Talking About Adventure In Small Boats
I am trying to lay out my course for the upcoming Okoume Fest Ultra Marathon. The little chart on the o verview is poor resolution. Check Point one is not visible. If you enter the given coordinates into Google (Lat 38.886425°, Lon -76.141506°), you end up in a corn fielf east of Granary Creek Drive. The pictures for check point #1 do no good if you have never been to the area. At night with so many coves it will be impossible to find.
Need more info !!!
Looking at Google the actual position looks like Granary Creek west of given coordinates. First point of land looks like the first picture. You can see the steps to the water. The dock is nothing but a bunch of pillings in Google. Go to BING Maps Bird's Eye to see a dock...
Those are the same coordinates the mobile mapper uses with google maps for cp1. If you zoom in on the mobile mapper it will display in a cove close to shore and not a cornfield. Are you sure you entered the numbers correctly?
I think this may be a case of Google trying to be smarter than you... I pasted the coordinates into Google Maps and it gives me two marks, a red pin with an address, and a green arrow as seen here:
The actual coordiantes are the green arrow (which looks to be in the right spot), but Google is trying to find the closest "real" address to what you are searching for and that is the red pin to the east.
I spent some time trying to go over the course both on Chart and in Google Earth. I like that it winds around a number of points and has several bridges. Plenty of filters to keep it interesting. Crossing the wide open sections, wind and waves will determine how close or far you have to stay out.
Another bridge north end of Wye Island. Looks like they love truss bridges here. Zoom in Panoramio, channel is not clear to see...
It's interesting to see the view from Bing and Google. The same location looks very different but it is the same location and correct. I guess I could slightly change the numbers to put it right on the shore line instead of just off the dock. I'll think about it.
Navigation for this event is going to be interesting. And the filters should be fun too.
Also, just a general comment about this course and CP1. Normally for a WaterTribe Ultra Marathon of this length we would not have a checkpoint. If you needed to stop for the night, it would be a stealth camp on a spoil island or some other legal location. We decided to put in a checkpoint, but it is not a campground. It does have road access and there is stealth camping in the area. Just a heads up. Don't expect the same sort of support that you got at Cape Haze Marina or Chokoloskee or Beaufort. CrazyRussian will be there but not much else.
Ridgerunner
Member
I had a discussion this weekend with a local. He says that the tides, especially up the East side of Eastern Neck and through Kent Narrows, can be fast. He also says that the circumnavigation of Wye Island is absolutely beautiful. Prevailing winds this time of year are SW. He is not familiar with the Eastern Neck Bridge. He says he has always avoided it because of thed depths indicated on the charts and the low bridge.
Any other intelligence?
I've pasted below the predicted tide current table for kent narrows (scroll to May) NOAA predicts less than 2 knots at all times. Local current through the pilings will be higher as the flow stream is concentrated through the gaps.
A sign on the bridge indicates it will open on VHF request every 15 minutes, although sailing WTers arriving at flood tide might prefer to go ahead and drop masts and paddle / row through. Better to plan for it than deal with getting blown into the pilings halfway through with the drawbridge open.
A bigger problem may be heavy powerboat traffic through the area, particularly if the weather is nice.
ChesapeakeLightCraft
Member
The green arrow and the blue dot in the photos above are exactly where I was hovering in my powerboat when I grabbed the GPS coordinates. Remarkable accuracy, really, given that it was a 99-cent app on my iPhone generating the lat/long. For some reason my Garmin charting GPS has no lat/long readout.
On the Wye River bridge: the opening is plenty wide for multihulls, and tall enough that I confidently buzz through it in my C-Dory at 25 knots.
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