Day 17
What are the two kinds of ICW boaters? 1. Those who have run aground and 2. Those who lie about running aground. What kind am I? I'm not a liar.
Upon leaving Beaufort, NC this morning only about a mile from the marina I became confused with all of the markers for our channel, the Beaufort Inlet, and the ICW continuing south. Heading for the wrong marker I came softly aground. As soon as the boat stopped our following wake lifted the boat and propelled it even further into the shallows, so then I could not reverse back out of the shallow spot and into deeper water. I was not worried about the running gear since the PDQ Powercat is designed to be "beachable" without harming the propellers or rudders. However, since the engines use sea water for cooling, I shut off the engines to avoid causing any damage to the impellers or cooling system by sucking up mud and sand. The good news was that our newly repaired depth sounder continued to read depths all the way down to 2.2 feet. If only I had noticed sooner!
Each year I pay about $200.00 to be a member of BoatUS, and the membership includes unlimited towing. It's a great bargain since I think it costs about $200.00 just to talk to a tow boat on the phone. Luckily, it only took BoatUS about 15 minutes to respond, with two boats no less, and the young men and their dog soon had us back in deep water and on our way. Sharon tipped the dog with some dog treats and he was very appreciative. Seriously, the tow would have cost far more than our membership, so if you boat, especially on the ICW or the Chesapeake Bay, you really should join BoatUS!
After our slow start, we continued south on the ICw in a narrow channel through the very shallow Bogue Sound. For the first time I truly understand why people refer to the ICW as "The Ditch". It certainly takes concentration to stay in the channel. Along the way we saw a Naval Amphibious Transport Ship with an MV-22 Osprey flying above. The Osprey is cool because it can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but can fly like an airplane.
We also saw a pod of dolphins very close to the boat feeding in the shallow waters of the Bogue Sound.
We discovered a 2.9-acre private island with a small house for sale. Retirement property anyone?
We also passed through a 4-mile section of the ICW near Camp Lejeune, the largest Marine Corps base on the east coast, where they practice live fire of artillery and other weapons. Luckily today was a day off. Just for the record we came upon another boat aground in this section of the waterway, but he was able to get off by himself just after we had passed him.
While waiting for a low bridge to open so we could continue, we discovered that we are definitely part of the "snowbird" migration south on the ICW.
A few miles after Camp Lejeune we stopped for the night at a marina near the New River Inlet where we were told that their fixed docks had been underwater through yesterday and this was the first time in days the water had gone down, so our timing was perfect. We'll see what tomorrow brings as we head for Southport, NC. Our planned marina there has floating docks so high water should not be an issue, but we have been hearing reports that there is a lot of debris in the waters along the ICW due to the recent flooding, so we may have to travel slowly.
Since our marina for tonight is in the middle of nowhere, we just had dinner and a relaxing evening on the boat.
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