27 North Carolina

We didn’t like the last bit of South Carolina and the first bit of North Carolina. The shores of the ICW are built up all the way. In places the land has been shaved of all vegetation and houses set down as tight together as boxes in a warehouse.

Then things improve.

Beaufort’s marine museum is run by volunteers, scores of them, mostly old men, men who love boats. Men perhaps who have known a prow biting into the tide, the tension of ropes, the stately movement of ships, the touch of shaped wood. Now they are retired and happy doing anything to do with boats: repairing them, modeling them or just welcoming you to the museum.
“No. It is free. Please sign the visitor’s book”.
The museum has three courtesy cars for boaters.
“Take one when ever you need it… top up the gas if you use a lot.”





And there is the village whose name is an adjective.

A lady suggested the name to the town after she found fragment of wood from a shipwreck bearing the word “ Oriental…” It is a serious fishing village (shrimp in season, flounder just now). Behind the warehouse of the seafood packing plant small wooden houses are set down on the grass. There seem to be no cars. The streets are so quiet that the robins’, grackles’ and mocking birds’ evening chorus sounds like a full orchestra. Dogs take themselves for walks and chat to other dogs.