Weekend Visiting in Oriental, NC
Oriental is the sailing capital of North Carolina. Though it is part of the New Bern Micropolitan Statistical Area (I didn’t make that up) it is located on the Intracoastal Waterway, hidden in the inner banks with several creeks, the Neuse River and Pamlico Sound conveniently providing breeze to fill the sails year round. This also affords cruising, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, and racing regattas.
The small town consists of specialty shops, services, and a history museum where visitors can learn about the sinking of the good ship Oriental, see the first movie theatre projector and buy t-shirts for the upcoming Croaker Festival. There is a dragon run event on New Year’s Eve and an annual Dragon Boat Race. Last week was the Blueberry Festival. Many of the local people are farmers providing the aforementioned blueberries, and currently corn, corn, and more corn. At least one of the growers provides corn for churches to give away to those who can use it.
I love this town and the lovely people I’ve met here. This is the new home of our oldest daughter and our son-in-law, who like to sail and hope to open a bakery here. We are staying in the carriage house of one of the neighbors. Carriage houses are popular as guest houses here in River Dunes where they live. Great architecture; cute, very useable spaces.
Sunday afternoon her book club met and discussed my book Rock & a Hard Place, A Lithuanian Love Story. They had all read it and wanted to talk about it. I’m so pleased they all “loved” it, bought extra copies to give away, and said such nice things about the content. They bought several other books as well.
Saturday I took my book and pony show to the Pamlico County Library to meet with homeschool families and young library patrons in the kids’ library. We made some crafts and talked about the books, and had a wonderful lunch.
Coastal sunrises and sunsets are events, but this was a cloudy and rainy few days. I hope to see a brilliant sunrise before we leave Oriental. If you enjoy water sports, particularly sailing, you might want to give this place a try. I think you’ll like it.