{"id":4354,"date":"2015-04-09T12:44:03","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T12:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4354"},"modified":"2015-04-09T12:44:03","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T12:44:03","slug":"our-last-visit-to-oriental-on-pandora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=4354","title":{"rendered":"Our last visit to Oriental on Pandora\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Thursday morning and Pandora is secure on one of the FREE public docks here in Oriental.\u00a0 We arrived yesterday after a short 35nm run from the bight of Cape Lookout. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our visit to Cape Lookout was wonderful, if a bit cool and rainy.\u00a0 Perhaps that was for the best as the weather certainly enhanced the primeval mood of the place. \u00a0 That’s Brenda way-out-there… \u00a0“Brenda, can you hear me now?” \u00a0Nope…\"\"<\/a>Lots of sea birds. \u00a0These are migratory terns, visiting from the Arctic, I think. Don’t ask me what type as we left our bird book home in CT. \u00a0Oh well, let’s just call them terns for now.\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Many dolphins visited us while we were anchored.\u00a0 It\u2019s maddeningly difficult to get a good shot of these beautiful animals.\u00a0 This is a dolphin fin, in case you can\u2019t tell.\u00a0 I guess you had to be there.<\/span>\"\"<\/a>Brenda and I took several walks on the beach, especially to so some shelling.\u00a0 Of all the beaches we have visited, we have never been on a beach with more shells.\u00a0 The selection wasn\u2019t that great but there were tons of them.\u00a0\u00a0 This shot is of one particularly rich area.\u00a0 Loads and loads. \u00a0“Bob, is the picture upside down?” \u00a0Not sure.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span>With the exception of a few campers we had the beach to ourselves. \u00a0No exaggeration, the beach went on for miles.\u00a0\u00a0 Pretty amazing. \u00a0Why someone would choose to camp on sand is a mystery to me. \u00a0Sand on my feet is bad enough.\u00a0 Sand EVERYWHERE\u2026 Yuck!.\u00a0 .<\/span><\/p>\n

Nice haul\u2026\"\"<\/a>What a great lighthouse and newly painted.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span>Brenda \u201cset a moment\u201d on the keeper\u2019s house, now museum.\"\"<\/a><\/span>Back in the \u201cpre GPS\u201d age, mariners would spot a light during the day and to help them identify, sort-of where in the Hell they were, each was painted with a distinctive pattern.\u00a0 Cape Lookout light, all 185\u2019 of it, was painted with a very distinctive diamond pattern.\u00a0 The white diamonds were oriented north to south and black to east to west.\u00a0 Or was it the other way around?\u00a0 Not certain.\u00a0 Sure glad that we have a plotter and GPS.<\/span><\/p>\n

Big painted diamonds on a 185\u2019 tall lighthouse or not, literally hundreds of ships foundered on the nearby shores.\u00a0\u00a0 Happily, not Pandora.\u00a0 However, when we were leaving yesterday morning, we had to pick our way out of the bight in fog with a visibility of about \u00bc mile for the 6nm to Beaufort Inlet.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The sunrise was spectacular.\u00a0 At least I think it was the sunrise.\u00a0 Hard to say in the fog.\"\"<\/a>We had heard on the radio that the Coast Guard was\u00a0re-positioning\u00a0markers in the Beaufort inlet so we\u00a0were cautioned to be particularly diligent as we came up the channel.\u00a0\u00a0 I wouldn’t want to bump into them. \u00a0The ship made the huge marker look positively diminutive.\u00a0 Either that or the people on deck were Lilliputians. \u00a0\u00a0Hmm\u2026\"\"<\/a>It\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0long before the ship faded into the fog.\"\"<\/a>As we made our way through the marsh, north of Beaufort, we enjoyed watching the homes go by. \u00a0“Dammit Gladys, why does everything that comes into this house have to be in frigging primary colors?” \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span>Anyway, we are now in Oriental, home to \u201cfree docks\u201d.\u00a0 Now, that\u2019s not something that you see in Martha\u2019s Vineyard.\u00a0\u00a0 Nice dock tucked next to the commercial docks. \u00a0Can you say \u201cbig red boat\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Sure makes Pandora look teeny.\"\"<\/a><\/span>We met a nice gentleman across the dock from England who \u201ccrossed the pond\u201d \u00a0a while back and is now sailing in US waters with his black kitty.\u00a0\u00a0 Mogs, a cute little boy kitty, visited Pandora and perched on the sail cover.\u00a0 Nice kitty\u2026\"\"<\/a><\/span>We couldn’t tell if this tern was scolding Mogs or asking for cheese and crackers as he “stared us down” from a nearby piling.\"\"<\/a><\/span>So, here we sit, aboard Pandora in lovely Oriental NC, a stones throw from New Bern, where we are headed tomorrow.\u00a0 I have to say that we Brenda and I are getting a bit nostalgic knowing that we will soon be separating ourselves from our life aboard Pandora, something that has consumed much of our time for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly bringing back many memories and I expect it\u2019s not going to feel\u00a0 great as we remove everything from her lockers and drive away a week from now. \u00a0Not terrific, in part, because we’ll soon be two-boat-owners. \u00a0I don\u2019t know exactly how many miles Pandora has taken us over the last 8 years but it\u2019s certainly been a great ride (if sometimes less smooth than Brenda would hope for) and we are going to miss her. Editor: I meant miss Pandora, not Brenda to be perfectly clear.<\/p>\n

Well, today we will just have to work hard to make our last day aboard Pandora, here in Oriental, the best it can be.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s the spirit.<\/p>\n

Enough of that, it\u2019s time to make coffee.\u00a0 Yes, that will make everything better. Well it will make it clearer, at least. \u00a0\u201cBob, NO it won\u2019t\u2026 You drink decaf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Got it, decaf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Thursday morning and Pandora is secure on one of the FREE public docks here in Oriental.\u00a0 We arrived yesterday after a short 35nm run from the bight of Cape Lookout. \u00a0 Our visit to Cape Lookout was wonderful, if a bit cool and rainy.\u00a0 Perhaps that was for the best as the weather certainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4370,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4354\/revisions\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}