Renewed Shoaling Reported at AICW/ Shallotte Inlet Intersection Problem Stretch, Statute Mile 330
Posted by Larry | Posted on 10-23-2012
This typically troublesome intersection required dredging twice in 2011 and, despite the success of that dredging, it seems that the intersection is beginning to shoal again.
Reading between the tea leaves of the message below, it appears as if the AICW channel, as it passes behind Shallotte Inlet, is beginning to shoal on the ocean (southeastern) side. That is usually where shallowing begins at this intersection!
WE WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO HEAR FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE RECENTLY NAVIGATED THESE WATERS. PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT DEPTHS YOU ENCOUNTERED ON THIS AICW PROBLEM STRETCH! Send data directly to CruisersNet@triad.twcbc.com, or click the “Click Here to Submit Cruising News” button/link, on the top right of this, and all other (except Chart View) Cruisers’ Net pages.
10/23/2012 Just passed through Shallot Inlet/ICW stretch at low tide. Found VERY low water near floatie 81. We didn’t touch (5 ft draft), but came very close to it. Boat tries its best to stay in deeper water when you give it a chance.
10/25/12 – Came through today on rising tide…we bumped drawing 4’2″ closer to red side at R82.
Diane
Cruising News:
Wed., Oct. 24, 2012, about 8:45 am we hit something and bent port prop and shaft. Were about mid channel. Maybe closer to red side. We had just seen 17 and 15 feet below our 4 ft. draft right before the incident. And 5 ft. under boat right after. It was about 2 1/2 hrs. before low tide for the area.
Pam
Cruising News:
10/31/2012- We just passed through Shallotte Inlet this morning at high tide. We stayed very close to the red markers and never saw less than 13 feet. Lockwood’s Folly also was fine at high tide, staying over near the red markers.
Roger Globig
11/3/12 – to test the waters we decided to take the Red/Green pair of 80A & 81 at Shallotte Inlet right down the middle. We only draw 3 feet and it was high tide so we weren’t worried about grounding, and thought we could add to the information here. We found ONLY 7.5 feet at 4.7 feet above MLW (just after high tide) – again, right down the middle between the two. We would agree that red would be favored; we have two depth sounders on our catamaran (one in each hull) and the depth sounder on the red side was reading deeper than the depth sounder on the green side.
Paige Caldwell
Went through today [11/5/2012] at high tide. Based on earlier comments, we stayed to the red side and saw nothing less than 12.8 feet. Dropping the 4+ feet for low tide, and it seems that our track would still give us more than 8 feet.
Carpe Diem
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