You’ve already heard about our harrowing welcome to New Bern (if not, you’ll want to read this). That aside, we were determined not to let it ruin our experience. Surprisingly, the only real damage was a torn zipper on the bimini (which can be easily repaired) and an oar that was knocked out of its cradle on the dinghy. The week was incredibly hot (mid-90s), and weather remained volatile. Thursday night came with severe storm warnings for the next county over, so we let out 10:1 scope, pulled out all the safety gear (that I’d JUST put away that morning), put away the bimini and secured Squall on the davits. It was like Mother Nature was testing us – since we were prepared this time, the storms weakened as they approached and passed north of us.
New Bern was the first capitol of North Carolina, and Pepsi Cola was created here. The town is adorable with lots of little shops and nice restaurants, and we made sure to sample some of the local cuisine. We celebrated surviving the storm with a less-than-healthy but totally delicious breakfast at the Country Biscuit, had a nice dinner at Persimmon, celebrated our 20th anniversary at Cypress Hall (one of the best meals we’ve had in a while – house-made squid ink pasta, ricotta gnudi (paired with an orange wine, which was a totally new one for me!) and a incredible strawberry cake for dessert) and had biscuits and gravy at Baker’s Kitchen.
Another great find was Mitchell Hardware – a truly old-school hardware store/country store where you can pick up local jam, candy, a variety of baking pans, a machete, one of those cool zapper/fly swatters, and seeds for your garden. I LOVE hardware stores like that – they remind me of being a kid, before the big box stores took over.
I was also able to take care of a few errands: a trip to West Marine was in order, and since Harris Teeter was next door, I did a provisioning run. I’d never been into a Harris Teeter before, and it was one of the rare grocery stores I actually enjoyed. They had a HUGE beer and wine section and I was finally able to find the dried mango that I’ve been hunting for ever since Blaine got me hooked on our offshore run. I may have gone slightly overboard and ended up with WAY too much to haul back to the boat by myself.
New Bern is a bit off the beaten path – about 20 miles up the Neuse River from Oriental, but if you’re running the ICW, it’s absolutely worth the detour. So many cruisers we’ve chatted with recommended it, and I’m so glad we listened – we really enjoyed our stay!
