They say there are two types of cruisers on the ICW. Those who have been aground, and those who will be aground. And now we have accomplished both. Yep, that's right, even at 3' 8", which is considered a very shallow draft, we found the bottom right in the middle of the channel, parked between a green and a red marker.
So, we left Darien, and took the advice from a couple of locals, through our friends Brian and Anne, of a short cut through a locally known, unmarked back way, that, would shave 13 miles off of our trip down the ICW. And I know what your thinking, but we didn't go aground during that route. In fact it was a genuine shortcut, with lots of water. A little narrow at times, say 20' across, but the depth was good. We met a small 12' fishing boat in one tight spot, and there really wasn't much room for both of us. We could have shook hands as we past. One of the fisherman said he cut the trolling motor so as not to wake us. Sense of humor in the middle of freaking nowhere. Gotta love the south.
The winds have been nasty the last few days, so we decided to take the alternate ICW route around Jekyll Sound, instead of having to go all the way out to the sea buoy before coming back in. We anchored in a little creek just inside of the alternate route for the night. It blew like stink. We don't have an anemometer, but the forecast was for gale force winds, and I think we got them.
The next morning we got up at 6:00, the wind still howling, and headed out at first light. Determined to finish the 35 miles to St. Mary's before the rain that was forecasted showed up on Tuesday. And, 10 mins after we lifted the hook, we ran aground, between the first two markers. First things first, we have limited time, because the tide is going out, which means we would have ended up stuck even worse, and waiting for the tide to come back in. We launched the dinghy, put out a stern anchor and tried to kedge the boat back into the deeper water that we had come from, but no luck. Then our friends Ann and Neville came through the cut, so I dinghied over to them and let them know that they should go into the side creek and drop the hook. Ann says, its okay, we only draw one meter, and I said yep, and we draw 3' 8". So they decided they go anchor for the time being. Serena and I then tried to heel the boat over with a halyard to see if we could get her out that way, but no joy, she was stuck good, and we were quickly losing what precious water we had. Lastly, I checked the depths around the boat with our handheld depth sounder and found we had 5' of water at the bow. That meant that we were almost past the shoal, we had only to get the boat a few more feet and we would be free. Rochna to the rescue. I dinghied our main anchor out in front of the boat 60' or so and used the windlass to drag the boat across the rest of the shoal into deeper water. Free at last. Serena was driving the boat, so I quickly secured the anchor and went to radio Ann and Neville to tell them, that if they stay to the west side of the channel they would be okay. While doing that we had another mini emergency, the wind and current was so strong that it driven us up against the bank on the west side of the cut. Luckily, the water was deep enough that we just sat there against the side. I jumped out from down below to find that the boat wasn't in gear. In all the excitement Serena hadn't put the boat in gear. As we were moving along a good pace, she thought we were already in forward, and it didn't cross her mind. So in gear, and we easily pulled off of the grassy bank, and back into the channel. I went back down below and finished the radio conversation with Ann. Emergency over...... There were three more spots on the way out of the bypass that read 4' on the depth sounder, obviously not a good route for deeper boats.
We arrived in St. Mary's around 2:30 pm, dropped the hook in the anchorage with the other 20 boats, and had a nice cold beer.
The weather has really put a big damper on things for the last couple of days. We made it to happy hour the first night, visited with our friends on Anthyllide, we got propane, and finally wifi. Tonight is the oyster bake, and it will be our first time eating oysters. Then tomorrow is the Thanksgiving celebration that is put on by the town people. It promises to be a lot of fun. Then who knows. If the weather clears up, we'll probably go over to Cumberland Island for a couple of days, before we head further south.
No comments:
Post a Comment