. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. We set out one morning as my friend and boat owner (a lovely combination) Kevin Bellamy backs his runabout into the Alligator River at the Highway 64 bridge. We are bound for Beaufort, 120 water-miles distant. Our trip will take us from the mouth of the Alligator River to the headwaters of the Pungo, across Albemarle Sound and the Pamlico and down the Adams Creek-Core Creek Canal that connects the fresh water of the Neuse with the brine that flows past historic Beaufort. We have no set schedule but fo
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. We set out one morning as my friend and boat owner (a lovely combination) Kevin Bellamy backs his runabout into the Alligator River at the Highway 64 bridge. We are bound for Beaufort, 120 water-miles distant. Our trip will take us from the mouth of the Alligator River to the headwaters of the Pungo, across Albemarle Sound and the Pamlico and down the Adams Creek-Core Creek Canal that connects the fresh water of the Neuse with the brine that flows past historic Beaufort. We have no set schedule but for overnight berths. We have fair skies and the promise of following seas. And we have the good word of the Army. Corps of Engineers, the party responsible for the Intracoastal Waterway, that as long as we stay in the channel marked by the various official green and red markers, there will be plenty of water under the hull. So I should explain why we are searching for a way out of the famously well-maintained waterway channel 20 minutes after pulling away from the dock. I have heard of a water route from the river to the site of old Buffalo City, a turn-of- the-century lumber town deep in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Exploring such offbeat nooks and crannies is one of the charms of waterway cruising. but first we have to get through a stump- pocked shoreline and into the rarely plumbed waters of Milltail Creek. Bob Webster, a brawny Roanoke Islander with a salt-bleached cap and perpetual grin, guides us. We motor out of the waterway just south of day beacon 18 and ease our way toward shallow water and potential disaster. I scan the shoreline with binocu- lars while Webster searches for a small cleft in the trees, marked by an osprey nest high in an old snag he recalls from an earlier reconnaissance. We find it — hardly as wide as our boat is long — and hold our breath and trim the motor, knowing that at any moment the propeller could bury itself into a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
