The Beaufort Blues

We continue to be tied up at Beaufort Docks. Every morning here, we awake to the enchanting sound of birdsong. We are not particularly skilled at recognizing birds by their vocalizations, but there were a variety of melodies and chirps and tweets. When we have been walking, we have seen and heard mockingbirds, house sparrows and European starlings.

As the sun sets, the crustaceans and fish get busy communicating with each other. The small snapping shrimps each possess one outsized claw. As the claw closes, it jets out a stream of water so fast that it creates a cavitation bubble. This bubbles implodes rapidly, creating a shock wave that stuns prey, deters predators, and sends signals to other snapping shrimp. Alpheus heterochaelis is the only known species to produce sound using this cavitation process. The snaps are extremely broadband, with energy extending from a few hundred hertz to about 200 kHz. These signals are among the loudest bio-acoustic sounds in the ocean. The crackling and popping, similar to the sound of hot oil bouncing in a frying pan, gets amplified by the hull, but it is pleasant.

Adding to this constant nightly background music is the call of oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau), which spawn in warm Atlantic coastal estuaries from May through August. Males create nests and then advertise their availability by resonant foghorn-like or burping sounds created with their swim bladders. After mating, it is the male who cleans and defends the nest as embryos develop. Other local fish also produce sounds with their swim bladders, including croakers, sea trout, weakfish and red drums, adding to the nightly percussion performance. In addition, silver perch make a rat-a-tat-tat sound as a counter beat.

Saturday (May 13) was a lovely, sunny day. Peter and I went to the Farmers Market, where there were many more arts and crafts booths than ones selling produce. Of course, it is early in the season, so most of the vegetables were brought in from Florida. We enjoyed live swing-style music; sampled local wine and, impressed with the lively, fruity flavor, bought a bottle of the peach wine; and purchased a jar of cooked and salted Virginia peanuts from the Methodist Mens Association.

Live music at the Farmers Market

After that, we went to the North Carolina Maritime Museum a block away from our berth. On the waterfront side, there is a cavernous boat building and repair space where staff and volunteers work on restoring and making new boats. There were exhibits on the first outboard motors, local fishing craft and keel construction. On display were pieces of oak from live oak trees, ready to be finished and fitted for the knees or bracing. The rounded hulls of the great wooden ships of the 18th and 19th centuries were strengthened against the pounding seas by a series of these braces fashioned from the naturally curved limbs, or knees, of live oak trees (Quercus virginiana). Once live oak is seasoned it becomes as hard as iron, and the grain running with the curves makes it even stronger.

Early outboard motors

Knees from live oak trees

Tools and a wooden boat being restored

In the main museum, there are many fascinating exhibits. We watched a film on the US. Life Saving Service, which preceded the Coast Guard. I doubt that I would be capable of such bravery and endurance.

Also, there were many artifacts from the wreck of the 103-foot frigate Queen Anne’s Revenge, the flagship for the pirate Blackbeard, which he ran aground in Beaufort Inlet in June of 1718. Built around 1710, she was transporting enslaved Africans when, in November 1717 in the West Indies, Blackbeard captured her from French sailors, who had stolen her from the English a few years before. He used her to attack British, Dutch and Portuguese merchant ships in the Atlantic before participating in May 1718 in the blockade of Charleston harbor. When he ran her aground, he transferred his crew and supplies to some of his smaller ships, disbanding his flotilla and escaping from pursuit by representatives of South Carolina’s governor. (He was killed in November 1918 after he returned to piracy.)

The shipwreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge was discovered over 275 years later, in November 1996, lying in about 28 feet of water about one mile offshore from here. Very little of the hull is left, but 30 loaded cannons were found. Expeditions since the discovery have found or recovered a one-ton anchor, loose ceramic and pewter fragments, ballast stones, a sword guard, a brass coin bearing the image of Queen Anne, and sixteen fragments of paper found in a cannon—pages of a sea-faring book that were probably used for wadding. Many of these objects are on display in the museum.

