Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey through the Heart of North Carolina

Chapter 13

213 Now the rice canals, Island Creek, and the Titan controversy are all behind us, as Frank Chapman and I speed downriver from Snow’s Cut toward the sea, resuming the journey in his fast Carolina Skiff. The day turns out not to be as rough as we anticipated—the wind stays steady from the west at thirteen to fifteen knots, the seas mainly flat or just a little bumpy. We’ll endure some pounding on the way back upriver, but in general it’s a dream day to be tooling around the open waters of the estuary. We fly downriver past spoil islands, derelict docks, long swaths of forested shoreline. Frank noses the boat in near the Archer Daniels Midland dock, a freakishly long concrete and steel pier jutting out from the west side of the river and lit after sundown by a battery of powerful sodium vapor lights. He says,“The fishermen like those lamps. At night you’ll see them out here fishing by the lights.”They’re after croaker, spot, black drum, and trout. The lights also attract schools of baitfish and also ladyfish, a favorite among fly fishermen. Farther on is the ferry dock for the Southport–Fort Fisher ferry. Alligators lurk there. North of the ferry dock and just south of the long chemical pier stands a twenty-foot-tall lighthouse—or the brick remains of one: Price’s Creek Light. Built in 1849, it was one of eight lighthouses along the lower Cape Fear used to mark the twenty-five-mile passage from Oak Island to Wilmington. The other seven are long gone. Price’s Creek Light was a valuable signal station for the Confederate blockade-runners during the Civil War, and after the war it fell into disuse. All that remains is the conical brick base. The carousel and light have disappeared, and only an iron axle sticking up from the flattened top reminds us that it is headless. And there’s no mistaking the nuclear power plant. A wide canal guarded by gates and booms to keep away boats carries cooling water into the plant. About 1percent of all the water in the Cape Fear River is pumped into Progress Energy’s nuclear plant—36 million to 40 million gallons a day.Though the intake gate has screens to keep out juvenile fish and crabs, 13 214 The E stuar y many are sucked into the plant anyway, but 95 percent are returned alive down a specially constructed flume. From time to time, Frank points out the resting places of various shipwrecks . He gestures off to a square concrete frame in the middle of the estuary . “That’s the old quarantine dock. All the ships used to have to stop there before they went upriver,”he tells me. When it was built in 1893, the quarantine dock was a cross-­ shaped pier 600 feet long, reaching into the 20-­ foot-­ deep shipping channel, with a medical station, gangways, a ballast crib, and a special sequestered landing where infectious passengers could be off-­loaded to hospitals ashore. All vessels were required to stop there before proceeding upriver. The state legislature appropriated $20,000 to build it, on the condition that Wilmington pony up another $5,000 for state-­ of-­ the-­ art equipment. But Wilmington reneged, and the station was turned over to the federal Marine Hospital Service, which stepped up with cash. Shipborne epidemics were no idle concern. On November 12, 1918, during the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic, the government transport City of Savannah arrived carrying 1,900 Puerto Rican workers bound for Fayetteville , where they were to be employed building Camp Bragg.Twenty-­ eight of them died before the ship cleared Wilmington. Farther on, Frank points again. “Battery Island, that’s where the white ibis are.”With nesting season coming to a close, today it’s full of gulls and turkey vultures. He indicates a spot inshore. “That’s where an old Confederate ironclad went down. The Raleigh.”The CSS Raleigh was one of two Confederate ironclads stationed in the Cape Fear River. Skippered by Captain Maffitt’s old Frank Chapman, boat driver, divemaster, adventurer (author photo) Chapter 13 215 surveying partner, J. Pembroke Jones, the lumbering vessel fought exactlyone battle, May 6–7, 1864, against blockading Union ships. As it returned from the sea through New Inlet, it ran aground and later broke up. “There was...