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2006 Captain's Logs
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Cedar Creek across the River from Oriental, NC
 
34.55 97 N
076.39 03 W
 
It is a Winnie the Pooh cold and blustery day with wind driven tendrils of moisture  scutting across the top of gray waves and only slightly above them wet sloppy clouds dragging low enough to get hooked on tall trees.  It is not a picture pretty day.
 
Our trawler, Skinwalker, lies gently at anchor like a wolf amongst a flock of lambs as first one then another of the sailboats scattered around us announce each crews awaking with the dousing of their anchor light.  Sailboats look so cool.  To bad they are so much work to operate.  Crew conditions this morning will be invigorating for sailboater’s as they like to say.  The translation means cold—wet—miserable conditions underway today.  I, on the other hand, sit snuggily dry, garbed warmly in my Canadian long underwear, before my laptop in the pilothouse sipping the hottest coffee spiked with Irish Cream.  Tell me I don’t know how to be master of my ship and commander of my crew. 
 
But not all captains are as smart even if they have wised to the benefits of cruising on a power boat.  A couple of nights ago we were tidily anchored at the intersection of what I call Callabash Creek and the ICW and taking of our evening libations when a 70’ cruiser coming in the pass from the Atlantic roared across the ICW and only slightly slowed, as it waked us severely, went a few hundred yards further, made a sharp port turn up a shallow marsh creek and just as I was running for the VHF to warn him, he went dead aground.  It took a while but he worked himself off and backed the ¼ mile into the ICW.  Why he didn’t just turn around and go out bow first we haven’t figured out. Probably just shaken and still confused.  We heard him talking on the radio later and realized from the conversation he was having that he was just another rich dick.  Worse, a rich dick from the Northeast. (why say NY when I can piss off a whole section of the country?) You know the kind that you can’t tell anything.  The kind who glances at his charts and the weather and then because he has relied on himself to get rich, believes he can do no wrong in a boat.  Believe me; when he hit that mud bank—he did wrong.  Reconstructing the scene we realized he thought he was turning on to the ICW.  Surprise.  You missed it by a quarter of a mile Jocko.  The name of his boat?  Best Revenge.  And after waking us and spilling my drink it was all mine.
 
Gosh, was I being ugly?  I’m sorry.  It must be the weather outside of my warm comfy pilothouse.
 
Skinwalker & Capt’n Lynnie