We set out one morning as my friend 

 and boat owner (a lovely combination) 

 Kevin Bellamy backs his runabout into the 

 Alligator River at the U.S. Highway 64 

 bridge. We are bound for Beaufort, 120 

 water-miles distant. Our trip will take us 

 from the mouth of the Alligator River to 

 the headwaters of the Pungo, across 

 Albemarle Sound and the Pamlico and 

 down the Adams Creek-Core Creek Canal 

 that connects the fresh water of the Neuse 

 with the brine that flows past historic 

 Beaufort. We have no set schedule but for 

 overnight berths. We have fair skies and 

 the promise of following seas. And we 

 have the good word of the U.S. Army 



Corps of Engineers, the party responsible 

 for the Intracoastal Waterway, that as long 

 as we stay in the channel marked by the 

 various official green and red markers, 

 there will be plenty of water under the hull. 



So I should explain why we are 

 searching for a way out of the famously 

 well-maintained waterway channel 20 

 minutes after pulling away from the dock. I 

 have heard of a water route from the river 

 to the site of old Buffalo City, a turn-of- 

 the-century lumber town deep in the 

 Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. 

 Exploring such offbeat nooks and crannies 

 is one of the charms of waterway cruising. 



but first we have to get through a stump- 

 pocked shoreline and into the rarely 

 plumbed waters of Milltail Creek. Bob 

 Webster, a brawny Roanoke Islander with 

 a salt-bleached cap and perpetual grin, 

 guides us. We motor out of the waterway 

 just south of day beacon 1 8 and ease our 

 way toward shallow water and potential 

 disaster. I scan the shoreline with binocu- 

 lars while Webster searches for a small 

 cleft in the trees, marked by an osprey nest 

 high in an old snag he recalls from an 

 earlier reconnaissance. We find it — 

 hardly as wide as our boat is long — 

 and hold our breath and trim the motor, 

 knowing that at any moment the propeller 

 could bury itself 

 into a sunken log, 

 sandbar or 

 alligator. 



Then, like a 

 2,000-pound 

 canoe, our boat 

 drifts across the 

 shallow creek 

 mouth, through 

 the veil of pines 

 and cypress along 

 the shore and into 

 the placid waters 

 of Milltail Creek. 

 Trees clutch at our 

 craft from both 

 sides of the 

 channel, but when 

 I plunge a boat 

 paddle into the 

 tannin-stained 

 water, the bottom is still too far away to 

 touch. Bellamy drops the motor and we 

 cruise slowly through a canyon of dense 

 foliage. Butterflies flutter in front of the 

 boat. Paisleys of duckweed drift in the 

 channel. A kingfisher flits a few inches 

 from water like black ice, its own reflection 

 chasing it upstream. As we thread the 

 cypress-studded waters, I read aloud from 

 the Causing Guide to North Carolina: 

 "Milltail Creek is a rarely cruised stream 

 that should be entered only by the most 

 adventurous captains ... ." Bellamy grins 

 and guns the motor as great blue herons 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 7 



