Inside Beaufort Inlet

Click here for an account of gallivants in and around Ocracoke and Hatteras Inlets as well as my connection to these waters.  Beaufort Inlet–near Cape Lookout–is scheduled for some depth maintenance these days with Marinex Construction excavating what McFarland count not extract.  Katherine Weeks enters the inlet from sea with a light scow.

The only USACE presence I saw was Snell.  USACE awarded Marinex the contract to subtract a half million tons of sand from beneath these waves.

I believe this is cutterhead/pipleine dredge Savannah, connected by pipeline to this

scow and loading equipment.

When Katherine tows the loaded scow out–here past Sea Quest II, a dive boat (more on that later)

Na Hoku-formerly a K-Sea vessel—

tails.  The Sea Knight helicopter

just happened overhead.  I’d love the view from a helicopter here.

Once through the narrow inlet, Katherine heads out for the dumping area and Na Hoku returns to its holding station.

Who knew the inlet could be this busy . . . l to r:  Grace Moran, Aurora, Na Hoku, and Salamina1.  More on the last one on that list tomorrow.   Aurora, listed as a sulphur carrier, carries PotashCorp colors.

Potash Corp has their big mine about 35 miles from here, as the pelicans fly.

Chief is clearly a Marinex tug.

I’m not sure the ID of the inbound vessel here passing Chief, here heading out to the dredge.

I can’t say for certain about that dive boat early on and whether the divers had been on Queen Anne’s Revenge, but there’ve been lots of salvage activity around the Inlet in recent days.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.