[Rhodes22-list] good place to launch on Pamlico?

[Joe Babb]

Hi Mike,
Just happened to check the list.  I've been out of pocket lately with 
work and all.

There is a good launch site in Oriental.  Public ramp is called Smith 
Creek.  Search on the web to look for public
launch ramps in North Carolina.  There's lots of parking space and as 
long as you leave your vehicle attached to your
trailer it's okay to leave it there for several days.  We contacted the 
folks that operate the public ramps and got a form
to fill out to leave on the dashboard so that nobody thought we'd gone 
missing.  Not sure that's really necessary.
Oriental bills itself as very friendly place, and we can vouch for 
that.  We got there late on a Saturday and didn't want to rig and launch 
but all hotels were full due to people bringing kids to camp.  One of 
the hotels let us park in their lot and sleep in the boat.  It turns out 
that we could have stayed in the lot at the Smith Creek Ramp but we 
didn't know.
Oriental Marina is fantastic.  Nice hot showers, swimming pool, $1.75 
per foot per night when we were there last July.  They have a laundry on 
site.  Beware that the grocery store is better than one mile from the 
marina.  But on our hike to the store a nice lady stopped and gave us a 
ride.  There's a good chandlery close to the marina.  It's a boating 
town.  Eat at M&M's, great food.  The Bean has great coffee right across 
from the marina.  We anchored out in the upper reaches of Smith Creek 
one night.  We sailed some in the sound outside of Oriental, then 
motored down Adams creek to Beaufort, anchoring overnight in Back 
Creek.  The only bad thing about the trip was that our old Yamaha  9.9 
died and started pumping oil into it's cooling water on the way back to 
Oriental.  So we ended up getting towed back to Oriental.  Fortunately, 
we had taken the advice to join Boat US and get unlimited towing and 
fortunately we had VHF radio with masthead antenna so they could hear us 
from Back Creek.  If you go in the hot weather like we did in July, 
watch out for thunderstorms.  We spent a wild night on Back Creek during 
one spectacular storm. 
Hope this helps.  I'll try to check the list more often if you have more 
questions. 
Oh yeah, the biggest danger I noted when in Beaufort was from the big 
boats that didn't always appear to pay attention to where they were 
going. *grin*
Next time, I think we are going to tow all the way to Beaufort to 
launch.  There's a good public ramp there also.  Beaufort Docks are 
pretty expensive but you can anchor in Taylor Creek opposite for nothing.
Joe