Better to anchor with a "hook" rather than the keel!!

As you can tell from the title – not a good day. Yep it finally happened. Ran the boat HARD aground!! Ohhh the waiting is no fun..

The day started nice enough weatherwise but the crazy fisherman where moving in their articulated power boats around 4:30am and rocking and rolling the boats at the dock. After a long hot water wasteful shower we left towards Georgetown.. We delayed leaving to catch the falling tide. It was perfect for going offshore which I wanted to do but could convince no others so relegated to the ICW. We figured – actually I did – that giving the strong tide we would have half a fine ride then a slow ride to the Ben Sawyer bridge which opens only on the hour weekends and holidays. We targeted for the 11am opening and left at 9:15 am to go 7.2 miles. Well we got to the bridge 50 minutes before the next opening!! Had we left 15 minutes early we would have made the 10am. The boats I was gravelling with would not let it die!!

Several other boats joined the wait then at 11am it opened and we were last ones through. I was feeling feisty so I ran the engine into TURBO range of 2700 RPMs and motor sailed and passed boats. I was doing fine and had an unexpected favorable current till we hit Dewees Island – there is an inlet there and it dropped our progress to under 5kts. We plodded along with 5 boats behind me and 2 in front and I was down to normal cruise RPM of 2400. Everything went fine till we approached marker G103. Ohh did I say we were 2 hours from low tide?? Well suddenly the boats in front jogged to the red side. I checked the Skipper Bob updates and they said to favor the red through here so I moved over too rather aggressively – don’t do that. Suddenly the low water alarm went off. Only 6 feet. I figured I was still too close to the green and drove hard to red. No fast stop here – just slowed down and all forward motion stopped. I checked the marks closer – Damn – I was out of the channel on the RED side!! The current was fast and the water level dropping quickly. I tried to motor off and no avail. I dropped the dinghy and kedged out the main anchor but the chain proved too unwieldy. I grabbed the smaller delta and took it into the channel and dropped it but could not kedge off. Grrrr.
I then checked the tide tables and saw I was 2 hours from low tide and the low tide would be .5 feet lower than average… Aaaach!! Remember when I did well at low tide areas the tide was 1.6 feet above low average. Well I was hard aground now. The boat listed a little but the water level would only go down another .5 feet.

I thought – what the hell – call Boat US towing. You have bought the insurance for 16 years and never used it. I called – they said 45 minutes. Well 90 minutes later they show up but now my rudder is in the mud. I tell him I don’t want to be pulled off with the rudder in the mud. He said no problem he had 2 others to service and would be back. Oh this occurred at 12:05pm. N Well at 4 pm he returns and now the water is up 1.5 feet and I’m nearly floating but I have 3 anchors in the water. Another 2 hours and IO can pull myself off but then will have to gather all those anchors up. I let him pull me off and gather my anchors. It took maybe 20 minutes but went smoothly – only because I waited 4 hours!!

It was now 4:30pm and we were whipped. WE just went 2.5 miles to Whiteside Creek and anchored for the night. I had a whole lot of anchor mud to clean up and anchors to store.

Wow a full 8 hour day and only traveled 16 miles!!

Tomorrow we leave at 6:45am so we will have a rising to high tide for all the upcoming shallow spots.

Man I really wanted to go offshore today. Had we – we would have been in the Cape Fear River near Southport, NC rather than 16 miles north of Charleston..

Ohhh big news today.. I was hailed by Born to Cruise – they ahhh heard me call Boat US for the tow. They were coming in from running offshore from Allen Pennsicola in the Abacos to Charleston non-stop. They left Thursday and had a great mild crossing all the way – the lucky dogs!! They still may beat us back to the Oriental, NC area yet!!