Bridges and currents
04 November 2009 | Wrightsville Beach, NC
John and Cheryl
Cheryl's Notes:
We woke up this morning and everyone was leaving the anchorage ahead of us. We had three bridges to go through today and the timing had to be just right. We jumped into clothes and brought up the rear. Our first mistake was in lagging too far behind the pack, our second was following an idiot in a catamaran. (It took him ten tries the night before to set his anchor.) We had gotten a call from our friends that were up ahead. A channel marker had drifted across the channel and was in the wrong place. As we slowed down to assess the situation, the catamaran passed us going straight ahead. They waved at us to follow them. At dead idle we realized that they were going the wrong way. The channel we wanted was to the left. As we turned left to hit the channel, the current caught us and pushed us sideways onto a sandbar. We were grounded and the current was pushing us farther onto the sand. Luckily, a fisherman saw what happened and came to our rescue. We threw him a bow line and he was able to get us free. The whole incident lasted about 15 minutes and we were on our way again. We are not used to the strong currents that flow through these channels.
The next challenge was hitting the bridges at the right times. The first and third bridge opened only on the hour, and the middle bridge opened on the half hour. We had to time the openings so that we didn't have to hold off in the channels too long. The current wants to push you under the bridge. We spent the day as part of a long convoy of boats. I believe that there were fifteen of us by the last bridge opening. We are now anchored at Wrightsville Beach with Bev and Arnie of Scandia and will be heading farther south tomorrow.
John's Notes:
I should know that I should trust Cheryl's GPS plot. There was a lot of radio traffic this morning about the rogue buoy and I should have ignored it all instead of trying to do visual navigation. Fortunately for us, we were freed by a fisherman in less than 5 minutes. Would have been less but his girlfriend dropped our line a couple of times. No harm, no foul.
Interesting day on the ICW. We have heard all about the parade of boats heading south but unless you have been in the parade, well, you just have no idea what it is like. Bridge openings are the biggest obstacle. Going through one and trying to make the next one. Sometimes you are out of out of gear at idle speed and at other times you are wound up to 3000 RPM's.
For all of our friends in Bayfield. Imagine an anchorage about 20% the size of Raspberry Bay. Some of that is very shallow. Now imagine 29 boats anchored in the same space. I guess we will get used to it but don't necessarily have to like it.
Current is another challenge. Just this afternoon we were turning into the anchorage in Wrightsville Beach when it grabbed us. Scandia, Bev and Arnie's Catalina 42 was in front of us and they were almost pushed into the channel marker. We had to really power up to avoid the same situation. Next time I will be more careful. This particular current must have been running at 4kts. plus. Hard to believe how it can grab a 20,000 pound boat and move it at will.
We will make up our minds in the next day or so about going offshore to Charleston. The weather is supposed to get better in a couple of days.