Hair raisers

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Catch ’em any way you can!

Saturday, Nov 3. Our plan was to make 56nm from Southport, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC.  We’d anchor in a spot we’ve used three times now, just off the ICW in a small oxbow of the Waccamaw River. Only three opening bridges near the end of the day and they were on request.  ( NOTE: we’ve added a new page “Where is Ortolan?” so you can follow our path)

Our stop in Southport the previous night was South Harbor Village Marina and their best feature is the terrific Italian restaurant an easy 3 minute walk from dock to land. The food and service are always excellent and my sister-in-law Kerry would so approve of their black cloth napkins. Ever notice how the linty white ones can leave your clothes speckled white? Ask for a black napkin.

So later that evening we hear a call on Ch16 from a commercial fishing vessel (shrimper most likely) to the Coast Guard. M/V Diamond City was taking on water and needed a pump because hers weren’t keeping up. She was one mile off the coast by Southport. Based on the back and forth Q & A between the CG and fishing vessel, the problem was caused by one of the outriggers breaking and somehow making a hole below the waterline. Diamond Cityhad 1 ½ feet of water when they first called for help. The Captain was very calm. The CG sent out a boat with a pump which promptly became clogged. The last we heard was that a CG crew member was attempting to come aboard to assist and now the water was up to 3ft.   Very hopeful this calamity would work out well; but we wouldn’t know for sure.

Diamond City safe at the dock in Holden Beach, NC

Saturday morning we passed Diamond City, the Coast Guard was there getting a report.

Alright, back to our trip on Saturday. As you may know, we aren’t big on fishing but Russ is determined to harvest fruits of the sea any way he can.  One way to do this is to snag a pot, or better yet, a large net strung across the channel. If you snag a new one that wasn’t weighted properly you can easily come away with a good haul. Right. Or you can stop dead in the channel with green netting wrapped around your sail drive, all the time thankful that you don’t have a traditional shaft drive where the line can get really tightly wrapped around all that exposed metal.

Approximately 10miles before the South Carolina line in the area of Ocean Isle Beach, we began noticing very colorful floats on both sides of the channel. I pointed them out as good examples of visible floats. Minutes later we hear a noise we’ve never heard before but figure we must have snagged a pot- except it sounded like more and we never saw one. I race back to the stern (grateful I was decently dressed) and see a large green net with little float balls (about the size of ping-pong balls) near the water’s surface and trailing out from our port stern. Uttering words even today you can’t say on the radio I look around and see two men in a small skiff over near the channel’s edge. Meanwhile Russ has turned off the engine, leaving the starboard one in gear.

The men come over to help and fess up that this is their net (after Russ asked who’d be stupid enough) and it should sink to the bottom but because it was new…. The water is 18 ft deep here mind you. The nets are in for a short while and then get hauled up. Just our luck.  A Krogen trawler Lili (they have AIS) is headed our way and I hail her to warn of our situation and to proceed with care. She didn’t have much choice because between the net across the channel and us in the middle, the only room to pass was between the float on our starboard side and the edge of the channel.

The culprits help untangle their net from our port sail drive and/or rudder

Rudder with sail drive forward of it

The net gets freed from the port sail drive (might have only been arund the rudder) but the starboard engine was still going to keep us in the channel and not hit the G87 marker. The current is weak thank goodness but it’s moving us back and slightly toward the edge of the channel. Now we see that the starboard drive has caught the net, so we shut it down. What is that noise I ask? Again I ask. Oh no says the Captain, the autopilot is still on!! Turn it off and pray that it isn’t now a piece of crap destined for Davy Jones’ Locker. So now we are just at the mercy of the wind and current; both fairly light.  The men in the skiff use the netting, still attached to the starboard drive, to pull us back into the channel; wish I had taken a picture of that. We give them a line to use instead (you might recall the one- blue with burnished wood highlights?) and once they extract the netting and pull us far enough, we start the engines. They both seem OK and respond well. Thanks for your help I say as the guys toss back our line.  Help? Wish we could have met under better circumstances one guy says.  Hey, at least I did NOT apologize for ruining their new net.

The lesson learned is: beware of identical shiny new floats that appear opposite one another and pay careful attention to whether small boats are near the channel’s edge and close to the floats.  Be extra cautious on weekends.

The sail drives and prop behave well and Herr Otto is back to being his usual stable, keep-on-course self.

And here I thought I wouldn’t have much to write about on our third trip south- same old, same old I figured.  Couldn’t have been more wrong.  Hope you all are enjoying the ride 🙂

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Manteo love- third time is charming!

