January 9/08

The near stanchion is broken at the base - it's just resting in it's socket

Finally we were up early and also away early! Today's adventure wasn't due to happen for another couple of hours. We hit a submerged log as we left the anchorage, but other than that the trip was uneventful until we were in Currituck sound. The route for the ICW is delineated by markers and buoys in the water. It is usually pretty important to pay attention to them, as although you might be surrounded by a wide expanse of water it is quite often very shallow. We had our VHF radio on, and had been hearing a boat calling for a tow boat for some time. We could also see several miles ahead that a tug was travelling towards us, pushing a barge. He was taking up his full share of the ICW channel, and it was pretty difficult to pass on either side of him and still stay safe. It was not the first time that we were glad we had the shallow draft of our catamaran. We only draw 2'9" (before we put all our stuff on!). I thought perhaps that the boat calling for a tow had been edged into a shallow section by the tug, and, as it was quite windy and choppy, ended up going aground.
There seemed to be no reply to the stranded boat's requests for help, and as we got closer we could see he was a monohull with a crew of two. I had just been reading an account of another boat very like ours who had pulled a stranded boat off a sandbank, so I suggested to Chris that we could do the same favour for this boat. So we established radio contact and the captain of the mono came out in his dinghy to get a line from our boat to take to his boat. Already things weren't going well, as our line had been tied up in an odd manner after it was put away after being used at the Lock, and it took him ages to free it. Once he got back to his boat and tied the line on, we tried to tow him, but were having no effect at all. We were in 2.5 to 3 feet of rough water as we tried different approaches and angles, all useless, and all the while blowing closer and closer to the immovable monohull. Struggling to communicate between the two boats we didn't notice until it was too late that our slow and hard to manoever boat was blowing right down onto his bow roller! Our starboard side slid by him, from stern to bow, and his bow roller snapped our three stanchions and chopped up our lifeline! The rescue had turned into a disaster, but it could have been so much worse. We moved away a safe distance and admitted defeat. The captain of the mono very generously came over in his dinghy and offered to pay for half the damage, but we could't accept his kind offer. We left him still stuck in the sand, and mulled over the many lessons we had just learned.
Not 10 minutes after this, Chris pumped our port bilge. His mind was probably still reliving all the dumb things we had just done and he forgot the through hull was closed. He ended up breaking the diaphragm in the pump!
It was still only 11:45 a.m. when we got to Coinjock. It's a popular stop for boaters, with a fuel dock, marina shop and wonderful free showers! We fuelled up,got rid of our garbage and really enjoyed the shower. There was a low fishing boat there filled with evergreens. I thought they were left over from Christmas, but was told it was for the duck hunters. They tie these all over their boats, and look for all the world like a small island.
Just before Albemarle Sound we anchored, in Broad Creek. We needed more daylight than we had left to cross the sound. After we got there, three other boats came in and anchored. This is pretty unusaul at this time of year, as very low boat traffic is another plus of travelling in January.
Chris had been planning on replacing our vinyl front dodger window with a lexan one, and he did this at the anchorage, using the generator to power the saw. It is sooo much better than the vinyl one. Now we can see! He also fixed the stanchions so they didn't look to be in quite so many pieces, and let us move about the side deck a little easier. We went to bed with a gorgeous starry night