On 7/23/09, as part of a “North Carolina Wish List,” I posed the following question:

7. Let us now turn our attention to the primary AICW route, often termed the `North Carolina ‘“ Virginia Cut.’ This passage crosses into North Carolina waters south of North Landing River, flows through a small portion of Currituck Sound, and then through a man-made canal, past the marina rich village of Coinjock, NC. From Statute Mile 40 to 45, there have been many reports over the years of shallow water, or underwater hardware damage from pilings driven just below the water’s surface to guard against shoaling of the AICW channel. Has anyone experienced shallow depths here recently, or has anyone found the underwater pilings

Responses follow:

We love the Virginia Cut. We went through it north bound in August 2008 and south bound in June 2009. We never saw less than 8′ MLW from mile marker 0 to the exit from the North River into the Albemarle Sound. Absolutely no problems with underwater obstructions. Follow the markers. Look over your shoulder to check for drift if there is a cross wind. The sound gives us a great opportunity to sail when the wind is right. Traffic was light. We’ve not done the Dismal Swamp route. Everyone says it’s nice, but since we can’t sail in that route, it seemed a less attractive option to us.
Rick

I have thankfully not experienced any issues with underwater pilings (yikes that is scary), but the waters from MM40-45 into Coinjock are indeed rather skinny especially if you drift outside the very narrow channel. While I have a lot of confidence in my GPS chart plotter, I only use my `eyes’ to navigate between the markers paying close attention to the changes in my depth sounder to stay `centered’. This is not a good area to overtake another vessel, so if you get caught behind a slow poke, remember it’s just 5-7 miles before you get back into `wider’ water.
Peter Ferrara
`Laitudes’