Drivin that Train, High on Cocaine

The first twenty miles or so of my journey yesterday were in a ditch. There is nowhere to anchor in this ditch, until you reach mile 120. The ditch opens up a little there, and there are some private piers. Even there, I wouldn't anchor, unless it's an emergency. The charts show a small inlet before that, and the guidebook mentions it as a tight anchorage. I don't know how you could get anything more than a dingy or skiff into that inlet.

The drive down the ditch was uneventful except... early on a tug passed. I tried to get off to the side to let him pass. When I passed into his wake, and back into the center, my steering was seriously degraded. I checked the centerboards. They had been pushed up into the hull. They could have been pushed up by a shoal while I was off to the side, but I actually think the tug's wake pushed them up. The wake didn't look like much on the surface. There were no waves. It mas just a lot of swirls behind. But I bet it's prop was putting off a lot of force underwater.

The wind picked up over the course of the day. It was at my back, and I was tempted to put up a sail. You'll be happy to know that I waited until I was out of the ditch to do so. I motor-sailed another 5-10 miles to Belhaven.

My gas worries were unfounded. Maybe I had been leaking a lot of fuel from the fuel bowl. Maybe putting up a sail really helped. All I know is that the engine sipped gas compared to it's past fuel consumption. That's great, because I spent about $100 on fuel at the Alligator River Marina. I don't do a lot of driving on land, so I'm not used to dropping a c note at the pump. Nice to know that I won't have to do that on a daily basis.

The shore along the ditch was mostly undeveloped. But even there you can't escape the billboards.