Beaufort Trip

Well, this trip turned out to be a little different from our original plan. We were going with my friend Brad, his wife Sherri, and the two kids Jocie (1), and Shane (4). We started out on Thurs. night around seven and planned on getting there around one or two in the morning. About two hours down the road Brad had an anxiety attack and after about an hour and a half of sitting in McDonalds parking lot, he decided he was going home. So Briana and I packed our luggage in their exterra Sherrie rode in the back between the kids and we finally arrived around four a.m. Needless to say I was not happy at all.

At seven a.m. we got up and hit the beach. We went to Fort Macon National Park to swim. It was much quieter and less people there than it was at Atlantic Beach.

My lemon shark I caught

Josie and Shane

The Beach was fun. On Sat. we hopped a ferry over to Cape Lookout to see the lighthouse.

Josie would not go near the water with anyone except me. We played "pet the water."

We spent the day fishing and swimming. On the way back our ferry boat captain took us by Shackleford Island to see the wild horses that were grazing by the water. These horses have been on these islands since the first settlers came ashore. They are descendants of the horses that survived the many ship wrecks around the islands and shoals.

Sunday we went to visit Fort Macon and saw a original civil war rifle demonstration. The fort was eventually taken over by the union. It was also used during WW2 to fire on German U-boats.

Then it was back to the beach for more swimming and whatever.

After all that Briana and I decided we needed some time to our selves. So we went out to the water front to visit the Maritime Museum. We also went to an old graveyard that had graves of revolutionary war and civil war troops. We saw a grave of a little girl who was born in Beaufort but wanted to see her homeland. So her dad agreed to let her go with him to England. He promised her mother that he would bring her back safe. However, on the way home the girl died during a storm at sea. She was going to be buried at sea but the father told mother that he would bring her back, so he bought a rum keg from the captain and buried her in the rum keg in Beaufort. Nobody knew her name but she was four years old.

During our walk around the waterfront I was seized by the local militia and thrown into the stocks. Luckily I was rescued from the gallows thanks to my fellow mutineers. The rest of the night was spent relaxing on the docks.

Afterwards we loaded up the kids and went to eat by the docks. We spent the rest of the evening on the docks watching the sunset.

All and all we had a good time we were both aggravated about brad not going, but the kids had fun. The only thing was that Briana and I did not get many pictures of us because Sherri did not take any. So we ended up using most of the pictures on them. We did manage to take a few as we said goodbye to the beach Monday morning. I went out for a little "man time" which consisted of fishing in the sound. I ended up catching a three foot sand shark but of course I didn't bring the camera. It was a good thing though because I was fishing in total darkness as I brought the shark up, I couldn't get the hook out. So I spent thirty minutes trying not to get my fingers bitten off. I'm ready to go back. The house we stayed at was a three bedroom one bath for fifty a night. It was nicely located about a ten minute walk from the waterfront.

Before we left we noticed a coast guard patrol boat cruising just off shore there was also a marine helicopter running a search pattern. We asked one of the life guards what they were looking for, he said that a 17 year old drowned the night before and they were looking for him. Of course we didn't tell the kids that!