Easy day today. Up with the sun at around 07:00 and a leisurely breakfast of granola and yogurt. At 08:00 sharp the dock hands arrive at the Harbourgate Marina allowing us to take on fuel and pay our bill for the overnight stay. That done, we resumed our northeastward progress under clear, sunny skies in moderate temperatures, and by 09:00 we had entered North Carolina at last. We were not really looking forward to this stretch of the ICW, because it traverses several inlets to the ocean which tend to shoal very badly, and low tide would be around noon. But as we left South Carolina we were treated to a couple of dragon boats practicing for an upcoming competition. These are large canoes, similar in many ways to racing shells, manned by 10 pairs of paddlers, and the point is to go as fast as possible to beat a competing boat in a heat. As they sped by, it seemed as though they would pass us if they were traveling in the same direction.
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| Shallow water stations |
Shortly after entering NC, we came to our first inlet with a reputation for bad shoaling, Shallotte Inlet. So we slowed down and Peter steered between the buoys while Lyn watched the depth gauge and reported changes to Peter. Kite stayed in the middle of the channel and the minimum depth was 10 feet, so no worries, and we heaved a sigh of relief. Soon after we started we had been passed by "Royal Serf" a sailboat that had stayed with us in Port Royal Marina, and left the same day and time that we left for Charleston. We radioed to them to let us know the depths as they passed through the inlets, and they agreed to do it. Soon we heard from them that a boat was aground leaving the area of Shallotte Inlet, and that they had seen 7 foot depth. Soon, we came around the bend and saw the boat aground and took up our shallow water stations, Peter steering and Lyn calling out depths. We stayed in the middle of the channel and never saw anything below 12 feet. The boat aground had strayed several yards out of the channel and was laying over on its side, so it would need high tide before it could be towed into deeper water.
The next excitement came 2 hours later in Lockwood Folly, another inlet. The time was 12:00 and we heard on the radio that Royal Serf had gone aground in the channel. As we approached we saw Royal Serf in the channel but not moving at all. Low tide was supposed to be at 12:30, and we would get there at exactly 12:30. So we decided to wait for 15 or 20 minutes to see if Royal Serf would float off as the tide came in. We radioed them, and it turned out that they had radioed a towboat service to help them get free. After waiting, we decided to go ahead very slowly, carefully watching the depth, and back down if it got below 4.5 feet, the depth of Kite's keel. We crawled by Royal Serf, noting depths of 5 feet and even 4.9 feet before the water started to get deeper about 100 yards or so beyond where Royal Serf was stuck. After
that excitement, we felt glad to have had someone else to find the shallow
water for us.
As
the afternoon developed we heard from Royal Serf about an hour later that they
had been successfully towed off the shoal and were again underway a few miles
behind us. We had planned to continue
all the way to Wrightsville Beach, arriving around 18:00 to 19:00, but we heard
from Royal Serf that they were going to spend the night at Southport Marina. We were about an hour from that marina, and
thought that sounded better than another long day and an anchorage. So we radioed Royal Serf, telling them that
we had decided to stay at Southport Marina too and would like to get to meet
them in person after they arrived. We
agreed to meet on the docks and find a restaurant for dinner together. We arrived at Southport Marina around 14:00 and shortly after we got settled, Royal Serf pulled into the marina. At dinner we learned that the captain of
Royal Serf, Fred Drummond, lives in Virginia Beach, VA and was moving his boat home
from Stuart, FL. He has made this trip
more than 10 times!
You guys sure look tan! (I'm in Maine, 18.7°F Saturday morning with the sun shining.) That cold did give us the clear skies that let me finally see the comet next to Andromeda.
ReplyDeleteThe dragon boat was great to see on video, the coxswain must be saying "stoke, stroke". They would get their arm chopped off if they got out of step. We have a few "war canoes" in Maine that hold large crowds, but no one paddles like that and they have no rudder.
You must have really calibrated your depth gage, distinguishing 4.9 from 4.5 ft.! Glad you mentioned your draft, you must have the wing keel. I like the way your keel projects below the wing on the drawing I saw. That way you can touch bottom without touching the wing. We have a Hunter with a wing, but the wing is on the extreme bottom of the keel. That may be more efficient for reducing tip vorticity, but it looks like it would act like an anchor if it hit bottom. Normally heeling the boat over would lessen the draft and possible free the boat, with ours it would set the wing firmly into the mud! But I really like the way having a wing resists up and down motion, we flatten our way through waves instead of hobby horsing on them like our more beautiful "classic" style boat.
Question, how do you deal with Cape Hatteras? Is there an ICW inside track, or do you have to go out around it?
Actually our wing keel is just like yours, flat on the bottom. The Catalina picture shows both options (fin and wing) superimposed so it is easy to mistake the actual shape. My depth gauge is calibrated. Our first trip aboard Kite was to the northern Bahamas - the Abaco islands. Most of the water there is very shallow and we learned from a few soft groundings there where the bottom really is.
DeleteCape Hatteras? We avoid it. Coming up from the south, there is Beaufort inlet just west of Cape Lookout, which joins the ICW at about mile 200. It fact we just arrived there about 3 hours ago! From here we will continue north in the ICW, which travels along rivers and inland sounds in the low country of eastern North Carolina and emerges into Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk, VA.