Publish Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008
Location: Snow’s Cut, NC (where we began the day)
Coordinates: 37° 17′ N 76° 44′ W
Holy moly what a day! Without a doubt, today has been the most stressful day I’ve experienced underway. The weather has been poor for several days, and will continue to be for the next few days, so we have had to modify our plan and run inside versus in the ocean. Many boaters consider the stretch we just completed to be the most difficult part of the ICW. I have renamed it, The Gauntlet:
Freighter off our starboard side, in fog and rain on Cape Fear River.
-Beginning with the current running through the narrow Snow’s Cut, which then switches completely at the interesection of the Cape Fear River.
– Followed by Lockwoods Folly, known for groundings.
– Followed by Shallotte’s Inlet, known for groundings.
-Followed by the Rockpile, narrow part of the channel with current and hard shale sides and bottom.
If you have no time or desire to read on, the end of the story is we successfully navigated this area, and arrived at Barefoot Landing safe and sound. I just wish I had known that would be the end, at the begining. 🙂
Our guardian angel is Scott Bolger from the Nordhavn 40 Alanui, home port Seattle, Washington. Scott, and his wife Marian, navigated this same stretch the day before we did, and they called and emailed us detailed information about shoaling, tides and currents. Their information was invaluable, and we owe them big hugs and a great bottle of wine next time our paths cross.
Car ferry appears out of fog.
Based on their information and our research, Dave and I decided to leave before first light so we would make both shallow inlets at mid-tide giving us extra water underneath the boat. The tides are experiencing extremes, as we are at/near full moon, with an almost 6 foot tidal variation between high and low. Shortly after we pulled up our anchor in the dark, the skies opened up and rain begin to fall, the clouds were alight with lightening, and the visibility quickly dropped to less than a half mile. Snow’s Cut was fine, but arriving in the Cape Fear River under these conditions along with a freighter, certainly gave me pause. I tried to be relaxed and focused to help Dave with spotting markers, and traffic etc, but I fooled no one, I was scared. The water in the river was very active with current and wind at play. Briefly (due to visibility) we were able to see a large freighter in a parallel channel on an intercept course with us. We could also hear his radio transmission which I interpreted as, “I’m here, I have low visibility so stay out of my way”. All of this was helpful information, but not reassuring. I must tell you that Dave was cool and in control at all times. He trusted the boat, and its instruments to give him the data we needed to make good decisions. We successfully avoided the freighter giving him plenty of room. Near Bald Head Island we were a bit surprised by a large car ferry arriving out of the fog on our starboard quarter, but Dave had been monitoring it on radar. The hour and a half we spent on the Cape Fear River certainly lived up to it’s name for me, and I was supremely glad when we finally made the turn back on to “The Ditch” as the ICW is called by some.
The rain gave way mid-day, and visibility improved dramatically for picking our way across the two tricky inlets. We were very fortunate in both situations to have no other boats around us, and to have Scott’s great notes. In both inlets, we had less than 2 feet of water below us, which would have been impassable at low tide for us. An hour after we made it through the second inlet, we heard over the radio that 6 boats were aground at Shallotte’s Inlet and the Coast Guard was underway to help. The whole south bound ICW in this area was blocked for hours until the tide returned.
Last Pontoon Bridge on Atlantic portion of ICW.
Due to some strong current, we missed the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge (last bridge of its kind on the Atlantic part of the ICW) opening by 45 minutes, and had to slow way down so as not to have to hold at the bridge for too long. We transited the Rockpile at low tide, which was actually ideal, as we could see many of the hazards above the water, but we still had enough depth to get through.
Rockpile hazards exposed by low tide.
We were thrilled to tie up to Barefoot Landing Marina at the end of this long and stressful day. Two quotes that kept running through my head throughout the day were: “Worrying is just praying for the wrong thing to happen,” and “Those who do not pray have never been to sea.” I tried not to worry and prayed a lot!
scary!