June 19, 2012 / M.E.

Beaufort. North Carolina

Anchorage, Backstreet Pub, Beaufort, Big Rock Marlin Tournament, Fish Tales, North Carolina, Tiki Hut

So much has been going on! Let me re-cap for a second on the highlights of the past few days!

We arrived in Beaufort, North Carolina on Saturday afternoon and as it was a beautiful day outside, everyone was out on the water and along the beaches. It was the last day for the Big Rock Marlin Tournament, so there were tons of boats and people in town. We anchored the boat out at the end of the anchorage and made some shrimp pasta with artichokes, olives and feta for dinner. We dinghied in to town to listen to a band play at the Dockhouse Restaurant for the last night of the tournament. People spent time dancing and mingling on the boardwalk in the cool evening.

A beautiful boat that passed us on our way to Beaufort, North Carolina

Nightfall at the anchorage in Beaufort

On Sunday, we walked around town and looked at all of the old homes. Each house has a sign that designates who built the home and many homes had lovely, little gardens full of colorful flowers. We also stopped by a nautical bookstore named, Scuttlebutt, on Front Street that had tons of books on sailing and boating. It was interesting to see how many books there are just on adventuring the water by boat.

On our way back to the boat, we got to see the first of what has become a daily routine of seeing the wild, Banker horses on Carrot Island. The horses supposedly came here in the 1940’s from one of the other Outer Banks islands but they originated from Spanish shipwrecks back during the time of explorations.

Scenes from Beaufort, North Carolina

That night, we found a cool, little, brick building called Backstreet Pub that we stopped in at to have a drink. The building that Backstreet is in used to be the old bakery back in the day and the ovens are still intact in the walls. It’s a small pub but very cozy with a nice courtyard in the back. The building itself seemed like something that could have come out of Harry Potter. They have books lining the walls and nautical flags and life rings for decor. It’s such a unique place that Garden and Gun magazine named it one of the best bars in the South!

Scenes from Backstreet Pub

At Backstreet, we befriended a guy named, Antonio, who invited us to a raft-up the next day with some of his friends. On Monday, the tide didn’t make the raft-up happen but we ended up hanging out with Antonio and his friends on the front porch of his house. It was a perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon just sitting in rocking chairs watching all the people walk around on Front Street. Around sunset, Antonio decided to introduce us to the Tiki Hut at Fish Tales, a fun and colorful place with lots of nice people. We got to see a beautiful sunset and make some new friends. Just another good day as a cruiser!