have to strip down to the basics. Life 

 becomes a matter of finding milk, bread 

 and a good laundry." 



Of 



'f course, we aren't traveling in 

 such luxury as the Tockwaugh but 

 nonetheless there is something decadent 

 about a days-long boat ride over open 

 water, especially when it comes during 



again, the world is instantly transformed 

 from open sea and sky to narrow creek, 

 where crab pots are stacked on spits of 

 green marsh, awaiting orders. At the 

 R.E. Mayo fish house in Hobucken, a 

 rambling aluminum-sided structure 

 looming over the waterway, puppy 

 drum sell for $1.50 a pound and gallons 

 of gas for just over a buck, so we fill our 



The Intracoastal Waterway is a main artery for East Coast shipping. 



the workweek. We cross the mouth of 

 the Pamlico River, the eastern horizon 

 invisible as a dense haze erases the line 

 between sea and sky. The boat motor 

 thrums against the soles of my feet, the 

 soft thud and thunk of swells against the 

 hull nearly lulling me to sleep. My brain 

 dials down to idle, with just enough 

 output to keep the lungs working, keep 

 the knees bent just-so to absorb the 

 occasional swell. Bliss. 



Off the shore of Goose Creek 

 Island we find channel marker 1 and 

 thread the shoals along Reed Hammock 

 into the mouth of Goose Creek. Once 



tanks and gab about the store's collec- 

 tion of mounted deer heads and 

 selection of fishers' gloves. 



Just this morning in Belhaven, I 

 read an interview with a Goose Creek 

 Islander in the Raleigh News & Ob- 

 server. Odell Spain was an oysterman 

 who grew up and fished in Hobucken. 

 He was the last male descendant of 200 

 years' worth of Spains to live in the 

 area. Hobucken was once a vibrant 

 fishing center, but no more. "I'm sad 

 when I see these old homes that were 

 once full of people, and all the families 

 is gone," Spain told historian David 



Cecelski. "Even the homes is gone. 

 We're going downhill." 



To be sure, there isn't much traffic 

 at Mayo's, but the lady behind the 

 counter is full of laughter. I leave 

 hoping such a disposition will help 

 sustain the waterway landmark, but the 

 empty parking lot and lifeless docks are 

 hardly positive signs. 



As we pull away 

 from the gas dock, we 

 putter past a sleek, 

 pencil-thin sailboat. I 

 have learned on these 

 waterway cruises that 

 when you are on a boat, 

 all other boats become 

 objects of intense 

 scrutiny. To outsiders, 

 this has all the appear- 

 ances of envy, and 

 sometimes it is 

 precisely that. Most 

 times, though, it is just 

 a kind of deep interest 

 in all things floating. 

 We parse the sailboat's 

 lines, wonder what it 

 would be like to take on 

 heavy seas in the boat, 

 how the decks would 

 fare in rollers. 



The owner sticks 

 his head out of a hatch 

 and says, "1904!" just 

 loud enough for us to 

 hear, knowing that we 

 are smitten by his craft. In the small 

 creek nearby we slow to study the flared 

 bow of a small wooden trawler and 

 wonder if she was built in some 

 waterman's back yard up Snode Creek 

 or Mill Seat Landing. Not many boats 

 like her are around, and few new ones 

 to take her place. 



From Hobucken, the waterway 

 courses a few miles farther down a 

 man-made canal, then pours into the 

 estuarine waters of the Bay River. But 

 two miles wide, such protected waters 

 can be deceiving. Once, on a run down 

 the waterway where it bisects Currituck 



12 WINTER 1999 



