Down Under

These two days have been quite an adventure. The Dalmatian has two features that make it a fine boat, but also features that need to be addressed while traveling the ICW. The water draft is ~7 feet so care has to be taken when traveling the low water areas.

We have Captain Mike with Our Little Cape (4 foot draft) in front of us so we know the exact water depth we will be traveling in. There were several spots along the route that shoal in from currents and storms which aren’t as deep as listed on the charts.

Also the Magenta Line that we follow on our chart plotter isn’t always the deepest point of the waterway. In fact it can be off enough to run a boat aground. Captains Mike and Hank have made many deliveries over this route and know the trouble spots. When we anchored at the Alligator River Marina we pulled the Dalmatian into a slip with deck lines and were actually sitting on the bottom for most of the day. During the night the water level was increasing and we were able to back out using half throttle in the morning.

The other issue with Dalmatian is the mast height, air draft. We measured the mast to be 63 feet from the water to the head. The lights, wind instruments, and antennas add 1.5 to 2 additional feet. The amount of fuel, water, and storage items affect this level bringing it up or down several inches depending how it’s loaded. We wanted to be light to get over the shallows but heavy to get under the fixed bridges.  Of course a swing bridge is no problem. 

The ICW has a limit on bridges to have 65 feet minimum clearance at Mean High Water. One bridge doesn’t meet that requirement, the Wilkerson Bridge at the southern end of the Alligator River - Pungo River Canal. It is 64+ feet with the water level affected by the wind blowing over the nearby waters. Northerly winds draw it down, west and southerly winds raise it up. Over night the water was rising with a south wind to help us get out of the marina but we knew it would be rising under the bridge also.

We worked out a plan to lean the boat over so we could get under the bridge. Everyone sailed ahead on their boats to anchor and then come back to us before we went under the bridge. With everyone aboard we could only make the Dalmatian list 3 degrees. We then rigged the dingy, Pooper Scooper, to the boom and swung it out to the starboard side. That made 3.5 degrees.

 

The final push was to pump water into the dingy and have that added weight to heel us over. The current was twisting our boat while this was being done so Captain Mike was keeping close tabs while holding Our Little Cape behind us to keep any other boats back from us. The added water got us to 6 degrees plus so I decided to go under the bridge.

I set speed to two knots and centered Dalmatian in the channel look up to avoid the bridge center lights which hang down below the beams. As we made our way Captain Mike kept a distance and reported a good track for missing the lights. We touched the beams with the two VHF antenna whips but everything else, including the static lightening diffuser cleared by inches.

 

Our reward was seeing palm trees along the way.