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Seawolf photographed

Ozzy

SirKristoff is a poopiehead
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On Saturday America's newest nuclear submarine was commissioned and named USS North Carolina. The ceremony took place in Wilmington NC.

http://www.wect.com/global/story.asp?s=8266368

I was planning to go ever since I first learned that this was to take place just a few miles from where I live. It's not everyday that you get to see the latest nuclear weapon technology. After the submarine arrived I learned that it wasn't going to be open to the public. You wouldn't even be able to see it from the shore because it was going to be docked at the State ports. The only time the public would be able to see the sub was when it made the short journey on the Cape Fear River as it was arriving and as it was leaving. Since I had already missed the opportunity to get pics as it arrived, I only had one shot left to get pics as it was leaving.

This is harder than it first seems. There was nowhere on the shore that I knew where you could get close enough to get decent pics. I'm sure there are some spots but I didn't know of any. There are uninhabited islands in the river that blocks the view of the channel. So there was no place that I knew for sure I could get to and get good shots of the sub.

There is one island that I visited last year that was perfect for getting pics. The problem is that they close the whole river down when they brought it up the river and I they would do the same when it left.

There is a military port just down the river called Sunny Point that ships military equipment and explosives. From watching them bring in cargo ships full of explosives, in the past, I kind of knew what to expect. When they bring those ships in, the military does a sweep of the river with helicopters and the coast guard sweeps with small boats.
Both the helicopters and boats have machine guns mounted and the guns are manned. They are ready to deal with any threat they face.

I expected the same today. The main reason I picked the island I did was because there was a small creek just down river from the island. I've paddled this creek a few times. I knew that once it came out into the river I only had about 1000 ft that I had to paddle to the island. If I could make it to the island undetected, all I had to do was hide in the wooded area until the sub came into view. Then take the pics.

I was running a little late, so I hurried to my launch point. Got my equipment and jumped in my kayak and headed down the creek towards the island. The tide was falling so the current was very fast. I was headed down stream so this was a good thing. Because of this it only took a few minutes to get to the river. From past experience, I knew there were VERY large alligators living in this creek. On the way I saw four alligators.Three jumped from the bank into the creek as I approached. One was about 9 feet long, one was about 6 feet, and one about 3 feet. The fourth surfaced about 20 feet from my kayak, saw me and then was gone. I can't tell how long he was because I only saw a portion of him. He was probably about 7 or 8 feet long. On a previous trip down this creek I saw one that was about 12 feet long. No sign of him today though.

I reached the river and I didn't see any signs of the military. So I paddled to the edge of the bank and slowly looked around the corner to see if I saw anything between me and the island. It was completely clear. So I took a little break so that when I made the short paddle to the island I could do it at top speed.

After about a two minute break I gave it all I had. The island was upstream so I also had to fight the current. It only took me about two minutes to reach the island. I jumped out of the kayak and pulled it onshore into the reeds. I looked around to see if there were any boats headed my way, there was none. So I rested and then got my equipment and headed to the wooded area of the island to find a good spot to wait for the sub. Since I wasn't sure what kind of surveillances they had I made my way though the reeds and marshy part of the island instead of taking the easy walk down the beach. I found a good spot sat down and waited.

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Here's my view of the river.
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Of course I had planned that when I heard the choppers and escort boats coming I would move closer to get the pics. I soon got bored and went ahead and moved toward the beach. I took some practice pics of different things to entertain myself.

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Here is a pic of another island.

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Here is the same island with my camera zoomed all the way in.


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This is the direction the sub is suppose to be coming from.


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I laid there on the beach hidden from view for about an hour. During this time I watched birds dive into the water to find food with my binoculars, but mostly I just laid in the sand and
constantly killed the sand flies that kept biting me.

Then I heard a plane approaching. It was fairly low, but I never saw it and I don't know what kind it was. A few minutes later, I heard jets at very high altitude. I'm sure it was military jets providing air cover incase it was needed. I was still laying there waiting for the helicopters and coast guard boats to do a sweep of the river, when I heard a loud engine coming from up river.I turned and looked and it was this ship.

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Notice the guns on the deck.
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Then I saw the small patrol boat.

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These boats appeared all of a sudden. They were loud but I didn't hear them until they were right on top of me.

I knew this was the beginning of the river sweep to make sure there was no threats in the river, but I was wrong. This was the actual escort of the sub. The sub was there too. It was much larger than I expected it to be.

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I decided to walk out on the beach to get the rest of the pics. Besides they couldn't force me to leave now. LOL.

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The waves caused by the boats and sub.

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This is a shot as it made it's way toward the ocean with my zoom all the way out.
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Here it is at the actual distance.

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It came and then was gone. It was much faster than I expected it to be. I have no idea how fast it was moving but it appeared and then was gone in just a few minutes.

I loaded up my equipment and made my way back to where I hid my kayak. As I was loading my kayak, I heard thunder in the distance. It was coming from the direction I had to go. I briefly considered staying on the island until it was over but I decided to try and beat the storm. I paddled back to the creek and and was relieved that the current wasn't as strong as it was a couple of hours ago. Almost as soon as I got to the creek I realized the storm was closer than I first thought. So I paddled as fast as I could against the current. The current wasn't that strong at the wide mouth of the creek, but the narrower it got the faster the correct got. The current was much worse at turns in the creek. It was so bad in some places that the kayak didn't want to go straight. It kept wanting to turn and go with the current. The lighting got closer and closer and I really wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I saw one alligator on the way back. I think it was the same small 3 foot one I saw before.

After a 30 minute full speed paddle, fighting the current all the way I finally made it back to where I parked my van.
 
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Amazing! Great pictures! I love the seawolf class.
How come I never here about these things?
 
Cool it looks as though the coast guards dudes are wearing masks ???
 
That is AWESOME. I can't believe you did that though. Ok. I can. But still...they could have shot you as a terrorist!

Cool video and BIG submarine.
 
they could have shot you as a terrorist!

I thought about wearing my turbin.
 
That's awesome. The sub is HUGE!
 
  • #10
I'm pretty sure that's a Virginia class submarine because they only made a few Seawolf subs and quit. The Virginia subs are more economical, costing only a bit more than $2 billion a piece. At that price, they are, without a doubt, the best way to keep us safe from small groups of terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan, the deserts of the Middle East and congested streets in cities everywhere.
 
  • #11
You're right about it being a Virgina class, But getting pics of a seawolf sounded cooler than Virgina class. LOL


I may be wrong because I don't know a lot about their capabilities, but I believe that these can strike almost any piece of land on earth. They can fire missiles and never even be seen.
 
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