Beaufort, NC

Overnight a cold front came through so we awoke to a bright, sunny and coolish day  - nice!

Today we were going to explore the town and the Carrot Island reserve. Before we did, however, I needed an hour or so to do something for my client, so Sue offered to use the courtesy car provided by the Marina to make a grocery run. We had discovered that the bilge's float switch had died, so she was also going to stop at a local marine shop to pick one up. Sue returned with the food but no switch -- the store was out of them -- this meant a longer ride over the bridge to another marine supplier in Morehead City, Beaufort's sister city.

I was done working, so I took the ride with Sue. The courtesy car was a 90's era Buick Road Master station wagon -- indeed, the Marina had a fleet of 3 of these behemoths (apparently the Marina's manager is "fond" of these vehicles -- indeed, we were told that he liked them so much, he bought one of the cars intended for the fleet for himself -- go figure). It had a noisy, barely working air conditioner, but otherwise worked -- it got us there an back -- it's really helpful when Marina's have loaner cars.

After lunch (and installing the new switch), we took a water ferry over to Carrot Island. One of two Islands between Beaufort and the Atlantic, it has been set aside as a nature reserve named after Rachel Carlson (wrote Silent Spring) who did field research there. We spent the next few hours walking through salt marshes and swimming off the Island's beaches -- we saw the feral horses as well as zillions of fiddler crabs, periwinkles, mud snails, ibis, blue heron, gulls and the like -- a nice way to spend a beautiful day.

The reserve has two nature trails -- we took the one through the marshes.

There were zillions of fiddler crabs everywhere -- the would evacuate the trail as we approached

The periwinkle snails were all over the marsh grass

A feral horse, evidently a male, staring intently at ......

A comely feral female

Whaddya expect, we were walking though a marsh !!

The ibis wouldn't let us get very close

The requisite random flower picture

Of course, we weren't the only people on the Island -- the ferry runs about once an hour and took perhaps 10-15 people at a time -- you spread out, but there are always other people in sight. While swimming, we ran into a local mom who had brought her two small children over for the afternoon. Sue got to talking to her and asked her for some recommendations for dinner -- we were planning to eat out -- she gave us two places, on a side street and next to one another -- and indicated that they were both great.

On the beach for a swim

Later that evening, we took a walk up to the restaurants, planning on checking out the menus and picking one for dinner. Not so fast -- the first, called the Grocery Store, was by reservation only -- they "might" have a table for us in an "hour or so". It looked very nice, but we weren't in the mood to wait for an hour; fortunately, the second, the Blue Moon Cafe, was able to accommodate us at a bar table (they also were reservation only). Who knew that you couldn't get a seat at a decent restaurant in Beaufort on a Wednesday night? (By the way, as is our habit, we had drinks and appetizers -- the food was great -- we had a Shrimp and Mango over grits appetizer that was both unique and delicious.)