Emergency! Emergency!

Pamlico Sound
N 35 41 W 075 39

During my years as a volunteer fireman, I learned that emergency alarms sometimes come in clusters. Such has been the case for the past 36 hours and the reason for this extra long blog post.

Yesterday afternoon was a quiet lazy day. The sun shone. There was almost no wind. The temperature was about 80. Libby and I had done our hiking for the day. Now, Libby was taking a nap while I wrote blog stuff. We could hear tourists walking by on the river walk right next to us. Many of them stopped to comment on the obviously sea going sailboat. Sailors among them explained the various boat parts to the others. Non-sailors speculated and guessed at what the purpose of the parts were.
Like I said, a quiet lazy day. The time was about 1500.

Suddenly, we heard a very loud roar of an outboard engine at full speed. Less than 2 seconds later we heard a big crash. It sounded like a boat had rammed us. We scrambled out on deck. I got there first. What I saw was a 30 foot power boat stopped about 50 feet away. Then I realized what had happened. That power boat went past us at high speed, and very very close. He didn't collide with us but he made an enormous wake that crashed us against the pilings of the wall. Our teak rub rail
and teak cap rail were crushed where they hit the piling. I yelled at the boat to come back. He didn't come.

Looking around, I saw that there was another boat tied up to the wall in front of Tarwathie. That boat too had sustained significant damage. I yelled again at the power boat to come back. It started moving away from us.

More people came running up, including the dock master. The sound of the engine roar followed by the crash had been heard 40 feet away. The dock master got on his VHF radio and called the power boat. He got contact. The dock master told him to come back to the dock. The power boat claimed that he couldn't hear the radio, and it sped up moving away. The dock master tried again. This time, the power boat asked for a cell phone number. He got the number and he called the dock master.

The boat still refused to return to the dock, but he did leave his name, address, phone number and email. When asked for his boat registration number, he claimed that he could not see the numbers. I was highly suspicious of his behavior. I thought that the only reason he would not come back to the dock was to prevent anyone from smelling his breath.

I called the Coast Guard to ask them to intercept this boat. They had no vessel close enough. The Coast Guard then called the Manteo Police. Soon a policeman arrived and took a report. He also ran the man's name and got the registration number. The police promised to make contact with this man, to get his insurance information and to pass it to me and to the owner of the other damaged boat. He said that if the man does not pay for damages, that my only recourse is to return in person to Manteo
Magistrate Court and sue him. That would be very impractical for us. The law for boat accidents and insurance is not the same as for cars.

About three hours after the incident, the guilty man called me. He apologized profusely. He said that there was no alcohol involved. He also promised to make me whole financially. We'll have to see if he keeps his word. The man also offered an explanation. He said that he was attempting to pull in to a slip. His boat drifted to one side and threatened to run in to the back of a boat in the next slip. He said his passengers failed to fend off the other boat. He panicked, hit full throttle
and spun the wheel to make a tight turn to avoid hitting the other boat. As he accelerated with the wheel full over, his engine created an enormous wake that hit me. I must say that his explanation does seem to fit the facts as I observed them. However, he could offer no explanation for his failure to return to the dock to face me an the others.

I think we'll wait until we get to Ferandina Beach and to get the rail repaired at Tiger Point where we've been before (See this blog, May 2005)

Now for the second emergency. We departed today at first light, bound for Ocracoke Island. To get out to the open waters of Pamlico sound, we first had to traverse about 20 miles of narrow dredged channels. We also had to pass Oregon Inlet. 3/4 of the way through this passage we come to a point where there are two intersections of 5 channels within a 1/4 mile of each other. The area is constantly shoaling, so the authorities keep moving the markers and buoys and putting out temporary ones.
There are so many markers that it looks like a forest of red and green trees. It is extremely difficult to figure out which channel which buoy belongs to, and therefore on which side of which buoy to pass. To make things worse, there is an intersection where the color convention flips from red-left to red-right.

As we approached this intersection both Libby and I were trying to be as careful as possible. We tried to reconcile four sources of information. (1) What our charts showed. (2) What the GPS chart plotter showed. (3) A verbal description in our Claiborne Young cruising guide and (4) what we saw with our eyes. We approached the intersection where the colors flipped from red-left to red-right. But there was still one more negative factor in the mix. Two big dredging barges sat in the middle
of the channel blocking our way and blocking our view of the buoys and markers ahead. We tried to read the number of the marker ahead of us, but it was almost in line with the sun and we couldn't read it.

Just then, a motor boat came zipping past us, and past the next marker and headed around the barge. I thought that was the clue I needed and tried to follow him. Well, he ran aground about 200 feet in front of us, and before I could stop, we ran aground too. The motor boat returned and took a line and helped pull us off. We thanked him, and he left. Then I tried to call the barge on the radio. As I did that, I asked Libby to keep us out of the shallows. Libby's instincts in such situations
is almost 100% bad. I should have remembered that. She turned us back and within seconds we were aground again. The barge captain called and told us that we were trying to go on the wrong side of the red marker. Oh.

A passing tug boat tried to help us by making a big wake. Nice try, but it didn't work. We had to kedge ourselves out of there. We launched the dinghy and I loaded it with an anchor and 200 feet of rode. Then I rowed it out to the channel and dropped it where I hoped it was deep. I then returned to the boat and we used the windlass to pull in the rode inch by inch We had to drag Tarwathie through 75 feet of shoals before she broke free. It took us about 45 minutes.

After that, we learned the real secret. We called the dredging barge on the radio and he moved the barge out of the way so that we could pass. We were thankful for that.

We still weren't out of trouble. Past the barge was one more intersection and two buoys with positions and colors and numbers that made no sense at all. I asked the barge operator which way to go around those buoys. He was helpful and gave me guidance. That was nice, but he turned out to be dead wrong. We nearly ran aground two more times trying to get past those buoys. Worse, we had no clue whether to turn more to the left or the right to find deeper water.

Now we're past all that and out in the open waters of Pamlico sound. Whew. The day's not finished though. We still have to navigate the dangerous channel in to Ocracoke. There is serious shoaling reported in that channel and one must be very careful to navigate with precision. Because of the delay due to running aground, now our estimated time of arrival at that channel is sunset. If we are delayed even a little bit, it will be dark. I don't want to try it in the dark.