10.22- Garbacon Shoal Marker

Neuse River Marker No. 7, a.k.a. Garbacon Shoal Marker,
as seen from the Bauer 10 dinghy.

Today I sailed the Bauer 10 out to Oriental Marker No. 1 to try to get some pictures of the weekly Wednesday night sailboat race. Only three sailboats showed up, so I didn't get any impressive shots (I was hoping for more boats).

As the boats sailed off for the first mark on the informal race course, I decided to follow along for a while. I saw the boats rounding the first mark (Garbacon Shoal) and decided to go at least that far.

This is the farthest I have sailed the dinghy out on the river, so as I rounded the marker I snapped this picture for proof/commemoration.

In the foreground you see the boom, the tack of the mainsail and the mainsheet. The whispy threads you see flowing from the mainsail act as my anemometer and tell-tails.

As I reached Garbacon Marker, the three racers were approaching the Adams Creek Marker a few miles downwind. The sun was nearing the horizon, so I decided one leg of the race was enough for me.

As I sailed back, the sun set and the wind died... I mounted my navigational lights and slowly sailed back as the temperature began falling considerably. Fortunately I brought some layers to put on.

The whole round trip - slip to Garbacon and back to slip - was just under 6 statute miles, and I covered it in about one hour and forty minutes... not bad considering the wind died off so much on the way back.

My route today (8.9 stat. miles) is shown by the red line on the map below...

the yellow line is the approximate route of the Wednesday evening races (about 8.25 stat. miles):

View Larger Map

10.19- Jib testing

Yours truly buzzing Lou-Mac Park while sailing on the Neuse River(Oriental Marker #1 in the background)

Today I went out to test the new jib foresail Capt. Dave and I rigged for the Bauer 10 Classic dinghy. I sailed out of the harbor to Oriental #1, then tacked up into the North wind to reach Lou-Mac Park. After buzzing the park I sailed out to Whittaker Creek markers #1 and #2, then back to the harbor.

Winds were in the 10-15 knot range, out of the North, so both the rig and myself got a good work-out. The jib has a number of issues to be solved... the most annoying is that when tacking, the sail tends to foul on the boom (which protrudes up to one foot forward of the mast) and the jib sheets keep getting tangled on the forest of cleats that now inhabit the lower mast.

Early indications are that the jib improves the dinghy's windward ability, but more testing is required to confirm. Still can't quite sail close-hauled, though.

I am confident that the Bauer is sailing faster on all points of sail with the added jib, the most noticeable difference being on beam reach and close reach.

The best thing so far about having a jib is that I can go "wing-and-wing" while running downwind... While running wing-and-wing today I hit a steady 4.0 + knots, maxing out at 4.5 knots! I have hit 4.7 knots before, with only the mainsail, but in heavier winds.

The mast is developing a pretty serious crack, and I don't know how much longer it'll last in winds like today's. Probably time to build a new mast, and re-think the running rigging.

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9.14- Parade of Shrimp Boats

Four commercial trawlers (shrimp-boats) leaving Oriental Harbor as weekend shrimping curfew ends.

I was out sailing on the Neuse River in the Bauer dinghy today when these four shrimp-boats left Oriental harbor and headed down the Neuse River for a new week of shrimping.

There is a shrimping curfew from Friday midnight to Sunday noon, so on Sunday afternoon most of the commercial shrimp boats leave their weekend berths at Garland Fulcher Seafood Co. and Point Pride Seafood Co. to go out shrimping.

I was sailing near Oriental Marker #1 when these four trawlers started coming out. In order of departure (and in order of the slides above), they were:

• "Goldie Marie" - 73 foot, 93 tons, owned by Chris Fulcher
  
• "Capt. Cecil" - 75 foot, 130 tons, owned by Sherrill Styron
  
• "Emily Brooks" - 73 foot, 108 tons, owned Sherrill Styron
  
• "Amanda Ashley" - 73 foot, 92 tons, owned by Forest H. Williams, Sr., Grantsboro NC

Mr. Chris Fulcher owns "Point Pride Seafood," while Mr. Sherrill Styron owns "Garland Fulcher Seafood," which can be a bit confusing at first.

The late Garland Fulcher was the local fishing baron and Chris Fulcher's father. Sherrill Styron was Mayor of Oriental for 24 years, and is now a Town Commissioner. I don't know anything about Mr. Forest Williams of nearby Grantsboro.

"Point Pride Seafood" is on the Eastern side of Raccoon Creek (where you see the trawlers in the banner/title photo at the top of this page), while "Garland Fulcher Seafood" is on the Western side (not visible, but to the left in the banner/title photo at top of page).

"Point Pride Seafood" sits on a property with a very long and interesting history in Oriental... the point of land it is on, at the confluence of Raccoon Creek and the Neuse River, was known as "Chadwick Point" in the late 19th century, and was home to two lumber mills at the time the town was chartered in 1899... one of the mills was owned by Robert Midyette, who in 1873 purchased the 350 acres of land on which the town was founded.

(For some reason, local lore credits Robert Midyette's nephew, "Uncle Lou" Midyette -- half of the namesake of "Lou-Mac Park" -- as the "founder" of Oriental, but my research indicates that Robert Midyette was the actual owner of the land and the real mover and shaker behind the town's creation)

"Raccoon Creek" was also known as the "log pond" when the Chadwick Point lumber mills were operating because "rafts" of logs which had been cut down farther up the local creeks were floated down to Raccoon Creek where they floated while awaiting milling at the Chadwick Point mills.

The Chadwick Point land was eventually purchased by the "Oriental Bulkhead and Improvement Company" in a fascinating (and ultimately disastrous for the OBIC) land development scheme, about which I'm sure I will explain more in a future posting.

Anyway, enough about Oriental history... today it looked like "Goldie Marie" was going shrimping on Garbacon Shoal, just across the Neuse River from Oriental (in the last picture, you can see Goldie Marie in the distance, turning off to starboard), while the others proceeded farther down the Neuse and possibly into Pamlico Sound.

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9.03- Sailing with the Dolphins

Dolphins (probably bottlenose) surface while hunting in Camp Creek.

While out sailing in the Bauer dinghy, I found these guys swimming in circles around the mouth of Camp Creek, where it merges with Smith Creek before flowing out into the Neuse River. I am guessing they were hunting... the creeks are full of shrimp and minnows of all sorts.

The dolphins were swimming in a wide circle around the entire mouth of Camp Creek, and I had little luck keeping up with them in some fickle and weak winds. I also had little luck with the camera, as it is a tad difficult to get decent shots while trying to hold the tiller and the mainsheet at the same time.

After doing my best with the camera for a while I set it aside and relaxed into the boat, sailing around and listening for the dolphins blowing as they surfaced...

"poof... poof... poof" would alert me to their surfacing, and I could turn my head in time to see them arching back down into the waters, and others coming to the surface behind them... just like in this short video I was also able to capture:


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