This Tadventure©, the FINAL installment of the Wolf’s trip south, puts the wrap on a trip that was scheduled for three or four days and ended up taking nine. Great adventure still loomed on these final two days as Gary and I mastered the wind and sea to deliver the boat safely to its new home berth in Charleston, South Carolina. Others may disagree but I’m sure this is the best finish EVER!
Leaving Mile Hammock Bay at 0600, we made our way southward hoping to reach Cape Fear before nightfall. Truthfully, we hoped to get there well ahead of nightfall as our plan was to refuel prior to heading offshore the following day on the last leg to Charleston.
On one particular leg of the journey that day we traversed Snows Cut, a very short, very narrow body of water that connected the ICW and the Cape Fear River. The resolution on the charts did not allow us to discern which way the buoys were laid out (red to right or red to left) before we entered the cut. The current was so strong that our speed rapidly increased to over nine knots (over ground); breakneck speed in a boat in a narrow body of water when the crew has no idea which way to round the buoys. We were hurtling past the shoreline staring at a red buoy situated right in the middle of the cut when the radio crackled to life, an unknown voice instructing, “Keep the reds to your right in the Cut.” We had no idea who said it but given no predisposition of our own, we heeded the advice and made our way safely through the remaining length. When we shot out of the Cut into the River we spied a USCG patrol craft at the entrance and decided our tax dollars hadn’t been a waste that day. We renamed Snows Cut as the “Birth Canal” given the rapidity of our transit/exit.
We made excellent time and arrived at Southport by 1530 and located a fuel dock, there to restock on diesel and beer before heading over to a comfy little anchorage called Dutchman’s Creek.
My careful perusal of the charts around Southport, NC indicated a nifty little anchorage just past the fuel docks with twelve feet of water. Confident that we had located an ideal anchorage that would allow us to make an early departure offshore the next morning, we headed to Dutchman’s Creek, the promise of an easy evening and cold beer in our sights.
When we got to the Creek, I was concerned to find but a single yacht in residence, its seemingly friendly confines contrasted by ICW reason: why, at this late hour, is there only one boat in this “ideal” anchorage? Gary looked at me with a questioning glare. “You sure this is ok?”
I drew yet again on my vast and considerable nautical knowledge (see: Spanish Windlass) and said, “As you can see, Professor, the yacht currently at anchor in the Creek is a Valiant 40, a craft which, if I’m not mistaken, has a draft of six feet; a draft in excess of your own vessel. Ergo, if he got in there, so may we. Go to the bow and prepare the anchor while I steer us safely within.” Gary, always the pessimist, gave me a look that clearly said, “You’re so full of shit your eyes are turning brown,” but off to the bow he went.
Magically, I managed to get us in the Creek with all our bottom paint intact. The Valiant 40 owner (a nice man from Rhode Island) gave us some welcomed advice about water depth and we anchored, with about 1 foot of water under the keel, just off his port bow. Gary then had the chance to look at the charts and remarked, “There is a 3-4 foot tidal change here.” I commented that the tidal range might provide a problem given our current hovering depth. I pulled up my laptop to double check his calculations (I had the most recent charts on my computer) and found that he was absolutely correct. (I also discovered that the chart indicated a sunken vessel right at the mouth of the Creek entrance but I left that little detail for later discussion should we ever find our way out of this lion’s den.) Gary said, “We’ll have to leave at high tide.”
Additional ciphering determined that high tide was due to coincide with first light so we resigned ourselves to a night of living at 20 degrees list, our keel due to meet the bottom in an hour or so. And then, the Canadians arrived.
Normally, I’m not one to disparage our northern brethren. Hell, I’m a direct descendent of a Scottish Clan that made their way to America via Canadian hospitality. But, I mean…rather. Their behavior on this occasion was beyond the pale.
A large catamaran, laden it seemed with multiple Canadians, had anchored, unbeknownst to me just off our port bow. I was surprised that I had not noticed its arrival given the forty foot width of the Creek but then I realized I had been otherwise occupied for a period of time (enough said about that). I found no fault with the catamaran. However, closely on its heels, I espied another Canadian vessel making its way to the Creek entrance, a vessel of the monohull variety. Its anchor was in the “hanging” position, a surefire indication that they were attempting to drop the hook. The problem was, it appeared they planned to do so RIGHT AT THE MOUTH OF THE CREEK, thereby blocking any attempt we might make to depart; a blockade, as it were. I lamented thusly to the skipper, “Gary. I think that asshole Canuck is trying to anchor in the Creek entrance.” Gary, his attention drawn momentarily away from retrieving his linens from various and sundry locations about the deck looked up and said, “Fuckers.”
