Beaufort, NC - my new favorite!

The City Marina is located in front of downtown Beaufort, NC. A really nice anchorage is located directly across from the docks on Taylor Creek.




Downtown Beaufort is charming with many good restaurants.





The Old Burial Yard has graves from the 1700's. It is sad to see how many children died at young ages. Not unusual to see 4 or more children graves for one family.

Many Confederate soldiers are buried in this cemetery.

Mohring Group provided the materials for the competition. During the event, they displayed their beautiful marine wood products.

As part of the National Boat Building Challenge, the wooden boat school hired this gentleman to explain how he creates ships in the bottle. He showed us how he had squeezed the ship into the bottle with lines attached to the masts. He labeled the lines so he could pull the masts up in the correct order.

Beaufort, NC hosted the 4th Annual National Boat Building Challenge. Challenges are currently being held annually in Belfast, ME, Georgetown, SC & Beaufort, NC. The top three teams from each challenge were invited to compete for the national title at this show.

The boat being built for this challenge was the Carolina Bateau. The first boat was completed in 2 hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds. There was a separate competition for high school teams. The high school students had a coach giving them advice, but they did all the work themselves.

The two members of this team were finish carpenters and their boat was gorgeous.

The winning team was a husband/wife team. They not only built a great boat, but they had obviously practiced rowing so that they could perform on all fronts!

Bagpipes played music before the start of the competition.

After the boats were completed, the carpenters had to race with each member rowing to a point and rowing back. High Spirits was docked immediately on the  race course. We were on the same dock and we joined Ruth and Wayne along with their friends Jay, Lori and their granddaughter, Emerson to watch the race.

Some of the carpenters need lessons in rowing! The biggest problem happened to be the oars and oar locks. The oars were made before the competition or could be purchased. Some were beautiful and made of wood and epoxy. Not everyone knew how to use the oars! Since the boats were glued, there was little time for the glue to set.  Not good!

Jay, Lori and Emerson from Greenville, NC. Jay and Lori are doing the Great Loop over a 5 year period. Their boat is up on the hard (our way for saying the boat is out of the water on blocks being stored) in Charlevoix. In August they will return and complete more of the Loop. Jay is still working and takes two months off to complete part of the Loop.

Along with Ruth and Wayne from High Spirits, we visited Jay and Lorie's second home in Morehead City. Beautiful home overlooking a canal near the River.

I wasn't doing a great job taking pictures at his point as we picked strawberries at a wonderful strawberry patch. They were delicious. Jay and Lori drove us around the are in their Expedition. Room for all!

Jay and Lori drove us to this store. Right up our alley!

Parts were laying all over the floor and were disorganized. Makes it fun to look for something you need!

We visited Fort Macon located nearby. Along the way we hav e learned about the "War between the States" and "The War of Northern Aggression". Rarely is the war called The Civil War. This fort was built after the War of 1812. Our Canadian friends have informed us the War of 1812 was  started by the Americans against THEM! Guess we never thought of it that way!

There is a large area between the outer most wall and the fort which could be flooded to be a moat. They were able to pump water in and out from the sea.

Each of these pins was topped with a cannon. The points on the outer row were used to point the cannon.

Looks like a cannon fired from this point!

There were varied cannons around the grounds.

My Mother asked for a picture of me, since as the photographer there are not many!

Our guide weilded a cane and explained the intricacies of the Fort. He had grown up nearby.

Fort Macon overlooks this beach.

We walked the beach and enjoyed the view of Beaufort.

We are really grateful to Lori and Jay Branch for showing us Beaufort. As you can see, we loved Beaufort....NC!