Swansboro to Oriental Marina, Oriental, NC (docked)
July 13, 2022
So many people told us we would like Oriental, which bills itself as the “Sailing Capitol of North Carolina.” Maybe we didn’t explore enough, but this place was my least favorite place of all…
After we left Swansboro, we were able to get our sails up for a bit. This gave us a nice boost in speed for a while (until the wind died down).
I have gotten over worrying that we won’t clear under bridges – we need about 55 feet and most of the fixed bridges are 65 feet. There’s no way that Lailia’s mast got taller although we definitely take up more room when the sail is up but it was a momentarily strange feeling.
Our slip was right across from where some shrimp boats were docked. This isn’t a new experience as we also were near some when we were in McClellanville. What was very different was the very strong smell of fish in this area. There was also a lot of trash floating in the water.
We also had poor service in two restaurants we tried – the first handed us menus but seemed to forget we were there. We left that restaurant after waiting for 10 minutes to order and went to another = three servers did not acknowledge us when we waited to be seated. It was better to eat on the boat.
Tomorrow is a shorter run to Belhaven, NC. There is a small coffee shop close to the marina where we will try to get breakfast before we go.
Life on Lailia 