Beaufort NC
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2007
1
29
35
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Topsail Beach,
North Carolina,
United States
Sunday, May 4, 2008
We try to squeeze in the most number of miles to position ourselves to get to Beaufort (said 'Bowf'rt') NC by early afternoon tomorrow. We had wanted to get back to this colorful seaside town on this stop. We know they have several good restaurants and warfside bars and were hoping we could catch some beer and music.
One of the obstacles in getting set up to make Beaufort is Camp Lejeune NC. This is the place the US military makes fully functioning US marines in 8 weeks while in over 5 years we can not find but a handful of Iraqi Marines....well that's another story. The ICW goes right through their firing range so it is very helpful to pay close attention to the big sign and lights on the side of the ICW that state "Do not enter if lights are flashing". We learned this five years ago on our first trip down from North Carolina. I do believe that based on some of the boating behavior I have seen on the waterway that their are folks who would cruise right on by.
We motor our way north and happen to see a 35' sailboat stuck in the mud just off the waterway. They are yelling and waving their arms at us and I am sure its not a cocktail invite. No one seems in danger, but I hail them on the radio. They have but a small hand-held and the two older men seem fine. I confirm that that they are not in a "distress" situation. Distress is a boating word carrying specific meaning. In a non-distress situation, I am not obligated to help but for some reason I decide to see if I could pull them off. We move about 10' off their beam and Sue tosses a line (she is dead aim at this...really good) and all of a sudden I envision all kinds of problems developing. Sue makes the line fast to one of our beefy stern cleats and we start to yell back and forth. I increase power. Then I get really worried that this line will snap doing damage to my wife, my boat or the other guys. I then hear the boat creek.... no go. I begin to think, "I am not a tow boat....what the F and I doing". I yell, "let it loose"...."cut them loose".... I can't hear Sue and all of a sudden I feel the terrible sensaton that tells me that we are on the bottom too. S---t. Well, FF has a lot of torque and I apply it...we wiggle...wiggle all of a sudden I feel the steering get slack. "No, no....not damage to the rudder", I scream in my mind. S--t. In a second we were off and moving to deep water. All is well.
I could not help these guys and they had to call a real tow boat. I surmised that they had no insurance and it would likely cost them a $1,000 to get pulled off. They thanked me on the VHF and we went on.
In hindsight, I did a stupid thing (recall rules on stupid things). 1- I should not have done this at all; 2- I should have looked closely at the position of their vessel and seen they were 10" out of the water and 3- I should have carefully looked at the size and condition of the tow line they threw. Dumb. I was lucky no one got hurt or my boat broken.
We really wanted to get through Camp Lejeune but unfavorable currents still dog us. We are only making 5 kts over the ground. As it happens Sue finds an anchorage marked on the chart and we turn in at about 1930. It was actually a quarter mile in diameter pond carved out by the military for amphibious testing. It has a giant ramp and an old derelict landing craft of WWII vintage. Its a good find and we have a quite night. On to Beaufort tomorrow.
