Hours of boredom interupted by moments of TERROR...

Some stories are just hard to believe, this is one of them.

  Most of the Intracoastal Waterway consists of long straight passages across bays, down rivers, through canals, or the like. There are some tricky areas where you have to pay attention and the exit from the Pungo River Canal into the Belhaven waterway is one of them. The sky had been overcast all day with occasional rain storms and a stiff 10 to 20 knot wind out of the south. The Belhaven Waterway is actually one giant weed bed with a narrow channel running haphazardly through, marked with occasional red and green buoys. The channel averages 8 feet deep with the depth outside the channel less than 4 feet. The edges of the channel are lined with crab pot floats (which have lines attached that will reek havoc on your props if you run over them). Every 100 feet or so we could see a stump or fallen tree lurking along side our channel. We entered the Waterway at 5:00 heading south into the wind, our electronic chart indicated we would have to take a 90 degree turn  (due West) near the middle of the swamp and the channel would be at it's narrowest point at the turn (maybe 30 yards wide).. Both Mo and I were watching the water ahead to be sure we identified the correct buoys and turned at the right time. Of course we were tracking our movement on our Ray Marine electronic chart (which shows the Buoy's and our location) as well as watching our depth sounder to insure we stayed in deep water (all the while keeping a close eye on the crab pots we could almost touch). As we approached the turn, the clouds parted for the first time today and the evening sun (directly out of the West) totally blinded our ability to see buoy's, crab pots, or anything else. 5 seconds later an alarm sounded "What the hell is that" Mo shouted. I responded "Shit, our connection has been lost, the electronic chart can't locate us". After maybe another 5 seconds the depth sounder alarm signalled we had lost connection with the transducer and it was not functioning. All this and we had just turned Westerly so the wind was now catching the boat full force from the port side.

After a few minutes of total panic our electronics repaired themselves and we were able to find our way to our marina. This was "Murphy's first visit on the trip. apparently he saved everything in order to provide me with a "few moments of TERROR".

Our dock was too short for the ladder so I had to extract Tucker under the Bow netting and carry him to the grass.

Lots of really neat bridges.

The Pungo River Canal was spectacular.

I sweated off several pounds in the Waterway.

Tuckers first saltwater swim.

He didn't seem to mind.

C'mon Tucker, you can do better than Mo.

'Atta boy !!!

This has been one long ass day.