THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 12, 1996 TAG: 9607120467
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 76 lines
When Hurricane Bertha was just a squalling child making waves east of the Antilles, savvy skippers started looking for shelter.
Most boat captains and sailors along the coast behind Cape Hatteras are familiar with several harbors where they can safely anchor or moor their vessels during a storm.
``Hurricane holes'' they're called, and as early as Wednesday the protected docks and anchorages began filling with boats big and small.
Fifty charter boats and private yachts headed for the three marinas in Coinjock, where the Intracostal Waterway's eastern leg connects Norfolk to Albemarle Sound.
``Most of them are charter boats from the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center and from the Pirate's Cove docks on the causeway at Nags Head,'' said Eddie Harrison at Harrison's Marina.
Across the Intracostal Waterway canal from Harrison's, a fleet of charter boats and private yachts tied up at the Coinjock Marina, where Carl and Jeanne Davis and their son, Louis, know the first names of hundreds of skippers who pass through every year.
About 15 to 20 boats were expected at the Midway Marina in Coinjock by nightfall Thursday.
Farther west along the north shore of Albemarle Sound, a day-long procession of safety-seeking skippers cruised up the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City and the Dismal Swamp Canal.
At Pelican Marina in Elizabeth City, boats coming and going kept Ervin Stahel on the run. The operator of the busy fuel and docking facility moved about 15 small sailing vessels through the Camden Bridge to Elizabeth City and back to a protected canal directly across U.S. 158 from the Pelican Marina slips, where the boats had been docked.
``We put the larger boats at other docks or moorings,'' Stahel said.
Across the Pasquotank River from the Pelican, Mary Hadley Griffin, proprietor of the Elizabeth City Shipyard, sent a fleet of the smaller boats at her docks to safer shelter upriver.
Griffin and her son, Ralph, spent much of the day doubling and tripling mooring lines on larger boats that had to remain at the shipyard docks. In between line-handling, they hauled out boats whose owners wanted to get them on dry land before the winds arrived.
A mini-fleet of charter boats and yacht-fishermen from the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center also sought safety up the Pasquotank at Lamb's Marina in Camden County above Elizabeth City.
Georgia Lamb said she expected to have nearly 60 boats in the protected canal that leads to the marina from the Pasquotank River.
``I've warned some of the deeper-draft sailboat captains that they may end up with the keel in the mud if the water goes out very far, but nobody seems to mind,'' she said.
A special kind of safety was found up the Dismal Swamp Canal, where safety-seeking boats were free to anchor or tie off until after the storm.
``We'll work as late into Thursday night as necessary to make sure everyone is accommodated,'' said Penny Leary-Smith, director of the Dismal Swamp Canal Visitor Center on U.S. 17 north of South Mills.
By nightfall the boat dock behind the welcome center was full.
The center is one of the few such facilities designed to help sailors as well as motorists. Drivers and campers call roll in from U.S. 17 while sailors and their boats pull into the docks 50 feet to the west.
The Dismal Swamp Canal is the alternate Intracostal Waterway route between Norfolk and Albemarle Sound, roughly paralleling the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal between Great Bridge and Coinjock.
Similar scenes were going on at Edenton and at smaller marinas up the Chowan and Roanoke rivers.
And many sailboat skippers said they were heading for Broad Creek, off the waterway south of Coinjock. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot
Louis Davis tried to shoehorn in as many boats as possible Thursday
at the Coinjock Marina. He said he had to turn away 30 more.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE BERTHA PREPARATIONS
NORTH CAROLINA by CNB