Blues, haints and bayous: snippets from the Deep South: Ancient treasures, me hearties!

We clung to the coast heading north following the waterways that would have been a haven for the piratical Blackbeard in his day. On many of these inlets he would have moored his ship, traded his stolen goods, and let his men loose for a little rest and relaxation after pillaging times on the high seas.

This oak tree in Wilmington would have been there to greet him. Today it is spreading its largest branches shading some 72 feet, and is over a thousand years old. Healthy now, venerable even then. Close by, is a pretty shingle church, likely newer than any there in Blackbeard’s day, but he would have been impressed with the flowing purple colours decorating it at this time. Kingly. The colours they wrapped the bloodied body of Christ when they jammed a crown of thorns on his head, mocking him as the king of the Jews, as they prepared to crucify him to a cross. Lenten colours, today. Blackbeard wore such colours. Royal for stature. Crimson coats. Braids of gold. He knew how to add to his power and enhance his reputation around and amongst these coastal communities.

Up past the long stretches of high rises, mini-golf courses, and tacky amusement parks of the Myrtle Beach developments we drove. Ugly today. They reminded us of Southport along Queensland’s coast some twenty or thirty years past. It was likely much nicer here when Edward Teach was around, when all of this did not exist. Our lunch stop at Fishy Fishy at Southport was all we might have longed for. Sitting right on the waterfront for once. Finding access. And fish fresh from the sea, not tampered with, perfect. Not much different than from the deck of a pirate ship, most likely.

New Bern, deeper into North Carolina, was settled by Swiss immigrants, around Blackbeard’s time in the early 1700s. The Swiss, too, came by sea, unloading their possessions and starting a new life in a new land, but they remember their heritage, in historical murals etched to their town walls.

Here, we drank great coffee in what looked like an old foundry and chatted about music and modern day political pirates with grumpy old men propping up a counter at the Trent River Coffee Company and had a wonderful time. They were telling us that they’d heard their community had some 250 establishments classified as churches. And as it just happened to be a Sunday this reminded us to do our church count on our Sat Nav. When we did we found more churches in the immediate surrounds of New Bern than in any other state, enroute, that we have counted so far. An extraordinary number. Fifty churches in just 1.7 miles radius. The coffee guys reminded us that these were tax exempt establishments. Ahh, that makes sense of the numbers. But 250 is extraordinary by any standards. In a town of barely 30,000 inhabitants.

Even when we stayed with friends in Belhaven for a few days we were able to keep our eyes on the waterway as their front deck overlooks the water exactly where the Pantego Creek meshes with the Pungo River, brimming with fish fit enough for a pirate feast. Liquid blue and gorgeous. I could not get enough of it.

Not twenty miles away in Bath, they showed us where Blackbeard decided to throw in his life on the high seas, accept a pardon, and set himself up with his fourteenth wife, a local maiden, Mary Ormand, the daughter of a plantation owner. He had his friend Governor Eden marry them here, and feast Blackbeard did. But their wedded bliss did not last terribly long. It is said that he handed poor Mary over to his crew as he tired of her.

Nor did his life stay quiet. He soon forgot his pardon, bedecking himself in his pirate rags, and wheeled his ship back into the spirited life on the high seas. Life was too short to be a landlubber. Twisting strands of hemp together he would braid it into the hair of his beard and his head, leaving long strands of it to escape from under his hat. He would then set a flaming match to his hemp braids and face his enemy, with his eyes glowing, his beard and hat a’smoking. Terrifying the wits out of them.

Bath, today, is a peaceful place without him. Though his memory lives on in its great little museum. Belhaven, too, is quiet, a retired person’s paradise. Small and quaint, its busy little community is now filled with generous folk working hard to keep their town’s facilities functioning and useful for all. Just now, everywhere in Belhaven is white and pink and red. Petals from dogwood and flowering fruit trees are falling like pink and white confetti. Against the blue sky and the blue water it is simply sensational.

One of its remaining shops, an old and charming trove of treasures on the outskirts is one of the towns many hubs, where locals gather to chew the cud and set the world to rights. The store sits beside one of the prettiest churches in the community. Its green painted steeple looking like something out of a Nordic fairy tale. The store and church have been in this exact spot for nearly 100 years.

At Oden’s store, everyone who enters stays warm in winter, their Windsor chairs set to hugging the great kero chimney heater at the very heart of the store. On all sides they are surrounded by goods that likely came downriver with Linda’s grandfather at the turn of last century when he took his boat upstream to Boston to gather supplies. Before roads. Added to which there are old Pepsi syrup bottles, Depression glassware, white slipware, Retro Esso signs, one pocked with Linda's buckshot, coloured pharmaceutical bottles, and newspapers from an age ago. It is all so utterly charming, so very welcoming, and like something straight out of a homespun southern movie. A special place. A rarity.

Here be ancient treasures, me hearties! Avast!