The extended forecast looked great for several days (even more- but you’d be crazy to believe it) and we had time to kill before we dared ask for the OK to be south of Cape Hatteras.

Ortolan rests in strange calmness in Manteo

Manteo is a delightful town. Manteo Waterfront  Marina is small but transients don’t seem to have trouble obtaining a berth. The pier just before the marina is a free dock with a gazebo at the end; so as long as you don’t mind (or maybe you welcome) curious folk, for $10 you can use all the water you want. The pump out station is there too, but no one used it during our stay. A couple, a bit older than us, walked by and wondered about our draft- 3ft I told them, which paled in comparison to their pontoon boat’s 9 inches.  As they walked away I heard the wife say to her husband, “See? If we sold our house and bought a boat like that we wouldn’t have any work.” Ha! At least she was right about having to sell the house to buy the boat!

Umm, let’s see, a free dock, calm conditions and a boat still covered with salt thanks to our fun trip in LIS- we’ll take it! Groceries topped the to-do list and that’s an easy 3 block walk to a Food-A –Rama. A Post Office, Family Dollar, pharmacy and others are in the same plaza. We moved the boat from the anchorage after checking in with Carl Jordan, the harbor master. Paid $10 for dock water and $10 to use the Comfort Station (a washer, two dryers, men’s and ladies shower areas, ironing board and book exchange table). By the time we returned to the anchorage later on Tues, everything that required cleaning or washing was back to normal.

Russ relaxes during the photo shoot.

Manteo, along with the rest of the outer banks, had been hit hard by nasty Irene last August. Last October we noted that stores were mostly closed and we couldn’t tell if they were coming back or not. Happy to say that the town is bustling again and business is booming. Finally made it to Full Moon Café and Brewery where you can enjoy beer flights (brew many of their own) and a delicious and varied menu to be enjoyed outside or in. Manteo is sorta dry- only beer and wine sold. Check this out- my photo of the cafe was used as a “reference” for this painting…. click here.

Enjoying a Full Moon Cafe brewski special

Full Moon Cafe and Brewery

A shop just down the side street from Full Moon is where we first saw and learned about sea beans two years ago. This time I picked up a few very small sea stars from a bin outside. Old bottles –but not any good colors were nearby- I am looking for cobalt blue, cranberry or purple. After I’d paid for the sea stars, I spied a blue milk crate- containing the desired cobalt blue bottles. In fact once I got them home and cleaned up- I saw they were old Bromo Seltzer bottles, 4” tall and 1 ¼” diam. No tops. A whole pile of them were found locally in the woods and the man who found them asked his friend, the shop’s owner, to sell them for him. I bought three- two for me and one for a collector.

Roanoke Festival Park beckoned. Although we’d walked the trail on its outer edge along the water and watched the 16th century repro ship Elizabeth II, we had yet to visit the museum. An interactive site that chronicles and celebrates the first English settlement in America; it was the perfect size to experience without being tiring. As promised, we traveled back to 1585 and were home for dinner.

Many more helpers would be needed to make this dugout

Skittles- king pin in center, “ball” sits against backboard- guess who knocked down the king pin first try?

So far, since leaving CT, the level of adrenaline-raising excitement had been about zero – and we are quite comfortable with that. Then came time to get ourselves off the dock with the wind blowing us on at a manageable 7kts. Our stern was four feet away from the gazebo which due to its shape, was wider than the dock by several feet. We’d have to pivot at the bow, reversing to get our stern out away from the gazebo.  Fenders and lines tied to accomplish this, instructions given by the captain and all looked set. Reverse on the starboard engine, began to pivot- the bow rail not in danger of hitting the piling, I am manning the bow line attached to the bow cleat and looped around a piling. As we pivot to 45° Russ gives thumbs up to remove the bow line.  I take one end off the cleat and quickly pull the line from around the piling- oh this so painful- space between the piling and the dock becomes a natural jam cleat  and the line becomes tightly wedged about 18” from the end. I frantically give the STOP signal as seconds later the boat bounces back with the force of the pull. A bit of forward and I am able to release the line from the cleat, toss to toward the dock and holler over that we’ll be back for it.

After we anchored, Russ took the kayak over to retrieve the line which had been placed on the dock. We have four very long black lines which came with the boat. Last year we bought two 25’ blue lines (at my request) and they are jinxed. One, we think, fell off of the tramps (was replaced) and we nearly lost this one. Seems to have a thin strip of wood burnished into the last 18” of the line. Too bad Tropical Storm Sandy looks to give us bigger concerns.