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BLAM!!! Oh, No! Not Again!?!!
Saturday, March 28, 1420, Underway at ICW mile 125, Alligator-Pungo Canal, Onboard Griffin.

We passed this Dredge on the way out of the Wrightsville Inlet. Her name was the Weeks, which is Wendy's maiden name.

Today started out to be such a nice day. We got up before dawn and got underway quickly. We cruised north up the deep Cape Fear River in light airs and a clear sky. We pulled into Wrightsville Beach just before 8:00am and tied up to the fuel pier. The dock master showed up at promptly at 8:00 and topped off our tanks with diesel and got us on our way.

Salty Tom had the hankering to go outside again. With a forecast of calm seas and light winds at our back, we turned and worked our way out the inlet. There are two kinds of waves in the ocean. The first are ocean swells from storms hundreds of miles away, and probably days ago. These tend to be long, slow rollers with hundreds of yards between the crests. We just ride up and down their backs.

We passed this sea turtle sleeping on the surface about 20 miles offshore. We circled him twice to get this photo, then he woke up, stuck his head out of the water to eyeball us, and dove deep.

The other kind of waves at sea are wind waves created by the wind pushing on the surface of the ocean right here, right now. With light winds, we didn't expect much in the way of wind waves.

As we turned out the inlet, we started to feel the effect of the ocean swells piling up on the beach. As the waves get into shallow water, they pile up on each other and can build into a nasty surf. Once you punch out through the swells piling up at the inlet, the Ocean can be relatively calm. It's very rarely still, like a millpond, but it can be close.

We got outside and after a brief period of pounding we settled down into a steady rhythm of riding the ocean swells. We were going to be cutting the corner of the southern coast of North Carolina. If you look at the map, the east coast of the US heads south and then cuts back to the west and starts an arc down toward Florida. We were going to be cutting the corner and heading back inland at Beaufort, North Carolina.

Salty Tom loves the deep blue. Here he is with all his tools. Magellan GPS, Steiner Binocs, etc.

At our farthest from shore, we were about 20 miles out. We couldn't see land in any direction. It may have been daylight, but I think it satisfied Tom's quest for blue water cruising, at least for now. We passed a sea turtle snoozing on the surface. We circled twice to get a good photo. You can see the pictures at www.GriffinUpdates.com

We entered the inlet at Beaufort. The ocean swells were piling up. We started surfing down the fronts of the waves, only to bury our bow in the trough. Briefly we would surf ahead of the wave, but at the bottom, the wave always caught up. The suction from the wave trough tried to hold us back. We turned right or left to drive out of the valley and get back on top. We emerged from the trough planning up the back side of the wave, surfing over the top, and starting the whole process over again.

Open ocean cruising has it's moments, but one of the biggest challenges we faced was getting in and out of the inlets. Here we are surfing down the swells. As the ocean swells get into shallow water, they pile up and you start to feel the power in the wave. We surf down the face of the wave at 3-4 knots faster than our cruise speed. At the bottom we dig into the trough and it feels like the wave is sucking the back of the boat down as we try and climb up the back of the wave ahead.

We surfed through the inlet and re-entered the waterway at Beaufort. We cruised north with Belhaven 70 miles away as our goal for the night. We left Adams Creek Canal and entered the wide Neuse River. We re-entered a narrow waterway that led us to Pamlico River, a wide and deep area with little navigational hazards and few marks. We entered waypoints in the GPS and proceeded north. We approached the mouth of the Pungo River. The ICW enters the Pungo and runs 10 miles upriver to Belhaven.

We were running in 16 feet of water, more than 2 miles from the nearest shoal, when...

BLAM!!! Oh, No! Not Again!?!! Tom chopped the throttles instantly. By this time, our reactions are honed to a razors edge. We know what to do when we hear that dreaded sound. We quickly re-verified our position. We were exactly where our little "sign here" post-it note DR had us, in good water. The depthsounder and GPS confirmed what we knew. That left crab pots or floating debris. We hadn't seen crab pots in miles. We were in the middle of a broad waterway, so crab pots didn't seem likely. While we had seen floating logs and other flotsam in the narrow creeks and canals, we hadn't seen anything out here so we didn't really know what to make of it.

We pull into Belhaven, North Carolina and tie up in front of an old friend. Fairey Atalanta 103, Puffin. A British sailboat like the one my father and I used to have in the 70's and early 80's. This boat used to belong to CDR Bruce Bauer. We met the new owner but didn't have much time to chat with our own excitement going on.

We had isolated the problem to the starboard propeller. Since we were in unprotected waters, and 300 miles north of our last swim, neither of us relished the idea of going in the icy water. We decided to limp in to Belhaven on one engine. We called ahead with an Estimated Time of Arrival of 1 hour before sunset. We asked if they had a diver. They said they would have one waiting for us.

We pulled into Belhaven at 5:30 right on schedule. They had us moor directly in front of an old sailboat friend of ours, a Fairey Atalanta that used to belong to CDR Bruce Bauer in Annapolis. Anybody who remembers sailing with me or my father in the 70's and early 80's will remember our Atalanta, Patience. We spoke briefly to the new owner and his dog, but had pressing problems of our own to deal with.

We waited for the diver. Tom climbed onto the swim platform and played with the prop with a boat hook. He felt the prop turn. He couldn't feel anything hanging on the prop, which was our certain guess at the cause, as we knew we hadn't touched bottom. We thought we had fouled a crab pot or another bag around the starboard prop. Tom thought that the trolling along for 10 miles with the other engine running might have cleared the prop tangle. We briefly considered casting off the lines and running back out for a test drive. Instead, I jumped into my bathing suit and slipped into the water quickly without feeling the temperature. I didn't want to know in advance, in case it was too cold. The water wasn't bad, warmed by 5 inches of rain and runoff in the last week.

After our last prop incident, Tom threatened to read a book for the rest of the trip unless we changed the Driver is the Diver rule. It was my turn to dive, but I wisely hired Jerrold to do the diving for me in a dry suit. Here he is getting ready to go in.

I felt for the prop with my feet. Damn. Just what I feared. The prop had thrown a blade. That sounds so gentle. What actually happens is that the propeller, 25 pounds of solid bronze, is rotating at 1,500 rpm. One of the blades was weakened by a combination of electrolysis corrosion and metal fatigue from repairs and bending involved in repitching and tuning over the years. I'm not certain, but these may be the original props from 1985. Anyway, the corrosion and fatigue caused the prop blade to fail, crack and snap off. In our case this happened near the hub. Once the blade breaks, 8 pounds of solid bronze departs the propeller hub with a vengeance, hurled by centrifugal force. Our luck was with us as this bronze meat cleaver departed somewhere in the propeller arc not pointed at the boat, and buried itself in the mud and not through the bottom of the hull. Losing a prop is one thing. Sinking is altogether too exciting, even for a couple of crash test dummies like Tom and me.

The diver arrived, but by then it was dark. The wind had gotten up and Griffin was bouncing around against the fenders. The pier is very protected from a wind from the east or north. Unfortunately it was blowing from the south. No protection.

The Starboard Prop, minus one blade. Luckily it separated somewhere in the arc of the propeller swing that wasn't pointed at the boat so we didn't get a meat cleaver sized hunk of bronze shooting up through the bottom of the hull!

We all agreed to wait until the morning and regroup at 7:00. Jerald and his son showed up and dove at about 7:30. Off came the old props. They tried to put on the new props, but...

I'm getting ahead of myself here. Look for update #10 to see what happens in the further adventures of Griffin on the ICW.

Life is only as boring as you are willing to accept.

Warm regards,

The Griffin Crew, Jon & Tom.

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