Ferry stuck in Big Foot Slough shoal off Ocracoke for 12 hours
Passengers from Ocracoke to Swan Quarter Thursday afternoon on the M/V Silver Lake had their travel plans crushed when the boat got stuck in Big Foot Slough just outside Ocracoke for more than 12 hours.
Thursday was sunny and clear from the storm front that had passed through Wednesday afternoon and early evening, but the winds were still high on Thursday at around 25 mph and above.
The ferry had departed Ocracoke’s harbor at 1:30 p.m. and shortly thereafter, around 1:55 p.m., we felt a big bump. We had hit a shoal.
Shoaling occurs when sand and sediment make water depths too shallow for boats to navigate.
Passengers got out of their cars, noticing we were not moving and that the front propellers were churning ceaselessly. Driving them for about an hour failed to dislodge the boat.
At around 3 p.m., ferry crew told the 13 passengers that they had called a tugboat to come to the rescue, but it was coming from Cherry Point and would take five hours to get there.
Once the ferry was freed from the shoal, it would not go on to Swan Quarter but would go back to Ocracoke, noted Harbour Early, one of the crew members.
That meant we might get back around midnight.
That caused some passengers to change plans. I had to cancel two appointments in Raleigh; Jeanne Brook had to postpone her trip to Virginia until Friday.
“This is the longest we’ve been stuck,” Early said. “Usually, we can wiggle out but then the propellers are damaged.”
Danny Morris, one of the truck drivers for Armstrong Inc., and who travels just about daily to Ocracoke with loads of fill, said he frequently has noticed small bumps against the shoal area at Big Foot. Once, the ferry was stuck for about 15 minutes but was able to wiggle out of it, he said.
The hopper Dredge Murden, owned by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) was working in the slough, and I asked Early if it could swing by and blow the sand out of the way, but she said that would be unsafe.
Passengers milled about in the lounge, chatting and scrolling on their phones as the afternoon wore on and evening descended.
Early spent time checking frequently with the passengers as to how we were faring and talking to us. An avid fan of her job with the Ferry Division, she hopes one day to be a ferry captain.
“I feel like I’m on Alcatraz and can see the mainland,” quipped Starr Ely. “But the ferry people have been very helpful.”
A couple of times the crew had us move our cars toward the front or the back of the boat to balance out the weight.
Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon called me at 5:45 to see how we were doing and that he was sending pizza.
“Ernie Doshier is on his way,” Dixon said.
As the evening darkened, Ocracoke’s Assistant Fire Chief Doshier called around 6:30 and said he was on his way and would try to land on the downwind side.
We watched a green light bobbing through the water and soon he appeared in a skiff with several pizzas from Jason’s Restaurant.
He motored around the pitching ferry to find the best way to get the pizzas on deck.
As Doshier edged his skiff up to the stern, fighting high winds and waves, Early lay down on the edge of the ferry while Doshier passed the pizzas to her.
She got high-fives after that.
Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble also called to ask how everyone was and that the hopper Dredge Murden, while on the job, had been late getting there because of Wednesday’s storm.
Then the watch for the tugboat was on, and it finally arrived around 11:45.
”The beacons of Gondor are lit! And Rohan will answer!” Ely quipped again.
We watched from the upstairs lounge as the crew on the Ferry Division tugboat Wanchese threw ropes to the ferry crew. After a few tries, the ropes were secured.
The tug strained mightily back and forth to try to wrest the ferry from the shoal, breaking the rope five times in the process.
Around 1 a.m., Early told us if the tug wasn’t successful, they might have to call the Coast Guard to take the passengers off.
“It’s all about safety,” she said.
But they kept trying – running the engines, then cooling them down.
Suddenly, at around 2 a.m. success! The ferry was free.
Early told us to get in our cars because they would have to have everyone back up toward the bow.
As the Silver Lake pulled into the Ocracoke terminal around 3 a.m., the cars were backwards and we had the new experience of backing up off the ferry.
There had been no medical emergencies. Everyone got off safely and fared well, thanks to the professionalism of the crew.
But continued shoaling of Big Foot Slough has created many travel woes in the last several years.
Noble and the Ocracoke Waterways Commission, of which Doshier is the chair, have been asking federal officials to designate the nearby natural channel, called Nine Foot, as the official channel in the Pamlico Sound.
A federal channel, Nine Foot is under the control of the ACE, but it is deeper and less subject to shoaling.
Progress to get the necessary permits to do this, including an act of Congress, has been slow.
The Ocracoke Waterways Commission meets at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 19, in the Community Center.
