Speed bumps, shoaling and bridges -oh my!

The top part of the ICW(intra coastal waterway) was great. Wide channels with plenty of depth.

Below Beaufort, NC, everything changes.

Half an hour outside Beaufort we hit a ‘speed bump’ of shallow water. This was 100% my fault as I strayed outside of the channel by mistake. Luckily the bottom was all sand so no damage done.

Now let’s talk about those sandy bottoms. Sand is great for running aground, it’s soft and forgiving. If it’s only a tiny bit too shallow sometimes you can just push the sand out of the way to get through.

But sand is also prone to moving with the waves and current (unlike the sticky mud of the Chesapeake or the granite rocks of Maine), and this creates shoaling.

Jelanea draws 5.5ft, meaning our deepest point is 5.5ft under water. So really we like a minimum of 6ft of water, but we really prefer at least 7, and we feel much better with 8 or above.

Over the past 2 days of transiting the ICW we have had 0.1ft ‘under’ our keel at least 6 times. Not our idea of a good time.

The channels on this part of the ICW are much more narrow then the ones further north. They are typically maybe 30ft wide. Barely enough for a boat to pass at a safe distance.

The whole ICW also has a tendency to place buoys and day markers well outside the channel. So you may run aground even inside the markers. Sometimes the markers are smack dab in the middle of the channel as well. What?

Assuming you can deduce where the channel actually is, and stay inside it, you may still have to deal with shoaling.

Storms, winds, currents and tides can all cause the sandy bottom to shift around. Just in case the scattered channel markers didn’t create enough of a ‘Fun-House’ environment for you, the sandy bottom will oblige.

We have been using 4 different methods of navigation in order to not run aground. These include: our Raymarine chart plotter, with 2 year old charts; the Navionics app on our phones, the latest version of the paper charts, and the Waterway Guide Nav Alerts (accessed on our phones). Just tying all the data together to find the best paths is exhausting.

Our chart plotter is the best method we have of staying in the channel. For most of the ICW the channel is marked in white, while the shallower surrounding water is blue.

Navionics is best for user reported shoaling, and directions for how to get around the shoals. The information can be years old though, so it’s important to pay attention to dates of reports.

The paper charts are great for getting the overall picture of what is coming next. This is also the best source of land based landmarks to use as sight points.

The Waterway Guide Nav Alerts are great for getting the most up to date information. They also have great bathymetric images of the shoaling, which really helps us visualize where we need to avoid. The biggest downside to this program is it doesn’t have GPS to show us how close we may be to said shoals.

We have had many close calls, and overall it has had us on edge for the past 2 days. Add in the multiple bridges that only open every hour or half hour, and we have reached our tolerance level for this trip. We have one more 25 mile stretch in the ICW to transit tomorrow, and then we are leaving the shoaling, bridges and wacky channel markers behind and heading offshore straight to Beaufort, SC.