Tuesday, June 12, 2012

I left the Great Dismal Swamp Visitors Center at 9AM. One hour later I was at the second lock. This one lowers you down 10 feet. I exit the lock and proceed down the canal. As I continue down the canal I think about what a misnomer this place got 'The Dismal Canal'.To me this place, as I had said before, is absolutely beautiful. It is like drifting down a river in the  Amazon Jungle. As you are going through it you hear the sound of the birds, you see lots of turtles sunning on logs, a snake swimming across the canal and also since the water is so calm, you see the reflection of all the foliage, with its myriad of colors, in the water.
        Eventually the canal leads into the Pasquatank River. Now this river starts out narrow and deep, then becomes wide and shallow, and leads you into Elizabeth City, NC. Now I want to go off on a tangent for a few lines to explain a problem that I had. When I go down the inter_coastal waterway in New Jersey the red triangles are on the right, and the green squares are on the left. Even when you pass an inlet the boats coming through the inlet have to immediately adapt, especially if they are headed north, to the flow of the signs. So now I am going down the Pasquatank River and if their were no navigation signs there I automatically know that the deeper water is on the outside of a bend. The water runs faster on this side, and so no sediment settles. Whereas on the inside of the bend the speed of the water slows and sediment settles, making it shallow. So now I am traveling  on the ICW and  I know how the signs should appear on it. So now I am proceeding down the the river and approaching a bend to my right. I see this green square navigation sign close to the right bank. About a 100 feet off. All of a sudden a war started going off in my head. One side of it was saying you should be off to port where the water should be deeper. the other side of my brain was saying that this is the ICW and green squares should be passed on my port side. I also contemplate that maybe they made a mistake in the placement of the sign, but this assumption I quickly cast off. So I came to the conclusion that for some reason this particular bend on the river broke all the rules, and I ought to follow the sign. So I passed the sign on my port and quickly came to a stop. Damn, I'm grounded. Now this particular grounding really bother me. for one I was still in the jungle. Also I had no idea when anyone else would come by to give me a hand. Now my draft is 4 feet, and I was in 3 foot of water. Fortunately as I was heading down stream the wind was blowing pretty strong on my bow. So I put together a plan to get out of here.What I did was to raise my sta-sail, that is the smaller inner jib. The idea was to use that with the wind coming into my bow to turn the boat around. There were small waves on the river. Within not too long of a time the  boat, with the wind pushing, and the waves bouncing it, began to turn. Then when turned, I let out a little more jib, and the boat slowly bounced me back to where I came from, before I got grounded.

       Now, again, I was on my way. It was starting to get late, and looking at the sky you could see that a storm was coming in. So as I come around another bend I see two sailboats anchored behind a little island, Goat Island. So I decide to do the same. I anchor, run down to feed  Sam, and before I could get back up on deck again, an intense rain came down, It rained on and off for a few hours. What a lucky decision that was to anchor at that time. Some times I make good decisions.