I grabbed the radio and tried to raise the captain of the vessel without satisfaction. We were stymied by this interloper, our escape plans thwarted by his lack of etiquette and his refusal to adhere to unwritten protocol. I eagerly awaited the sound of his hull meeting the sunken vessel’s unseen hulk, convinced Gary’s resulting glee at the Canuck’s ill fortune would overcome any admonition he might hurl my way for failing to mention before the sunken craft. Nope. They didn’t hit a thing and anchored right in the middle of the entrance.
About an hour later, the Canadian catamaran crew climbed into their dinghy and, being somewhat astute in my understanding of human nature, I assumed they were headed over to pay a visit to the other similarly affected crew of Canadian bent, there to speak in strange Canadian dialects and to eat exotic Canadian fare like goose breast pâté and bison loin filets and then to wash it all down with Caesar cocktails, their Canadian companionship complete. I waved them over with a hearty waving-like signal and shouted, “Ahoy!” in the hopes that their limited knowledge of the English language included at least a few sea faring fragments. They slowed and approached cautiously.
I drew heavily upon my ancestral roots and attempted to communicate (using gestures, lingua franca, and tidbits of Canadian I have picked up over the years like “Eh?” and “Oh”) the situation in re the anchoring of their companion and, mindfully leaving out the part about the sunken vessel (Gary was within hearing distance), enjoined them to ask their friends to move the hell out of the Creek mouth as we would be leaving at o’dark hundred when the sun, moon, and tides aligned. They eyed me with great skepticism and promised, as Canadians often do, to do as I requested. I turned to Gary and said, “We’re scrod. You can’t trust a Canadian for shit. Especially after they’ve had a few Caesar cocktails.”
The Canadian block party lasted well into the wee hours and we went to bed, our hopes of the vessel moving dashed by both visual reality and our closely held beliefs that you can’t trust a Canadian for shit.
Sure enough, when the alarm rang at 0400, the entrance remained blocked. We made preparations, nonetheless, to get underway. Gary made his way to the bow to hoist the anchor and then, in mid hoist, left his post and scurried down below before returning to the anchor raising location, the bow. I didn’t know what he was up to until we began creeping, ever so slowly, our keel carving a deep furrow in the mud below, past the Canadian boat at the Creek’s mouth. It was then I realized the purpose of the Skipper’s dash below as he illuminated the other vessel with his ONE MILLION CANDLE POWER spotlight and SHOUTED, at the top of his lungs, “OK…I THINK WE’RE CLEAR…JUST A LITTLE MORE…DO YOU SEE THIS BOAT TO PORT?…I THINK WE’LL BE OK…JUST TAKE IT SLOW….!!!!!” I noted that Gary managed to illuminate each and every possible aperture that might allow light to pass as we inched by, my respect and admiration for my Captain cemented for all time. Damn it, I laugh about that to this very day.
Off we went, safely afloat, headed for the Atlantic Ocean, our hopes high that we would not encounter the same conditions as we had seen on our last attempt.
As we motored the short distance to the Cape Fear Inlet, Gary taped the aft lockers to prevent flooding again and I sipped my coffee eyeing optimistically the sky above. We zipped out into the ocean and raised the sails and turned off the motor, skillfully avoiding the six thousand, three hundred, and two fishing boats dragging nets across the departure channel and beyond. Later that day we hoisted the “tomato,” a large, reddish spinnaker and pretended we had sailed for weeks on end to reach our destination, Charleston, SC. Naturally, the wind died and we motored the whole way.
The arrival in Charleston was a thing of beauty. The night was dark, the conditions serene, the shipping traffic extraordinary and the skipper in foul mood.
The entrance to Charleston is protected by a sea wall that extends, nearly two miles, into the ocean and the buoys go out almost fifteen miles; it’s a major shipping venue. The good news is, once you get into inside the jetty, the entrance is well protected. The bad news is, everyone else has the same idea and at midnight, “everyone else” is usually a giant freighter of some form or another. I raised the Charleston Harbor Pilot on the radio and asked him what the schedule looked like for the evening. He informed me that they had four or five outbound ships and three or four inbound ships due to transit the channel about the same time we were going to be making our way through. “Great,” I said to myself.
