having two price lists — local and Yankee in Big Trouble.  But Dowry Creek owner Mary and dockmaster Nick, volunteered their shop, tools and local resources to help us get it fixed one way or the other.

So I took the whole thing apart and found that the original incident in Tennessee had really screwed up the threads on the bolt holes and the bolts themselves were pretty ancient.  So the fit was awfully shaky.  I do not blame the Tennessee mechanics for using used parts — they had to scrounge all over town just to find what they had, and they did last 3,000 miles.  So Nick and Mary sent me off in their car to Pungo Machine, one of those old-fashioned places where they can bend, grind, machine and drill anything made of metal.  They fixed the coupling on the spot and wouldn’t charge me anything: “Well,  it was easy and you’re in a jam,” but I made sure they had plenty of beer money that night.

Then onto the auto supply, marine supply and junkyard for the special bolts that held it all together.  No luck, despite a town-wide search.  But Nick suggested Ace Hardware.  I was highly dubious, but it was one of the old, general store kind of hardware emporiums that also sold beer, bait and lawn furniture.  The kind of place where you can go in and say, “I need a belt for my Mom’s 1967 Maytag washer and the old guy replies, “I saw one of those around here four or five years ago” thumbs a yellow list, takes a 20-foot bamboo pole and pulls exactly the right thing down from the rafters.  Same thing with me — showed him the coupling and he said, “Yeah, there’s a box of them things over with the springs and snap rings and stuff.”

So a tortuous afternoon ensued putting everything back together, standing on my head in greasy bilge water with John handing me tools.  But it appears to be fixed, although I want a second opinion in Annapolis.

Then up the Alligator-Pungo canal to the Alligator River and one of those remote, pristine anchorages that I love and John hates due to the total lack of Wi-Fi.  The canal is 25 miles long and we didn’t see a boat, person or house the whole way.  Again, one of the themes of this trip — the urbanization of this country and diminished role of water transport that has left so much of it totally empty.  Then a beautiful run across Adorable Albemarle Sound to Elizabeth City, another great example of Southern friendliness and the entrance to the Great Dismal Swamp Canal.

Dowry Creek Marina, home of Mary and Nick, two of the world’s nicest people.

Belhaven, NC. You can just see the Ace Hardware at the end of the street.

Pungo-Alligator Canal. Straight as a string. Once a vital link in Eastern seaboard commerce. now pretty much deserted.

Alligator River anchorage, as remote and serene as we’ve been in the whole trip.