CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: TROUBLING BRIDGES AND SHALLOW WATERS

We knew that the Intracoastal Waterway between Swansboro and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina was a mind-bending challenge. Heading north last summer, I remember a lot of teeth gnashing by the Admiral as the depth reader went to 5, 4, 3 and 2 feet. I also remember that it was a long day on the water before we limped into “Dud”ley’s in Swansboro. As you may recall, we barely made it through the night at “Dud”ley’s, then zipped across the channel to Casper’s Marina early the next morning to save the life of Slow Motion. As the Bette Davis line goes, “What a dump!” That sums up “Dud”ley’s.

Heading south, we stopped at Casper’s again and enjoyed the hospitality of the dock master, Susan. We talked about books, a subject I can talk about for days and days. I gave her the Martin Cruz Smith (Wolves Eat Dogs) that I had just finished. And I was hoping to get “Canada”, which Amazon had shipped over a week ago to Casper’s. But no such luck. I have no idea where “Canada” is now, and I’m not happy with Amazon. I used to get books from them in a few days. Now they can’t get it to me in three weeks! Have they outsourced the shipping of books to India or China?

Back to the challenge of the waterway: The Admiral worked on his charts and calculations for hours to prepare for the 7 and ½ hours we would be on the waterway between Swansboro and Seapath at Wrightsville Beach. That’s if the circumstances were ideal, namely if we arrived at the low bridges in time to make their “opening”, and if we didn’t run aground. As soon as we left Swansboro at 7:15 a.m., we had to travel at a certain average speed to reach the Onslow Beach Swing Bridge, 12 feet vertical clearance for boats, before 9 a.m. – not at 9:02 a.m. and not a half hour before. If you get to a bridge too early before its scheduled opening, you end up going around in circles about 100 times, if you’re a sailboat. And if you’re a motor vessel like Slow Motion, you burn up that super-expensive diesel fuel just idling, going into reverse, idling some more, and trying to avoid the circling sailboats, who don’t always try to avoid you. Did I tell you that Slow Motion’s vertical is 19 feet? So for any bridge with less vertical clearance than at least 20 feet, we have to request an opening by the bridge tender. And these bridges of limited vertical clearance, let’s call them “troubling bridges”, only open once an hour, either on the hour or the half hour, or maybe twenty minutes after the hour. But you have to know which it is, or you end up idling, wasting fuel and dodging sailboats. And no matter what you read in the books about the opening times, you really have to call the bridge tender on the day you want to go through to get the scoop for that day. Most of these troubling bridges are very old and frequently are closed for repair.

So the Onslow Beach Swing Bridge, of course, had needed repairs the week before we started our grueling day, and it was closed for “just” three hours. Think about treading water in a swimming pool for three hours, while kids are bouncing all around you screaming and shouting. That’s what the circus is like when a bunch of boats, motor and sail, have to hang out in a very small area waiting for a bridge repair to be completed.  So I tried to call the Onslow Beach Bridge tender and the phone just rang, no answer. I called several times and there was still no answer. Since the bridge starts opening at 7 a.m., and I was calling after that, either the bridge tender was not taking calls that morning (Hangover? Diva? Antisocial personality?) or the phone wasn’t working. Not one to give up easily (and not one who likes to wait at closed bridges), I called the Swansboro/Emerald Isle Coast Guard station for an update on the Onslow bridge. Surprise, surprise. They couldn’t get through either. So they said they would keep trying and call me back. The Coast Guard came through and called back in about 10 minutes. The bridge was going to open all day! No repairs!

The Coast Guard officer asked what number I had used to call the bridge tender; I told him, and it turns out that the number in Dozier’s Waterway Guide is incorrect. The CG officer gave me the correct number and he suggested I call to let the bridge tender know we were on our way. So I used the correct number – and still the phone just rang and rang. Okay, we’re dealing with a Diva, I decided. The Admiral knew the Diva couldn’t ignore a call on the Channel 13, the channel for contacting all bridges, so as we got closer, he called on Channel 13, and the Onslow bridge tender truculently responded. Okay, I get it. The bridge is operated by the Marines. Troop morale is at an all-time low. But is operating a bridge so darned hard on the Marine chosen to open it on the hour that he chooses rudeness as the best way to relate to the boaters requesting an opening? I think not. This is not a bridge in Afghanistan, not even a bridge to nowhere. It strikes me as a plum job, way above KP for prestige and certainly way above most Marine assignments for safety.