I made a number of Securité calls to let folks know we were heading inbound in the hopes that they might actually try to raise us on the radio before they mowed us down in the dead of night, our bloated and festering bodies to be found a week later, wedged between the rocks of the jetty, our limbs gone missing at the hands of a giant propeller, our eyes having been eaten by crabs. I also wanted to inform folks that we were displaying navigation signals (lights) that made it appear as though we were under sail but we were, in fact, motoring (we couldn’t use the proper navigation lights as a critical part of the equipment, the bi-colored bow lens, was swimming with Davey Jones after our abortive attempt to leave Beaufort…see: Day Six/Seven). And, in we went.
AJS was in full force as I climbed up and down the companionway ladder trying to keep us on course (look, it’s a bloody straight line but the Captain was shouting at me to verify every buoy number as if we were wending our way through a maze in search of a piece of cheese) until, eventually, we made it into the inner sanctum of Charleston Harbor. I scurried below to check the chart one more time in search of an unlit red buoy, critical to a particular turn in the channel. I was horrified upon regaining the deck to see said buoy sliding by our PORT side (you non-boatie types will note that generally, reds are on the right when returning to a port from the ocean…in effect, Dr. Aston-Jones had steered us wrong, as it were). No telltale crunch of keel ensued and we kept going, Gary trying desperately to raise his “new” marina on the radio at one o’clock in the morning.
Each radio transmission was accompanied by a key change in Gary’s voice as he took great pains, between carefully chosen epithets, to explain to me how his marina management team had been briefed repeatedly about our arrival and how they had informed him, Gary, that all he need do was to “give them a shout” on the radio when we got there. Finding no joy on the radio spectrum, he reached for his trusty cell phone and gave them a jangle. His call was answered swiftly by a young lad, no doubt carefully selected from a slew of highly qualified applicants, his ability to answer a phone beyond reproach.
“May I help you?” he graciously inquired.
“This is Gary Aston-Jones. I’ve been trying to raise you on the radio for half an hour,” Gary said.
[I didn’t think this was the proper time to say, “Gee, Gare, maybe we can dispense with that ‘historical’ bit and move on to the part about ‘which way to go’.”]
“Yes, sir,” oozed the dock hand.
“Well?” Gary asked (in the throes of AJS, anything is possible).
“Well what, sir?” the dock master skillfully replied.
“Look, never mind about the radio,” Gary said, as if the lad had understood to begin with. “I’ve got a slip there, I’m heading in, and I need directions.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I have no record of you or your vessel,” the fellow replied.
“WHAT? I’ve got a slip. It’s PAID FOR! ASTON-JONES! ASTON-JONES!!!!” Gary shouted.
“Normally, they leave a note, sir. I can’t find a note,” he said.
“Look, I’m COMING IN,” Gary “explained.” “Find a place on the dock someplace and we’ll figure this out later.”
“Yes, sir. Just keep coming around to your right, I see you, and then come past the big white light, leaving it to port, and you’ll be in our entrance channel,” he said, professionally.
At this point the AJS kicked WAY, WAY over the top as Gary resisted the urge to fling his cell phone to the murky depths and managed to communicate to me:
- I don’t see any fucking white light.
- I don’t see any fucking marina.
- I don’t see any fucking dock hand.
- I should have sold this fucking boat a long time ago.
An old hand at dealing with Gary in the clutches of his Tourettes-like nemesis, I ignored him and looked for the critical white light which I spotted, instanter, just off the bow about 100 yards in the distance. “There it is,” I said in a low, calm voice. “WHERE!?!?!?! I DON’T SEE ANYTHING! WHERE THE FUCK IS IT?????” he exclaimed his voice somewhat more than a stage whisper. “Right in front of us,” I soothingly replied. He craned his neck and finally spotted the glowing orb, now nearly ON the bow. “WHICH WAY DO I GO?” he screamed. “I believe the young gentlemen indicated we should leave the light to port,” I said in my best Dr. Kildare bedside manner. “FUCK!” he shouted as he turned the wheel sharply to port, narrowly avoiding the breakwater upon which a 10 foot white light stood.
Anyway, you get the drift. We made it, the dock boy grabbed the lines, and we tied up and had a few beers and showers. The adventure was over and no one died save a navigation light lens. We froze and [not] nearly died. We met wonderful people along the way. We got stuck and got off with but our wits to assist (and a nice man and his son in a motorboat). We discovered a great deal about ourselves and our limits (“It’s not like we’re at war or anything.”) and we cemented our long enduring friendship with each other.
I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
