Walked up town for breakfast to Yana’s. Yesterday on our walk we passed it and it looked like a “must see”. It only offers breakfast/lunch and was already closed for the day.
What a fun place!! And good chow to boot. The jukebox was flipping 45’s so we listened to the King singing Jail House Rock and ate biscuits. Can starting out the day get any better?
There was so much fun memorabilia in this place! Take a look at this. It’s the star at the top of the tree. The walls were covered with photos of cars from the 50’s, movie stars and movie posters.
Of course the locals can’t help but wonder who the heck that ninny is running around taking pictures. So usually someone asks and we have a fun conversation. Met a nice couple sitting in the booth by the Christmas tree.
This Jaguar was parked opposite the café. Click on the photo to enlarge it and check out the vanity plate. I’m thinking Yana does okay with the place.
Walking back to the boat we overheard locals greeting one another as they passed. A couple responses we heard to “how ya doin”? were “better than a man’s kitten” and “finer than frogs hair”.
We traveled today to Beaufort, N.C. where we will stay for 2 days.
We walked to the North Carolina Maritime Museum. It had excellent displays. There were displays about Blackbeard the pirate, the history of seafaring in this area and the ecology of the area.
Blackbeard ran his flag-ship, QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE, aground in the inlet to Beaufort. He marooned his crew here and abandoned them. (nice guy!) The crew was captured and hung. Many items are on display that they have recovered from the ship. Blackbeard was eventually captured and killed. It was a very brutal time in history. They cut off his head and made a drinking vessel using the top of his scull and then covering it in silver. This is a replica of it by the way.
There was a display on commercial fishing. Our guess was correct in what the men were doing a couple of days ago while wading out in the water. They were gathering clams and would have using one of these. A clamming claw.
We have seen many, many dolphins on our journey. Thought it was interesting to see how they are constructed on the inside.
Across the street was a building where you could observe traditional coastal wooden boat building.
We wandered up the street and came upon the Old Burying Ground. It maybe seems morbid to some our interest in cemeteries, but we view them as the real museums. These people are the true history, not the buildings and forts they left behind. It is probably one of the most beautiful cemeteries we have walked through. No straight rows of stones as they were buried around the Live Oaks. The Live Oak trees have an oval shaped rather thick leaf. They don’t look at all like oak leaves back home. The ground is covered with a thick layer of the dried leaves so there is very little grass. Wisteria vines grew up many of the trunks of the trees.
Many people were wandering through the cemetery. One of them gave us a tour map as they were leaving. We walked to each of the stones listed and Ross read the story a loud. None of them were huge historical figures, just people with their own story. These two stones are Sarah and Jacob. Married in the mid 1700’s. Hubby went off to sea not to return and presumed dead. Sarah remarried (to Nathaniel) and they had a child. Years later shipwrecked Jacob returned to find Sarah remarried. The men agreed Sarah would live out her life with Nathaniel but spend eternity at the side of Jacob.
This marker is for a man whose parents arrived in America on the MAYFLOWER.
This stone is for Captain John Hill. His son had this inscribed on the stone:
“The form that fills this silent grave
Once tossed on ocean’s rolling wave,
But in a port securely fast,
He’s dropped his anchor here at last.”
This one is a bit disturbing. The marker reads Little Girl in Rum Keg. We noticed beads and trinkets on this grave and other graves of children. It must be a local tradition. I’ll have to ask someone.
Her story is she came to Beaufort from England as an infant with her parents. She grew up and wanted to see her homeland so her father took her, promising his wife they would return. The girl died on the return trip from London. The father had promised to bring her back so rather than allow a burial at sea, he purchased a keg of rum from the captain. Her body was placed in it to preserve it, and he brought her home to Beaufort.
This one gets the prize for fanciest marker. It’s captain Otway Burns. The cannon is one off his ship.
This one creeped me out of bit as Nancy L. is my name!! Nancy’s story is legendary. She fell in love with her tutor, Charles. Her father opposed the romance so Charles went away to make his fortune, promising to return for Nancy. Unbeknownst to Nancy and Charles, the local postmaster, a friend of Nancy’s father, intercepted all correspondence between the two. Before he died, his guilty conscience led him to confess this to Nancy. As an old man, Charles, still not able to forget Nancy, returned to Beaufort. He found she had never married and she was still in love with him. He also discovered she was dying of “consumption”. They married and Nancy died several weeks later.
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