Terror on the ICW
23 October 2014 | Wrightsville Beach, NC
Gordon
Terror on the ICW
We left Beaufort, NC on Wednesday morning, October 22, headed for Wrightsville Beach, NC. This would mark the first time in the trip that we really had to keep an eye out for obstacles. Of course, this is really a misnomer, because the obstacles are hidden well under water that is murky at best. The obstacles, are, however well marked on charts. In other words there is really no way to keep an eye out for them.
But well marked is a matter of definition. What we mariners use are symbols meant to keep ships and boats in the channel and away from harm. In reality, what we have are markers and lights that only instill panic, and the knowledge that disaster and peril can happen at any time.
For example, after leaving an overnight with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, we came upon our first test. Lucky that we had been warned about it by friends well in advance. It appears that the Marines are short a tank, and it’s where-abouts are only generally known. If its position were exactly known, I am sure the Marines would excavate it from the path of hapless sailors and eliminate a possible point of disaster.
But instead of removing the tank, the corps of engineers and or coast guard have devised a devious test of our ability to fathom nautical markings.
We are motoring down the ICW doing a leisurely 7 knots when I see a disaster in the making. I see a red marker and a green marker roughly in a line, but off-set enough so that if one were not paying close attention, one might be tempted to pass between. When traveling from the south, a red mark is supposed to be kept to starboard (on the right when facing the front of the boat) and green marks are to be kept to port. These marks might tempt the novice sailor with going between them, only to land on the beach, so to speak, or stuck in the mud and sand. What is really required is that one should hug the red mark, and then turn to the right and hug the green mark, making and S-shape, of sorts. But the marks are silent about when to re-enter the center of the channel. Too late and you again find the beach. To early… same fate.
The pucker-factor is raised as one enters the slalom and realizes he has to guess when to renter the main channel. Depths through the slalom show 2-3 feet of water under the keel, and then, I begin to go to the center and I see 5 feet, wait, whoops, too soon, now it is only 3 three feet, no, wait, 2.5 feet. Do I continue, go right, go left? I am sitting in Wrightsville Beach writing this and so guessed correctly.
The ICW so far, and we are nearly through North Carolina, has been beautiful and scenic. We have enjoyed the weather, the people and the waterway, when not being terrorized by nautical marks and buoys. We have been told by old ICW hands that Virginia and North Carolina keep their ICW lanes well cleared and marked, but not so for South Carolina. We will probably skip that state and sail outside as weather permits.