Monday, July 19, 1993

The wind's blowing about 20 knots out of the south today. To our surprise, the new anchor dragged about 100 yards. We didn't think we'd have that problem with a 75-pound anchor. Fortunately, there weren't any other boats around. We returned to our original position and re-anchored with more chain. This time we stayed put.
The sky was overcast all day, and the wind kept blowing. There were a few little sprinkles of rain but no thunderstorms.
Around two, we paddled to shore. Wanted to see the town and buy a few groceries. Belhaven is another sleepy, quiet, peaceful village, not as wealthy as Oriental but with a lot of lovely old homes and large, green, shady yards just the same.
There is a marina not far from the boat with a little ramp just right for Royaks. They let us pull up there no charge and leave our Royaks on the lawn. The marina rents golf carts for only $2 to go shopping with. There is also a magnificent, porticoed old southern mansion with tall white pillars. Everything is in excellent condition.
We strolled uptown. Found an interesting museum. It housed the things a woman had collected over the decades. She lived to be 92, so there was a lot of stuff, mostly from the 1800's: clothes, kitchen utensils, farm implements, etc. There was even an original newspaper from April 15, 1865, headlining Lincoln's assassination.
When we left the museum, we went to an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, that actually had a soda fountain! We thought we'd gotten bargains in Oriental; here the sundaes were $1.19! And they must have had a pint of ice cream, crammed into very deep glass bowls. Boy, were they good!
It was another mile to the grocery store, so I talked Roy into going back to the marina and renting a golf cart. What a fun ride! We zipped down Main Street at 12 MPH. Bought a whole bunch of groceries. What luxury having the cart to take them back in instead of having to carry them!