Home->Sailing Trips->Familiar Places

Familiar Places

Text by Paul Clayton, Photographs by David Swanson and Paul Clayton.

It seems like the early days of fall pack a real punch on the sounds of North Carolina. Last year my sailing partner David and I braved the equinoctal storms of September to make a wet and windy visit to Bayboro, the year before my brother and I rode out Ophelia aboard Terry Ann on the Washington dock. Early October 2025 saw persistent strong nor'easters that tore up the Outer Banks and brought wind and high water to the sounds. For all that, I'll take whatever early fall has to offer over the glassy ground swells, heat and humidity of summer. When I asked David to join me for an October sail he agreed, and I quickly began making plans before he had a chance to change his mind.

Flexibility is important when the weather is unpredictable. Last year's foul, violent weather resulted in our not reaching our projected destination of Oriental. Instead, we took a serendipitous trip up the Bay River and overnighted on a commercial fishing dock far off the beaten track for recreational cruisers. This year, we agreed to make a second attempt at Oriental. David and I both had sailed there many times, and David kept his boat at Pecan Grove Marina for a while. It would be hard to think of a better sailing destination in North Carolina.

There's no point in planning to get an early start from Washington, since the railroad bridge is usually closed until late morning. David drove down from Cary Thursday, arriving about 11:00, and we loaded all his gear aboard. Then we transferred the cars to a lot behind the police station, since the city had a big festival planned for the waterfront over the weekend, and made the short walk back to the boat. With the bridge open, we called on the dockmaster to help us cast off lines and maneuver out of the slip - a bit tricky, as a large trawler on the adjacent dock was hanging out into the fairway by a good ten feet. By 11:45 we were motoring downstream along the waterfront with a moderate breeze behind us and the engine in gear and just off idle. Ahead we could see a cluster of kayaks along the banks of the Castle, an island on the west side of the main channel. We slowed down to a crawl to see what they would do, and soon the whole bunch, mostly children, migrated into the mid-channel and stopped for water fights and general horseplay. As we drifted down on them I got out my horn and gave a blast, which got their attention and helped their guides get them together and over to the waterfront - all except for two kids in a tandem kayak who were totally oblivious. We came to a halt as a guide sharply signalled for them to stop, and then we drifted past at a knot, glad to be in the clear.

With a gusty breeze from dead astern to just off the port quarter, I made the executive decision to run down the river under working jib and engine, something David calls "old man sailing", but it would save us rigging a preventer or worrying about unintended jibes. Hey, I ain't proud. The combination made for a quick and easy 3 1/2 hour trip to the State Dock in Bath.

We took a quick walk around Bath, then David found a bench ashore and spent some time on the phone with his wife. I cooked a simple stew of meat, potatoes and carrots - overcooked, actually, because I knew David had just undergone some dental work and it wasn't quite as painless and quick to heal as his dentist had promised. So along with the old man sailing, we had old people eating - gummable, as we used to call it, back in my days as a restaurant cook.

After dark we saw the lights of a boat coming up the creek. It circled near the State Dock, then eased over toward the slips at the commercial marina. I hailed the captain on channel 16, and confirmed that there was enough water to tie up on the long axis of the State Dock. They made their way in and tied up, drinks in hand, and after a quick chat, scampered off to Blackbeard's to get a pizza. David was much taken with one feature of their Bristol 36 - a bean bag chair on the foredeck. In fact, I heard no end of that chair for the rest of the trip. If someone wants to donate a bean-bag chair for the foredeck of Terry Ann, it would make David happy, and I would be amenable to mentioning their sponsorship on a regular basis at neuseriversailors.com, like NPR used to do with Hermann Miller's Aeron Sit-For-Less chair.

Off the dock with the sun just rising behind the trees on the bank, we motored out to the river and set sail for another day of jib and motor, with just a bit of exciting sailing at the end. We made a consistent 5 knots plus under blue skies, pushed along by 15 knots of northeasterly wind gusting to 20. At the mouth to Goose Creek we ran into a cluster of boats, north and southbound, mostly well-behaved, although of course there was one mega-yacht kicking a wake.

