Aground Again...Naturally

If any of you are old enough to remember Gilbert O'Sullivan, you'll know how to sing the above. We left the Camp LeJeune area, hoping to have a peaceful trip to Wrightsville Beach. Unfortunately, it was not to be so. at Browns Inlet we were slowed up by about 5 of 6 boats who were creeping through the buoys carefully. One catamaran was aground in the middle of the inlet. We were following Claude in Merope. The wind and waves were in our faces. It was cold. I was at the tiller, trying to prove my prowess at navigating difficult, shoal stretches of the ICW. We had almost made it through when, what the ****? The guy on the catamaran comes SCREAMING toward us in reverse. He had managed to get unstuck, and was not about to stop for any other sailboats that might be in his way. What? We were on direct collision course. I said, "reverse, reverse!!!!" Sailboats are not like cars. Wayne grabbed the tiller and threw it over, avoiding the catamaran but of course now we are aground. (Sailboats don't actually stop and go in reverse, no matter what you do....they have a bit of "way" or momentum built up that is not so easily altered.) This caused the normally mild-tempered Wayne Francis to utter such profanity that you would be shocked. He really gave it to the guy who just said, "sorry, man........." Yeah, right. I wrote about this in the last post...but I'm still angry. We got to the Harbor View marina that night, had to walk about 1/4 mile to get to the showers, but it was heaven to have a nice shower after such a day. Next day going on to Wrightsville we are spooked and going to follow Claude exactly. We come to a big dredger at another inlet. Claude draws about 3.5 feet, we draw about 4.5 Claude is going really slowly, taking the dredger to his starboard side. This puts us closer to the inlet than to the ICW, but the guys are not answering his radioed requests for directions, and so he is just guessing. He bumps, manages to get off, but TOO LATE FOR CASSIOPEIA. We are aground, again. More cursing. Claude pulls us off with a minimum of fuss this time, but we would just like to spend one day not going aground. We made it to Wrightsville, bumped and narrowly escaped another potential grounding on the channel into the anchorage, and are now rafted up with Merope, waiting for a part for Claude. The good news - we are learning how to avoid running aground if we bump. We are learning the hard way, experience. The bad news, Claude's windlass is not working and it will take at least another day to get one shipped to the local West Marine. What a run around the poor guy has had. The "extra" insurance he took when purchasing this product is practially useless it is so full of loopholes. Claude was supposed to have service on his boat for anything that could possibly go wrong with the windlass. The insurance company that Claude called yesterday seemed to be unable to locate another windlass by that manufacturer anywhere in the world. They are also contracted to utilize a local technician who told Claude he would not be able to do any such work for at least 3 or 4 days. Phone call after phone call. To the insurance company. To the technician. To West Marine in Wilmington, NC. To West Marine in Canda where Claude bought the part. Ah - now we are getting somewhere! The manager at his local West Marine knows that Claude is only looking to get what he paid for, and has had previous dealings with him in this regard. This gal gets on the network, and within about 1/2 hour they have magically managed to locate a replacement part and will have it sent to the West Marine here by tomorrow morning. We hope. Still, the local technician is required by some contract to pick up the part and bring it to the nearest marina for us. Is he going to do the work? Of course not! Claude has already got the defective part out, and it will take him and Wayne about 15 minutes to put the new one in. At any rate, we are rafted up in the anchorage at Wrightsville Beach, and had to have a lovely linguine with white clam sauce dinner together last night to chase the boat woe blues and the chilly weather. It's amazing the nice dinners you can have onboard with a little imagination and the recipe from the can of clams. The road ahead does not look promising, this section of the ICW is almost constantly being updated on the various internet information blogs due to shoaling and sinking boats. I just read that the whole ICW is shut down out of Norfolk, as a boat went aground and sank near Great Bridge, and the Dismal Swamp canal is closed as well. We are lucky we made it this far, and will continue to hone our skills. We hope to make it to Barefoot Landing in the Myrtle Beach area on our second day out of here. In order to get there, however, we will have to continue to sail the shoal-laden waters of the North Carolina ICW and sweat it out for three miles in the dangerous section known as the "rock pile". This is a very narrow section of canal heading into Myrtle Beach which has rocks jutting up into the channel at either side. As such, it is imperative to stay mid-channel. It is recommended that all small craft radio ahead to make sure there are no commercial vessels transiting this area, as there is not enough room for a barge/tug and a small boat to both safely go through and you know who is going to be on the losing end of that one. We will take every precaution, believe you me, and will keep the posts coming as often as possible. For the present moment we are working out our stress and tension by visiting the gorgeous beach on the Atlantic Ocean that is just moments from the boat - sunset strolls and morning runs should keep us sharp and prepare us for the days ahead.