Also of great interest was the skeleton and heart of a 33.5-foot adolescent male sperm whale that came ashore on Cape Lookout in January 2004. The heart went through a process of plastination at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, a technique which replaces the water and fat with synthetic material. Because of the process, the heart can be touched and does not smell or decay. We were extremely lucky that an employee or docent had opened the glass case to show it to two local women, and we were able to touch it. It felt like plastic, but all the parts—chambers, valves, muscles, veins and arteries--were clearly articulated.

Sperm whale heart

After the museum visit, we enjoyed a quick lunch with waterside seating at Rhumbar. Back on the boat, Peter was back in the engine room trying to diagnose and fix the mystery of the engine and I rinsed all the salt from the deck and stainless and then washed the deck thoroughly. It looks good, but not as good as every surface, large and tiny, on the megayachts at this marina, and there would be no sense in trying to compete.

The temperatures cool off quickly after sunset, so we donned jeans and sweaters before going out to dinner at the Dockside Restaurant and then immediately falling into bed for deep sleep, dozing off quickly to the cadence of the sea life.

Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 14) dawned with no sign of the sun behind gray, overcast skies. We took a walk around town, revisiting the Old Burying Ground and looking at lovely houses, and along the waterfront and were contemplating kayaking in the afternoon when it began to rain. 

At the graveyard, we again noticed that, because the elevation is near sea level and the ground is hard, the graves are not very deep. The shallow graves were covered with concrete or brick semi-cylindrical mounds, sometimes looking like fallen columns, to keep the cadavers safe from above ground predators. One tomb has a cannon barrel surmounted on top, taken from the deceased's ship Snapdragon. Captain Otway Burns, a naval hero from the War of 1812, recognized for his prowess in plundering British ships from Nova Scotia to South America, was actually buried in a pauper's grave, but his grandsons prospered and honored his wish to have one of the cannons from his ship mark his final resting place. Near his grave is the grave of the Girl in a Barrel of Rum. The story (not documented in historical records) is that her family had immigrated from England when she was an infant, and she persuaded her parents to allow her to visit her homeland when she was still quite young. Her mother was apprehensive, but her father, a sea captain, promised he would return her safely. When the girl died at sea on the return voyage, her father could not bear to bury her at sea as was the custom, or break his promise to his wife, but chose to preserve her body in a barrel of rum so she could be intered in Beaufort. The sad story obviously rouses sympathy from tourists, who continue to decorate her grave with shells and Dollar Store type objects, making it by far the most colorful spot in the cemetery.

Row of graves covered with half-cylinder shaped tops

Otway Burns' gravestone

Grave of the Girl in a Barrel of Rum

19th century monuments

Around 5 p.m., we went ashore for ice cream, but the creamery was already closed. Instead of a sweet treat, after a walk by the water, we ended up having dinner al fresco at Finz, where, unfortunately, the key lime pie was sold out. However, we had a nice chat with three sailors at the next table who were leaving the next morning for the Chesapeake despite less than ideal conditions. They could handle it, though, I am sure. Two of them were graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis (a few decades ago) and all had many years of experience on the water.

Southern magnolia blossoms

Goldenmane tickseed (Coreopsis basalis)

Old house with goldenmane tickseed and clover for a front lawn

Marina Willis House, 1872

Today, we awoke before 7 a.m. After breakfast and a hot shower for me in the marina bathhouse, I borrowed one of Beaufort Docks four vehicles—all funky and old—and went to Morehead City to get a much-needed haircut, some things as CVS, and a wonderful fountain Diet Coke (with ice!) from McDonald’s. Peter got to work contacting boatyards and mechanics in the area, since he was unable to identify or correct the engine problem over the weekend, meaning we will probably have to leave the boat here instead of in the Chesapeake Bay for a few months while we spend time with family in England and California and Maryland this summer. It’s not ideal, because there is less protection from hurricanes in the Carolina lowlands, but we may have no choice. The port captain for the Ocean Cruising Club contacted us yesterday evening and provided us with offers of transportation and the use of her washer and dryer as well as good local information.

At the moment, Peter is once again down in the engine room, doing the dirty job of changing fuel filters on the remote chance that this might help. Even if it does solve the problem, we then have to decide whether to face adverse conditions to reach the Chesapeake. Stayed tuned!

Breaking news: Peter did it!!!!! We must leave immediately to reach the Chesapeake by tomorrow night. Photos later.