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May 17th, 2001
The Dragon Guarding the Banana River, and the Eau Gallie Yacht Club

(Posthumous note Sept 2002 - This dragon was destroyed in a storm this year, so this 2001 picture was the last year it was standing)

The Eau Gallie Yacht Club (right) - our first, only and last stop in Florida. Left Marathon on May the 16th - ran offshore all night and arrived the next day - 27.5 hours.

Heading offshore at Ponce DeLeon Inlet at Daytona Beach at Sunset on the 18th after leaving Eau Gallie Yacht Club that morning. This is the start of an offshore run to Beaufort SC. The weather started out fine, but got a bit rough toward landfall the next day with 4-5 foot beam seas.

(Left above) Backed up Boat Traffic awaiting Bridge Opening on the Waccamaw River, North of Charleston SC. We had anchored off the river the night before.

(Right above) South of Myrtle Beach, it appears we were targets of practice bombing runs by these military jet aircraft. They screamed by us on the river not more than 100-200 feet up. My brother, who flies military fighter jets, says the fuselage configuration here is not ordinary and is probably a modified, classified plane - maybe a variation of submarine hunter/bombers. The dogs went nuts from the noise. It was impressive.

OK, so you'd think a guy who is Commander of the Marathon Sail and Power Squadron, teaches navigation, and is an instrument rated multi-engine pilot could read his charts and stay in the channel right?? - WRONG!!.

This happened just out of Beaufort NC getting back into the ICW Northbound. Fortunately it was soft aground so no damage resulted and it was easy for these guys to pull me off. I must say that the response was very fast - only a few minutes. These guys were very helpful and very courteous. Very Professional.

Even my electronic charting was telling me I was out of the channel, but it had been off some earlier in the day so I dismissed it as wrong. I was wrong. In all fairness, the Sea Tow guys said the main channel had been shoaled in for a couple years anyway, and that some daymarks had been removed, but that none of it was updated on the charts (Hey Power Squadron - maybe a coop charting update in the area). It appears that they get a LOT of business from that shoal area. (See the chart below for details)

I'd whole heartedly recommend subscribing to the Sea Tow service. I signed up for it less than a year ago in the Keys "just in case". Boy was that lucky. It would have cost me hundreds of dollars for this tow. Instead my membership covered it all, so I renewed it on the spot for next year at less than $100 ($75-$95?)

At-A-Boy SEA TOW!

This is just out of Beaufort NC, leaving the town docks - red dashes show the way up under the bridge, and past Town Creek. From there you should ordinarily go straight to connect with the ICW. The red circle shows where the channel is now impassable. Instead then, you should take the side creek to the starboard to rejoin the ICW. There are no signs posted that I could see, and my charts had no indication of this. I'm told by the Sea Tow guys that some daymarks have been removed and that charts are not yet updated.

LESSON:
In retrospect, I could have prevented this by being more diligent - even if the charts were wrong. My computerized chart was telling me I was heading over a shoal, but I dismissed it as an inaccurate datum as had occurred earlier (sometimes it puts me on the highway). I was checking for the daymarks but couldn't identify all the ones I was trying too. I just dismissed that too as a bewildering collection of daymarks and I just didn't make them all out properly. I had been this way before and was somewhat familiar with it (overconfident) so I continued on to my next identified daymark. The problem was that I skipped one daymark that would have kept me in the channel (it was not there) and I cut directly across the shoal to the ICW thinking I was in the channel the whole time. The good news was that I reacted quickly enough to prevent a hard grounding or damage. As the water got shallower the sound of the engines changed and the stern started squatting as it does when it gets sucked down in shallow water. I immediately pulled back the throttles and put the engines in neutral before we went aground. I tried to get off by myself for a short while, but finally gave up the ghost and called Sea Tow before I created any damage myself.
Capn Greg

Boaters Beware!