Day 215 - The Loco-Motion — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 65, fuel purchased 0, slip fee $$105, daily high temperature 74°f

We were underway by 8:15 am to catch the first opening of the Graydon Paul bridge in downtown Beaufort. The bridge does not open between 6:30 and 8:30 am due to rush hour traffic. We could have departed earlier and taken a five mile detour and burned more fuel. 8:30 am worked just fine for us. A sailboat passed under the bridge with us. A shrimp boat called the bridge tender and said we would follow behind the sailboat. He thought the first bridge opening was at 9:00 am and was still tied to a nearby dock. We looked back as the bridge closed and there was no shrimp boat. The bridge tender called him and asked him where he was? He said he had too many dock lines tied on and he had fish nets wrapped around his props so he was slow. He will wait for the 9:00 am opening.

As I made my first radio call of the day to pass a sailboat making 2.2 mph, I was hailed by George and Pat on Reflection. We have not seen them since Marathon. They are heading to the Rendezvous also. We will see them at the Alligator River Marina on Wednesday night and we will have docktails and dinner together.

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More commiseration from a fellow boater – Captain Bill Valters. – I have run into the mud on the ICW. This was one of our first trips cruising north past St. Augustine. My theory is, this is all about situation awareness. Usually touching bottom once is enough to learn the lesson. No damage done but after we arrived and docked Marty gave me a big hug and kiss. (she always does this after a difficult dockage with wind and current against us). I said to her “Running aground was very humiliating experience”. She immediately replied “You should run aground more often!”

I have stolen a quote of the day from the blog of Captain John Halter of the good ship Mitzvah.

“We wrote our plans in the sand at low tide and two hours later they were washed away by the sea.” He wrote this in reference to arriving at the Charleston City Marina and finding it was full.

We Arrived at the Belhaven Waterway Marina at 2:00 pm. Belhaven is a town in Beaufort County, North Carolina. The population is 1,688. Belhaven is located in North Carolina’s Inner Banks region and is the hometown of singer Little Eva, whose song “The Loco-Motion” was a US #1 hit in 1962.

Eva Narcissus Boyd (June 29, 1943 – April 10, 2003), known by the stage name of Little Eva, was an American pop singer. Although some sources claim that her stage name was inspired by a character from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she stated in an interview that she was named after her aunt, which prompted her family to call her “Little Eva.”

The Belhavem Waterway Marina is a great one night stopover. They have free laundry and fluffy towels in the shower.

Sunset at the Belhaven Waterway Marina

Bonus photo

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“The sea, the majestic sea, breaks everything, crushes everything, cleans everything, takes everything…from me”
Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey Rae (born Corinne Jacqueline Bailey; 26 February 1979) is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2006. She released her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae, in February 2006, and became the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one. In 2007, Bailey Rae was nominated for three Grammy Awards and three Brit Awards, and won two MOBO Awards. In 2008, she won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year (for her work as a featured artist in Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters).

Bailey Rae released her second album, The Sea, on 26 January 2010, after a hiatus of almost three years. It was produced by Steve Brown and Steve Chrisanthou (who produced her debut album in 2006). She was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize for Album of the Year. In 2012, she won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance (for “Is This Love)”. Bailey Rae was married to fellow musician Jason Rae from 2001 until his death in 2008, and as part of the grieving process, she channelled her emotions into her music. Her two albums have together sold over five million copies worldwide.