We ran through Hobucken Cut with David helpfully reminding me just where I put Terry Ann aground last year, and out the Bay River into the sound. We rounded Maw Point and made good time to the mouth of the Neuse. With a beam reach to Oriental in front of us, we set the main, shut down the engine and enjoyed a speedy run under all plain sail to the mouth of Oriental harbor. Dropping sail just off Whitaker Creek Marker 1, we motored into the crowded anchorage with little hope of finding a place on either of the town docks. However, I wasn't going to give up easily, and confidently pushed on into the inner harbor, with David's running commentary, "looks full, all docks taken, harbor cam shows boats on both docks, afraid they're full" and so on. As I approached the old town dock, I could see that the starboard side was taken by a big cruiser but the port side hosted a small sailboat pulled well up toward the bulkhead. Maybe we could hang on the outer end of the dock, behind it. We crept in and David stepped onto the dock, catching us tight up behind a little Flicka with about 15 feet of Terry Ann hanging off the outboard end of the dock. My experience is that the Oriental authorities will usually turn a blind eye to efforts to squeeze one more boat in, and the worst they could do would be to tell us to go back out to the anchorage. It worked out fine.

Since I wasn't sure whether we might get sent off to the anchorage, I (cough cough) decided not to register for the night, to save on unnecessary paperwork. We considered dining options and chose Toucan's, since neither of us had eaten there in a while, and had quite acceptable if overpriced hamburgers. With all the inner harbor docks taken, Toucan's was hopping, and we had a short wait to get a table. Afterwards we took a leg-stretcher to the Oriental Harbor Marina and checked out all the nice boats over there.

Day Three started with coffee and Wi-Fi at the Bean. The Wi-Fi situation on the town dock is greatly improved over earlier days, as the Bean router makes a strong signal during the day, and after they close it is possible to pick up a weaker but still usable connection with Toucan.

The power cruiser on the other side of the dock made an early departure and we quickly moved Terry Ann into the vacant spot. Like a good citizen I immediately filled out a registration slip, starting our statutory 48 hour stay. We walked over to the boatyards and stopped to chat with my friend Steve Pegg who lives aboard his Cape George 38 in the yard behind Sailcraft. Back at the town dock, I watched local guide Jennings Rose debark his fares after a successful trip out to Brant Island Shoal, where they had limited out on four-pound bluefish (blues school in age classes).

At some point during this busy day, I recalled that the Oriental Inn & Marina used to sell showers to dirty sailors, so I grabbed my grip and walked over to see if this was still the case. David trailed along, and I found the long-time owner and operator Tom on duty in the office. Yes, showers were still available, $5.00. David said he would wait, as he was unwilling to share a shower with me, even to save $2.50. Tom explained that they didn't just have a shower, but a shower complex, with multiple private stalls, solving any minor discord over who went first.

The owner of the Flicka came around and we had a good chat. He is local, and evidently rotates his boat around available slips rather than have a home dock. The boat is a rare gaff-rigged example. During the day he went out for a sail, and on returning moved over to the Oriental Inn & Marina dock, saying he had been on the town dock for a while and thought he should cede his place to someone else. It didn't really matter, because the advent of gentle weather saw a general exodus to the south, and there were a couple of open spots.

The newest addition to the Oriental restaurant scene is the Mexican food truck, which all the locals raved about, so we decided it was worth a try. The burritos were good, but not Mexican by any means. Unlike Mexican food trucks in the metropolitan areas where David and I reside, this one was owned and operated by Anglos, which probably explains the lack of authenticity. The food truck people are in the process of building a big new restaurant next to the Fulcher's fish market. I've got to wonder, who will have to shut down, as the Oriental culinary world is getting a bit oversaturated.

For dinner we had a sailor's meal of sausage, black-eyed peas and rice. Later in the evening we watched as a big commercial trawler, the Predator, came in and expertly tied up at the Garland Fulcher dock. Those professional fishermen know how to handle a boat, and no bow thrusters on an old one like Predator either.

The next day two of David's small-boat sailing friends, Jack and Kevin, drove down from New Bern for a visit. We had a pleasant time in Terry Ann's cockpit, talking about trips of bygone years. Kevin took a picture and sent it to his wife, maybe to prove to her that he wasn't up to anything, and she texted back that we "look like maga people".

Last year when we sailed through Hobuken on the way to our appointment with the mud bar at the mouth of Gale Creek, we gawked at a strange-looking boat drawn up along the bank just across from Mayo's dock. It looked like a typical 1980s production sloop, 30-some feet in length, but the bow had a bulb extending just at water line, like you would see on a deep-water freighter. The stern seemed to be extended, and the whole boat rode high forward and deep aft. This year we found the boat on the new town dock in Oriental, and had the privilege of chatting with the owner about his theories and the modifications he had made. Daniel is a local man who has worked on commercial fishing boats and in fabrication shops his whole life.

