Day 1 Mile 203.7 Morehead City to Mile 244.5 Mile Hammock Bay near Swansboro NC
We left Morehead City at close to 10 a.m. We passed the potentially dangerous Camp Lejeune firing range where, lucky for us, there was no firing practice activity going on. If there was firing, we would not have been able to travel the ICW in that area for several hours but I did call ahead to the Coast Guard to confirm.
We met up with Patience at Mile Hammock Bay and anchored/rafted along side them.
When we got settled in to our spot, we still had the VHF radio tuned into Channel 16, the International hailing and safety channel. All of a sudden there was this very frightening distress call to the Coast Guard. The woman calling was not able to speak English well, was in panic mode and not listening to the Coast Guard's questions. You could hear a man in the background shouting over the woman's repetitive pleas for help. Was something wrong with the boat? Was the guy beating her? You could hear him saying the "f-word" as she clicked on and off asking for help. Over the distress, you could not understand what was happening. Finally the Coast Guard was able to discern after the husband finally got on the radio, that they were trying to reach an inlet. It was obvious the sailboat they were on was in the Atlantic after they had given the Coast Guard the latitude and longitude for positioning.
We all gathered on Heesook, Don and Christopher's Patience listening together. We decided that we had all remembered the couple as an Asian woman/White man that we had seen in the locks some days earlier. Even then, they were having boat problems and getting shouts from the lock master to get his boat in or the gate with close on it! Mattias said, that guy doesn't know what he's doing. From the distress call, Heesook, being Korean, could recognize the woman was also Korean and she got permission from the Coast Guard to speak Korean to the lady in distress to help calm her down and get her to answer clearly to the questions being asked. As Heesook spoke the best Korean she knew, you could sense the relief from the lady. It was truly a hair on the arms raising, tear jerking experience.
Long story...the husband came on and said, no they weren't in distress, he was trying to find an inlet from the ocean that would take his 4' draft and his wife was "freaked out" not handling the waves very well- he needed to get her in to shore. After several attempts, the Coast Guard finally got them to understand the only inlet they could go to where they wouldn't go aground was Masonboro inlet, some 27 miles away from where they were. Okay, trouble was, now it was after 6 p.m., dark and getting colder. The guy repeated the distance and said "that'll take us 7 hours!". Again, the Coast Guard reiterated the inlet they could safely go to. So the guy signed off.
Day 2 Mile 244.5 to Mile 283.4 Motts Channel at Wrightsville Beach, NC.
So yesterday, we finally saw dolphins again. This time I snapped a nice photo of the guy/gal as it was swimming right on our wave, right next to the boat for some time. It even splashed us with water from the blow hole! So fun!
We lost a little time today waiting for a bridge to open. We had some time before bridge number 2 opened so stopped at a marina for fuel, for the kids to play and ate lunch on our boats while we waited. We had some time so the dockmaster guy said we could shower at his marina which was a pleasure after anchoring for some days...were we all looking or smelling that bad?
We anchored/rafted at Motts Channel with Patience this night. They dropped 135 feet of chain to anchor us both. Our boat is not particularly prepared to anchor ourselves--we don't have a chain, or long enough rope or even a winlass to pull up the anchor. Mattias is not used to anchoring because in Sweden, you don't use an anchor, but just tie up to a rock! We were joined by many other sailboats in this Channel. We had dinner on our respective boats and Heesook, Don and Christopher came for movie night. We watched Ratatouille.
Right before dinner, we heard Don shouting from his boat for us to tune into Channel 16. We were shocked to hear the same Korean/American couple on the radio with the Coast Guard, this time hailing the Coast Guard on a may day! We were baffled....thinking that they had still been out in the Atlantic for something like 24 hours later than their original call the day before. Unbelievable!! They had discarded the Coast Guard's recommendation from the night before and now had grounded their boat in the Cape Fear area that is known for significant shoaling, supposedly taking in water. The Coast Guard had asked if all passengers had their life vests on. We couldn't hear the response. She asked if the water was coming in like a garden hose or fire hose. We couldn't hear the response. Next, she suggested that the wife get out of the dingy and back into the sailboat. Chatter between the US Coast Guard and TowBoats Us or SeaTow (they are like AAA on water) went back and forth. It was determined that the TowBoats US could reach the couple sooner than US Coast Guard. So, about 15 minutes later, TowBoats US got to the couple who were 200 yards from shore, grounded. As the Coast Guard asked the TowBoat driver questions, he conferred with the Coast Guard that the lady was in the dingy, floating in the ocean, unattached to the boat! Un-f'ing believeable!! So, the couple was transferred to the US Coast Guard and moved to a marina in Southport where we were heading next day. It created more conversation this night!
Day 3 Mile 283.4 Motts Channel at Wrightsville Beach, NC to Mile 309.3 Southport, NC
We had an early start again today. Actually, Mattias got up early and we were started by 7:30 to get to Southport early. We checked into the marina early afternoon. I noticed, (safety nut that I am), that no one wears their life vests in boats her in NC, not even kids! How does that work?
Mattias will blog our experience on the water today. The writer of this blog had a migraine and took meds and rested for most of the afternoon while Mattias and girls took the dingy for lunch with Heesook, Don and Christopher. They played on the beach afterward. I did laundry after the migraine subsided.
More later,
Carrie
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