During our dinner preparations last night, we ran out of propane. We carry two 10 lb propane tanks so when one tank runs out during dinner we can simply switch to the other tank. However, we always want to ensure our spare tank is full so today’s agenda is to fill our spare tank. Thankfully the marina has a courtesy car that we can use. Some marinas are nice that way that they have a car that you can use, free of charge other than gas, to run an errand or go to the grocery store.

Since we headed to town we also stopped at the grocery store across the street to pick up a few perishable items. We got all our items stowed away back on the boat and then we walked around town to find a place to eat lunch. We found a local bar that served hamburgers. If was very much a local hang out and not touristy in any way. Sometime they have the best food. The food here was good but wasn’t anything to write home about.

After lunch we headed over to the North Carolina Maritime Museum. It seems like a lot of coastal towns have a maritime museum. The focus of this museum was on Blackbeard the pirate. One of Blackbeard’s most famous ships was the “Queen Anne’s Revenge”. The Queen Anne’s Revenge was built in 1710 and was 200 ton merchant ship.

It is believed that Blackbeard intentionally grounded the vessel in the Beaufort Inlet as an excuse to disperse his crew and off load his treasure to a smaller vessel and departed the area. The wreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge was discovered in 1996 and to date 31 cannons and over 300,000 artifacts have been recovered and are now displayed in the maritime museum.

After our museum tour we topped the day off with dinner at the Black Sheep Restaurant. The meal was delicious!

Overnight the rain began with the front that we knew was heading our way. It rained for 28 hours straight! Not just a drizzle but some serious rain for 28 hours. We used this time to organize some areas of the boat, write a blog post and I made a big pot of chili for dinner. Our original plan was to head out tomorrow after this storm front passes by, however looking ahead at the forecast it is looking rather windy and cold for the next few days. Looks like our next weather window for leaving Beaufort will be on Monday. It is spring here in North Carolina and spring brings unsettled weather and multiple cold fronts.

So, the next day we got up slowly and enjoyed our coffee and then headed to Clawson’s just across the street for some lunch. Had a great bowl of seafood bisque on a cold blustery day.

Since we will be here a few days we thought we would tackle a sewing project of making a projection screen that we can hang in the cockpit to watch movies. Mark was checking out how the apeman projector would work and ensure that we could use the bluetooth speaker with it. Unfortunately, he needed a bluetooth dongle to use the speaker, which he did not have. So, he used the marina courtesy car again and drove over to Moorehead City which is right next to Beaufort where there is a Best Buy and he could buy the dongle that we needed. While he was doing that I was planning, cutting and sewing the screen while he was gone. Then we had to install some new snaps to hang it up. Turned out pretty good!

We wanted to test it out tonight but it might have to wait until we are at anchor so we don’t disturb our boat neighbors on the dock.

The next day was a bunch of nothing day. It was cold and windy and we didn’t want to even leave the boat. Finally by evening time we though we should emerge and get some dinner, so we headed to the Front Street Grill. I decided to try shrimp and grits for the first time. I must say they were quite delicious!

After spending a couple of days on the boat we needed to get out for a long walk. We walked to the other end of Beaufort where there are about 3 – 4 other marinas in Town Creek. We want to see how these marinas were for a stop perhaps on our way back north. We also walked along the Russel Slough which is a waterway shortcut of sorts between downtown Beaufort and Town Creek. We wondered if we could get the boat through this area. The charts showed what appeared be a solid black line across the waterway which is usually a bridge but had no other information. There was also a broken black line that we didn’t know what it represented. It was clear after we took a look that the solid black line on the chart represented the overhead power lines and the broken black line represented a bridge that had been removed. We could not find any chart that really gave us accurate information about this area.

We also walked by the historic area of Beaufort with all the historic homes. Many from the 1700’s and 1800’s.

We ended the afternoon with a beer at the Fishtowne Brew House!

Tomorrow we are leaving Beaufort!