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Why we sail...
hmmmm, where to begin
1. checked weather, incorrectly I might add, it was not forecasted to be 41 as I thought on Sunday morning, but rather 32 and my wife hates it below 40 most times. The actual temperature according to Droid, at our area was 28 at six in the morning, Grade D-, it would have been an F but we were dry at least...
2. I assumed, incorrectly, that she would like Dinty Moore stew over come Minute Rice, we ran short of time Saturday morning, doing her office stuff and just had enough time to run into Kroger and grab a few things, her eyes rolled when I answered Dinty Moore stew. Grade C- later changed to a B+ as she stated, this is good, not bad at all and filling, Final Grade B
3. Anchoring spot, I chose Missionary Cove, as in summer "boat-in" church services, had been highly recommended by several members of the sailing community. Beautiful area until the wind shifted and you could hear every (that's every) car/truck/motorcycle on the nearby highway. Did I mention the train whistle every 2 hours?? Grade C
4. The new head -- no smell and flushed prefect, perhaps too perfect as it was discovered some leaking from the bottom. Small puddle of 'water' in the "forward cabin slightly on the starboard side". No real smell but one could not completely say it was clear water. Grade C
5. Journey back to the dock. Foggy – totally a rarity on our lake usually, even with 1,200 miles of shoreline, seldom are we socked in. Literally we were engulfed in it, fun times though (truly!), set a compass course and came out of it about a mile from our dock. Margaret congratulated me on "...such a perfect course!". Grade A but stand by…
I then surrendered the tiller to Margaret and went below to secure everything, popped my head out to check on things and immediately said (loudly) ""too close, right turn, now" while grabbing the tiller and switching off the engine (going about 4 knots). Bless her heart she had cut too close to one of the shallow water marks just outside our side of the sailing club and when we grounded, yes grounded, we had plowed a furrow about 10 feet long. Grade well it wasn't my fault so a B, after all, she's m'wife. (in her defense, the lake has dropped 6’ since she last took the helm coming in to the sailing club)
5 con'td. After making sure all was ok, no immediate gushing of water, no one hurt, nothing broken that we could determine and, thank the Lord Jesus himself, not a congregation of boat club members in chairs on the beach watching us, she said “DARN it and HECKFIRE(?) that was soo stupid, I can't believe I did that". The depth gauge was showing 3.8 feet deep, about 12 inches more shallow than our keel. Grade now B- and dropping. (at least we know now our sounder is 100% spot on!)
5......At this point, Cpt Bob (myself) was generous, not to worry dear, my father was Special Forces and he taught me well, I swam in college, am a diver yada yada yada I shall disrobe, enter the water and unleash us from this simple shoaling issue. First thought was to empty our 20 gallons of water, that saved a whoppin' 140 pounds or so , we reduced the weight from 12 tons down to only 11 tons 1,860 pounds total -- nice try Cpt Bob --- realllll effective that one.
The water was a bit chillier (ok freezing) than the last time I swam in the lake, I circled our craft and it appeared we were 4' or less from deep water on the starboard side, even more shallow on the port side, 15' or more to deep water forward and 10' or so aft.
Grade now is C-, continued dropping.
We attempted to rock the boat as to shake our selves loose, but it's hard to rock a boat when it's firmly affixed to the ground (bottom). We then tried to power forward, then in reverse, again trying to rock the boat free during these procedures and nothing worked -- basically was not budging at all.
We then started taking inventory of our options:
1. call our good friends not far away, perhaps taking the their 26’ to us and pulling us off. We didn't think it would work (ok knew it wouldn’t but misery does love company) .
2. contacting our friends the Beckum's abput 25 miles away, he has a 165 hp deck boat that would probably work. Unfortunately, we felt the time frame for him to arrive would probably be sometime Wednesday later afternoon as the lad does have a tendency to daudle
3. naturally no boats in the area.
4. cell phone reception is sucking at this point
Grade pretty much at an F+ at this point, but still no taking on of water, our engine works, full batteries, food and beverage a'plenty.
I then remember I had purchased a 1 year thing with SeaTow, mainly because I felt I'd drain the batteries and would not have power to start the engine to come home or the engine would die since she's a 43 year old engine. We finally, after running the cell phone batteries almost dead, contacted their 800 number, they said they'd get back in less than 30 minutes. In about 10 I checked for voice mail, I did have one message, remember, lousy coverage at that area, and it was the local guy that stated he was 20 minutes from his boat, then 5-10 to get to us, no worries and could I call him back just to check in OR check in on channel 16. Hmm channel 16, VHF, didn't even think of that (grade F here but I didn't tell Margaret).
He showed up exactly on time. Upon arrival he passed over a bridle, I secured it to the aft cleats, he unrolled about 200' of line and after a couple of attempts to pull her off (aft, going the way we had come), he throttled up and voila' (that's French) slowly moved us off the shoal. Eureka! Grade A+. He felt there was not any damage, that "not to worry" folks get stuck here often, etc etc. and, oh by the way, this would have cost $600 (for a 'soft grounding') had you not had our insurance. He is a real nice fellow, Cpt John, from Wisconsin way.
We docked her perfectly, laughed about the misadventures and were pleased we lived to sail next weekend. I did remember an old salt once telling me, there are 3 kinds of sailors:
1. those that have grounded
2. those that have not grounded YET
3. those who lie about never being grounded
I was one of the #2 group. Thankfully it was basically uneventful.
Final Grade, with curve, A+ of course. A bad day on the water and outside is worth 100 good days on land and inside!
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