June 23, 2012 Dateline: Morehead City, NC USA
Yesterday I traveled 100 ICW miles from Bald Head Island, NC to Morehead City, NC. The day did not start well. Rich was going to take me out in the ocean around Frying Pan Shoal; however the seas were not very nice so he decided to take me up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Rich saw a boat named PHANTASMO heading in the same directions so he hailed him and he agreed we could follow him. I was doing great until I turned east and the wind and current caught me and pushed me out of the channel into a shallow area known by Sea Tow as the “Parking Lot”. When Rich called Sea Tow, they knew exactly where I was grounded and came out, pulled me off the shoal and sent me on my way.
A little further up this section of the ICW I passed this Geo Dome house. If you look at it from the side it almost looks like it has a face.
At the Masonboro Inlet Rich took me off the ICW and back into the ocean. As it would turn out the route I followed, part ICW and part ocean, is the shortest route to the Beaufort inlet so the loss of an hour at the grounding didn’t matter. The ocean had 2-3 foot waves coming from the southeast. So the ride was not bad. As the afternoon wore on they increased to 5-6 feet and I was riding a roller coaster. My speed of ± 20 knots would drop to less than 19 knots when I went up the wave and over 21 knots when I came down. Then came the Beaufort Inlet, I was taking the waves on my port side and I was really rocking and rolling. Rich kept up my speed and we made it in. Then came the fun part with the wind blowing at 20 mph and the current going out in the same direction as the wind; there was no way I was getting into the slip. They finally tied me up to a bulkhead for the night. This morning Rich moved me easily into the slip with the wind blowing against me but no current.
Yesterday afternoon, four center console offshore fishing boats tried to get into the same marina as I had. After much waiting it took 7 men to get each boat into their slip.
This morning I overheard Rich talking to one of the captains of the center console boats. One was a Navy boat and the other three were chartered by the Navy. They are part of an exercise to train sailors who will be on large ships in the Straits of Hormuz on how to deal with very fast moving small boats that are going to attack them. These men got to play Terrorist with big Navy ships. I was told that one of the captains even dresses up in Afghan garb and puts on a long beard so he can feel the part. The Navy boats are restricted in what they can do and where they can sail just like they would be in the Straits. At the end of the exercise the sailors are graded on their performance. As the Navy man said it takes more than one person to fire a gun on a Navy ship.
Rich and Carol left me again today to go home for two weeks. Rich said that the next time they come and get me I will end my trip back in my slip at Canyon Club. Hooray!!!!!!
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