"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in
its net of wonder forever."—Jacques Cousteau

May 21 – Manteo, NC

Manteo City Free Dock

It was nice to sleep in this morning and enjoy a day of exploring. We’re in Manteo, which is a charming little town that wraps around Shallowbag Bay on the eastern side of Roanoke Island, which is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks. The town is full of history and best known for the long running production of The Lost Colony, which is the true story of America’s first English Colony. Unfortunately we were about a week too early to catch a performance. We did ride our bikes through Festival Park that is located across from the marina and then through the historic area of Manteo along the water. We walked through the Roanoke Island Maritime Museum and the lighthouse, where we learned about the boats that were made in this part of North Carolina.

It was a pretty day, so we sat outside at a little local brewery named Full Moon Cafe for lunch. The beer and wraps were good and it was fun to do a little people watching. It may not sound exciting, but I also got to do a few loads of wash this afternoon. You can’t fully appreciate how wonderful clean towels and sheets are if you have a washer and dryer at your disposal…just waiting to be used. When you live on a boat our size, it’s a wonderful feeling to have everything clean and fresh. The town of Manteo provides free dock space for cruisers, so we pay the town back by spending money…so in a way it’s a good trade off. Wanting to do our part of spreading the wealth, we had dinner at Ortegaz, the dockmaster said it was Tex-Mex…I’m pretty sure he’s never had Tex-Mex. There was very little Mexican food on the menu, but our meals were good and I didn’t have to cook. Tomorrow we will cross the Albemarle Sound and be back at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Virginia.

A view of the marsh from Festival Park
A view of the lighthouse from the Maritime Museum 
A view of The Pearl and part of the waterfront

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