The Public Dock

Oriental, NC

We are berthed at the ever popular public dock in Oriental. The first time we were here we had a wonderful time with our friends Alan and Laura on Moon Song. This time we've met so many people I can't count. The public dock is a very social place. It seems like every town person visits the dock every day to see who is there, and many of them are sailors. We met Dave and Jackie who have a big trawler. They are heading for Fort Pierce and we made a date to visit them there when we pass through. We also met Scott with a neat South African Catamaran. We also met Tim who was familiar with Tarwathie and was onboard her in the Bahamas when she was owned by Al Hatch.

Just now we returned from a musical jam session at Bean's, a coffee shop just 20 meters away from us.

Before coming here, we had a great two days in New Bern. We were even tempted to sign up for a month at the Sheraton Hotel's very reasonable marina, but alas, they were sold out.



In New Bern, we met some new friends, Dave and Hilde on SV Raven. They, like us, are just getting used to the cruising life style. They, like us, sailed in Penobscot Bay Maine and they spent a week in Rockland Harbor. They started out from Kemah Texas (Kemah seems like the only place in Texas that has sailboats.) When we went to Beans tonight to hear the music, the first people we met inside the door were Dave and Hilde.

There is a man who runs a web site here. He writes stories about the people who tie up at the public dock. I recommend the story about the poor hapless man on Caryatid. It is a gem of a story.