Too Cute

Woke up this morning and headed over to a public boat ramp in Kitty Hawk Bay. There are no services on the water here. The depths are bad and there are no boats besides skiffs here. I was running low on all sorts of things, the most important being gas. My plan was to walk about a mile or so to a gas station I saw the other day while stocking up for a Thanksgiving meal. I took two gas tanks off the boat. I was going to put a few gallons in each one and bring them back to the boat. They are too heavy to carry full that distance. I knew I might have to do the trip a couple times to get enough gas.

Anyway, I walk out of the parking lot of the boat ramp and get about 20 feet before a car passes, stops and backs up. The driver asks me if I need a ride. I was in heaven. I got a ride to the gas station and back. A task that I figured might take me a couple hours, was completed in twenty minutes.

This mirrors my experience on Thanksgiving day. I did walk all the way to the grocery store, but as I left the parking lot with my bags, I stuck out my thumb and the first guy to pass me, picked me up. Nice folks in Kitty Hawk.

What you might not know about me, is that when I was in college, I did quite a lot of hitch-hiking. I've hitch-hiked the entire length of the eastern seaboard, from the northern tip of Nova Scotia to Key West. Also hitch-hiked from DC to school in Michigan, and back a few times. That was at the tail end of when you could hitch-hike. I think I was only able to do it because I looked young, clean-cut and had a backpack with me.

I'm doing a similar adventure now, only instead of riding in strangers' cars, I'm mostly riding in my boat.

The motor to Alligator River was uneventful except... I tried to take a shortcut. I got too cute. I saw an inlet on the charts and on Google maps where it looked like I might be able to cut into a creek and take a few miles off the day's trip. If you go to nautig, I've uploaded the days track, and you can see where I tried to enter. It was at high tide, and I thought I could do it. I was wrong. I ran hard aground. I decided to get in my kayak and explore the inlet to see if there was a channel anywhere in there. There was not. I could have put my rubber boots on and walked across the inlet to the other side, but there was no way I was bringing the boat with me. The bottom was sand. Unlike the Chesapeake where it's mostly mud, there was no way I could force the boat across. Anyway, I fired up the motor and backed off the sand and out the inlet.

Before I started this trip, I was talking to an old coot about it. He wanted to know all about the boat. When I told him the engine I had, his response was that it was too powerful. Too Powerful!?! That's like saying someone is too good looking, has too much smarts, or money. Is there such a thing? I thank my too powerful engine for easily getting me off the sandbar this morning.

Of course, the guy also had tons of advice he wanted to give. The advice came with a large dose of descriptions of what an accomplished sailor he is... How he'd go out sailing when the weather was getting rough and everyone else was coming in. And how he didn't even need a motor. He could sail his boat into the slip without one.

I don't want to pollute my blog with such rubbish. Yah, I could go on and on about what a great sailor I am, and I could leave out the trials and tribulations I've faced while sailing. But how interesting would that be? I think it's a lot more interesting, informative, and funny to hear about how I've lost three anchors in the space of a month. If you get tired of that, I can always lie. You're not on the boat. How would you know?