A bulbous bow produces about a 5% decrease in fuel consumption for a certain range of speeds on a freighter by creating a wave just below the surface. Two theories as to why this works are "The destructive interference of the primary and secondary wave trains causes an overall reduction in drag which is beneficial to the vessels resistance characteristics" and "the water coursing over the top of the bulb is exerting a downward pressure that is keeping the stern from squatting, thereby allowing flatter trim", both from the article The Basics of Bulbous Bows published by Bray Yacht Designs. Daniel decided that what worked for a freighter would work for his Catalina, and fabricated one for it. He may be onto something, as bulbous bows are now being used on commercial fishing boats and recreational cruisers.

At the stern, Daniel fabricated a long, open-ended u-shaped appendage that looks kind of like an exaggerated "sugar-scoop" that is common on modern sailboats. With the added waterline, he needed additional sail area in the fore triangle, so he built and installed a bowsprit using a salvaged aluminum spar. The mast is set in a tabernacle to allow it to be lowered to pass under low bridges. Daniel told us he had offered his modifications to Catalina but never heard back from them - at this point, probably a moot point, as Catalina Yachts, after a 56-year run, has paused operations as of early November 2025 to "while we reorganize key areas of our operation".

Daniel's intentions were to sail southbound to Florida and the Bahamas, going outside rather than following the ICW route. We gave him our heart-felt best wishes for fair winds and following seas. Personally, I consider him a creative genius.

After a last night on the Oriental town dock, we watched Daniel exit the inner harbor aboard God's Time and sail away to the south, then cast off ourselves to make our way back toward Washington.

With north-westerly winds of around 15 knots we were set up for a good sail at least as far as Lower Broad Creek. The land shadow would flatten the seas to an extent and the wind speed would be right at the top end of comfortable under all plain sail. We made 5 1/2 knots as we followed the shoreline of the lower Neuse, but I knew that conditions would worsen as we turned out into the sound at Piney Point, and that it would be a dead slog to windward from Maw Point up the Bay River. The morning forecast was for declining winds in the afternoon, so as we passed Gum Thicket Shoal I decided to run into Lower Broad Creek and either anchor overnight if the forecast had changed or give the wind and waves a while to settle down before entering the sound. We passed a vessel anchored in the river at the location of Neuse River Channel Light 6, perhaps maintaining or replacing the light, and proceeded in the creek, anchoring in front of Burton Creek. We listened to the NOAA radio, confirming the forecast for calming weather in the afternoon, while we had a spot of lunch, then secured the sails and generally tidied up the boat to prepare for the unprotected waters of the sound and Bay River.

Out on the water, the Beta kept Terry Ann punching along at 3 1/2 to 4 knots through a moderate chop and in a couple of hours we approached the entrance to Goose Creek and the Hobucken Cut. On the way we passed a mammoth southbound emotional support vessel, complete with accompanying tender, probably in transit to a Florida boat show under care of a delivery crew. Not a local pilot, as they almost turned upstream on the Bay River rather than down. If I had responsibility for a multi-million dollar yacht, I think I would take the time to establish a route on my chart plotter.

By the time we reached Campbell Creek the last light of day was fading, and the wind had died to near nothing. We gingerly motored in, keeping to the mid-channel, since the depth sounder had chosen this moment to pack it in for the evening, and I dropped the anchor at a likely spot as David dropped the engine into neutral. I hung the anchor light in the rigging and cooked a quick dinner while David reported to his wife. Afterward, we sat in the cockpit and looked at the spectacular stellar display. With no sizable city within 40 miles, and not even an insignificant village within 10, the ambient light level was pretty low for North Carolina. David had been in Ocracoke a week earlier, and claimed the sky there was even better, which I don't doubt, but it was truly the best I had seen in years.

One more day to Little Washington. We motored down Goose Creek, counting over 20 southbounders by the time we turned up the Pamlico River. The GPS gave a couple of flaky returns, including one that indicated a complete circle to starboard at 20 knots, but it settled down as the morning went on. Out on the river we set all plain sail and shut down the engine. With a southwest wind, we sailed close-hauled, with the wind veering to west and picking up strength by mid-day. Soon we were blasting along with the rail dipping in the water, David at the tiller while I played the mainsheet like we were dinghy-sailing. We finally dropped sail off Fork Point and motored sedately in to the Washington waterfront, where the dockmaster tossed us a line.

So ended our 2025 trip. We agreed we would do another one next year and each year thereafter, as long as we were both able. That's all old men can promise. As for Daniel - David has been tracking him on facebook, and as of Thanksgiving Day, he's in Daytona.

Here are a few more pictures.