The Cape Lookout shoals run south from the lighthouse extending 12 miles out, marked by the Knuckle Buoy- pretty amazing to be out of sight of land and see breakers even on a calmish day. Locals leave
Beaufort Inlet traveling 19 miles at 153 degrees to the Knuckle before turning east and north to
fish the deep water on the "east side" on an almost daily basis, often in pretty bad
weather. It is also possible to go through "the slough" or "the slot" cutting across the shoals near the lighthouse in ever-changing natural channels but the slough has places only three feet deep at low tide and you had better know what you are doing or you can get "surfed" up onto the shoals. The salty guy that showed me the
route the first time warned "it can lick your d#$% in the dirt." Pretty hairy at times.
With a north
wind, the abandoned sailboat would tend to be driven north by the
current but more likely pushed south by the prevailing
wind to miss the shoals, but if it ended up on the shoals it would be difficult to
salvage with anything but chain saws at low tide. Likely someone would have already seen it on the shoals by plane as it is a popular place for general aviation pilots to fly to from Beaufort's
airport and it is presently somewhere between
Beaufort and
Greenland.
Re: Two rescued from sailboat off Cape Lookout,NC
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