Foggy
In the previous post I mentioned that the Alligator River area has been known to have stumps and other obstructions near to, and even inside the channel. We can now confirm that this is true, although fortunately, we were able to avoid all of them. The sun in our eyes, and later fog, conspired to make that challenging though.
We had departed Elizabeth City on Friday morning around 9 am, headed towards the Abermarle Sound. Due to its shallow waters, this body of water is reported to develop a nasty chop if there is any significant winds out of the west. This is much the same as Lake Oneida which we had to cross during our Erie Canal transit. Even though the NW winds seldom went over 10 knots, the waves were significant. Not dangerous in any way, but not comfortable either. Regardless, we made it across the Sound and with the exception of almost running aground just before entering the Alligator River (I think we can agree that 0.1′ under the keel is “almost” running aground), the trip was largely uneventful.
When we did an ETA to one of the anchorages we had planned to go to, it was touch and go whether we could make it there before dark. For this reason, we decided to start up our other engine and increase our speed. Traveling at just over 7 knots, we then had no problem making it to Bear Point where we had hoped to spend the night. This whole river is known to have plenty of branches and stumps on the water’s bottom, sometimes leading to people having their anchors fouled.
For the newbies reading this, if an anchor is fouled, it can not be retrieved by normal means. This could be a very expensive problem if you were forced to cut it free. A potential solution is to affix a trip line to the back/top of the anchor, tied to a float which sits above the anchor in the water. If unable to pull the anchor up via the windlass, sometimes pulling on the trip line can help as it pulls the anchor up backwards, against its normal holding direction. This information was all theory to us until last night though when we decided it might be smart to try this ourselves. The float was easy enough to set and it was neat to be able to see from this where our anchor was really sitting as compared to our boat’s position. As often happens, preparing for the problem then resulted in us not having any issues. Had we not set that trip line, it was almost certain that we would have then had issues!
After a peaceful night’s sleep (this anchorage is in the middle of nowhere!), we awoke to a beautiful sunrise and pea-soup thick fog. I’m talking scary-movie quality fog! We took our time getting ready, allowing some time for the fog to burn off. When we saw a boat we recognized motoring by our location, we radioed them to ask if they were planning on mowing down any of the branches in the water for us. They told us that they would give us a radio report of the conditions further down the channel. Just prior to reaching the canal entrance ourselves, we were surprised to hear back from them that they were turning around and coming back because visibility was so poor. By this time, two other sailboats had filled in in front of us and we decided to press on, following them, albeit slowly. The fog in the narrow canal was gradually lifting but it did make the first 5 or so miles quite interesting.
The good part of this area of your journey is there are a fair amount of anchorages that you can get into especially with your shallow draft.
The trip line is a great idea. Our first anchorage along the Alligator River had us pulling up lots of cypress stumps. Of course our original anchor was sooo bad that we might have been better off leaving it behind when it first fouled, but that’s another story.
Fair Winds,
Mike
Yes, there sure are some shallow places. Even we have to watch out a lot.
That’s funny about just leaving the anchor behind. What kind was it?
Sounds like a good outcome to a scary day. I’m glad you are safe and had a restful night! Care and preparation, combined with caution. Excellent!
Yes, caution is good. 🙂
I remember that area well. We anchored just before dark too and we were scrambling for a place to walk the dog. In short, there was no place. He kept jumping on to what we thought was solid land but ended up being mushy sinking mud. Whoops.
Yeah, I can’t imagine where you would go to shore.
The photo of the schooner with the reflection is awesome.
Thanks Kirk. That is Scott Roger’s boat “Shanty.” He is heading to the Bahamas.
We are a little ahead clearing the stumps with Grouchy Turtle. Hope you catch us tomorrow in Wilmington, N. C.
Feel free to clear any and all future stumps for us.
Fantastic pictures!
Thank you.
These photos are gorgeous. You really have a good eye for photography!
Thanks! The truth is that both Rebecca and I take the photos. Some of those are hers.
Fog can be a pain, but it sure makes cool pictures! Glad ya’ll made it throught the stumps, and fog!
Thanks. We’re glad too. 🙂
Ahh, fog…. it’s too bad good radar is so expensive!
It may be challenging to navigate in, but when the fog starts to dissipate and you see the sun coming through the trees, little wisps left drifting over the water…. it’s all worth it.
You’re right, it sure was pretty as it was lifting.
I just had to comment on these pics which are beautiful….& I don’t mean just the one of Rebecca using her TRX! LOL
While I don’t like fog while we’re sailing, I do love those pics too.