May 6, 2010 - Day 21

Around 0900 we started moving across the water to the town of Beaufort. We have always heard a lot of positive info from other cruisers about the town. To avoid the Beaufort bascule bridge, which was undergoing some maintenance, we took the main channel headed toward the inlet, then rounded Radio Island and headed back north into Beaufort.

The anchorage was extremely crowded so we took a slip at the Beaufort Docks. The floating docks and dock side help made docking easy. After a little cleanup, we took a walking tour of the town.

Front street has lots of restaurants and shops which liberated some of our wallet contents. The real interesting part of town starts in the block behind the “getcha” zone. There we found lots of historic homes, a graveyard, a couple of working artists’ studios and a maritime museum.

By mid-afternoon we had pretty much seen it all so we walked back to Front Street and had a late lunch at the Dock House Restaurant. It was a pleasant experience dining al fresco with views of the harbor, docks, and wild horses on the island across the harbor.


We did have a couple of negative experiences with the dock management. We requested a pump out as we were arriving and were informed the pump out dock was blocked by large motor vessel. They expected the boat to leave later. It didn’t leave and they let them continue to block the pump out service until the next morning. We were not the only customers denied pump out services. The other issue involved getting fuel. The advertised “fuel at your slip” was not to be had and required moving to yet another dock for fuel service. Most marinas have the pump out and fuel at the same dock.


As we were clearing our slip the next morning, the motor vessel finally moved off the pump out dock so we slipped in real quick, got the pump out and then moved over to the fuel dock to fill up.


Location: Beaufort Docks, Beaufort, NC - MM 200
Distance Traveled: 4 mi