Remember you can sometimes convert combat encounters into skill challenges. I recently did this with the sunken plague ship combat encounters found in "Seven Days To The Grave." The shipwreck as originally written in the AP module contained 3 or 4 small combat encounters that really didn't translate well to 4E. So I devised a skill challenge for investigating the 4 areas of the ship. The PCs had a limited amount of time before magic wore off and they would drown. Each success allowed them to spend less time exploring an area while each failure added more time to explore the area. The players commented on the feeling of urgency and tension building the skill challenge provided. Out of 60 minutes allotted, the party explored all areas within 59 minutes and successfully completed the skill challenge.