We made it through Onslow Beach Swing Bridge with a number of other boats. One boat had started to pass us several miles before the bridge, but the Admiral pointed out to the captain that going faster would just mean waiting longer for the bridge to open. She saw the error of her ways and chose to follow us to the bridge. But once we got there, her inner “I want to be first” persona took over, and she told us, as she passed (shouting, not even using the radio) that she needed to be closer to the bridge. So she practically kissed the bridge before it opened, and when it opened she had to back up to avoid being hit. Yes, the bridges are troubling, but so are some of the boat captains. How many times has a driver roared past you to get to the red light first? That’s the insane mentality that is apparently carried straight from the roadways to the waterways of America.

Even before we got to the Onslow Beach Bridge, we were dealing with contradictory information about the shallow waters around Brown’s Inlet. The dock hand at Casper’s said to go around the two markers, 60 and 61, which were misplaced, according to him. The cruisers who blog told us that the markers had been placed correctly, and that you had to go between the markers, or risk running aground. One boat left before us from Casper’s and the Admiral asked the captain to radio him about this shallow area, when he got there. The Admiral had told the captain that our information contradicted what the dock hand had just told him, and that we were informed that the markers were properly placed, marking the true channel. About an hour after he left Casper’s, the other captain radioed the Admiral that a catamaran had run aground, when it tried to go around the two markers, but the captain went between the two markers, no problem. Moral of the story: Don’t take any dock hand’s word as the Gospel, even if his name is Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Pray that some boater will go before you and let you know the real score, so you don’t suffer the fate of the catamaran, waiting for high tide to get you off the shoal you ran into.

The old saw is that if you haven’t run aground, you just haven’t cruised very much. True, all boat captains, no matter how prepared and experienced they are, will run aground at some point. The various inlets to and from the ocean are constantly causing shoaling, and no navigation charts or books can track them fast enough to give you current information. But if you check all your sources every day – the charts, the books, the other boaters tied up at the marina with you, the Coast Guard, the blogging cruisers, and yes, the dock hands at the marinas – then you’ve done everything possible to avoid grounding, short of just staying tied up in one place, never traveling on the waterway.

I was just remembering some of my first blogs, when everything was new, a lot of things struck me as very funny or just plain absurd, and every day something amazing happened that I had never expected. Now, as I reread this 36^th Blog, I see such a difference in content. And I realize how far I’ve come, in terms of “getting my head into the game.” Still, today when a boat engine repair specialist came to diagnose why our engine had overheated yesterday during the trip under the troubling bridges and through the shallow waters, I felt like a complete greenhorn again. We have two diesel engines, and they have so many parts that it’s unbelievable to me how they ever work. One of the engines, the one that overheated, was low on coolant – where had the coolant gone? What was this going to cost to get the answer to that question? And what was it going to cost to repair whatever had broken or clogged up or just grown too old to do its job anymore? Slow Motion is 18 years old, born in 1994, and she still has some original parts – hoses and such – which get brittle over time and need replacement. You may ask: ”What were those jokers in Ft. Lauderdale doing for more than six weeks, when they were supposed to fix everything on the boat?” I’m asking that. But the Admiral just takes in the diagnosis from the engine guru and decides what we have to do to solve the immediate problem (coolant leak). Good news – we did a sea trial after we found out what was wrong, and Slow Motion went faster than she has ever gone. She couldn’t even go that fast during the pre-purchase sea trial. So the Admiral is doing everything in his power to overcome the years of non-maintenance by the former owner. And Slow Motion is coming to life again! Hurray!