As the saying goes there are only three kings of sailors. Those that will run aground, those that have run aground, and those that lie about it. I was going to lie about it but I already uploaded these pictures and its too much work to click and delete them now.
Let me set the scene for you. We were having a great time on Anclote Key. We made good time with our Simrad tiller pilot (review coming soon) and were anchored at south east corner of the island just north of the state park dock. The weather was perfect and we were exploring the beach line, swimming, walking the dog, fishing, drinking. You know, everyday stuff.
It was somewhere in the midst of this blissful afternoon that Amber noticed the boat was rocking strangely where it was anchored. I reeled in my line in and came over to investigate. It appeared that she was rocking back and forth on her centerboard. We sprung into action in a futile attempt to get her back into deeper water. No amount of pushing, jamming the motor in reverse, throwing out a second anchor and trying to winch us off the beach could prevail. We were beached like a fat white and blue whale.
The only saving grace was that the centerboard, which sticks down below the hull even when tucked in its trunk, had wallowed out a grove in the sand and the entire weight of the boat was not resting on the centerboard. There was nothing we could do anyway so we waited and I went back to fishing.
Now that the tide had receded I started to notice all over the beach were are plethora of scallops. Amber was already planning on cooking chicken that evening so we gathered and shucked about 40 scallops and she cooked those up too. Delicious!
It was during my shucking session that a pretty serious storm that had been raging on the mainland over Tarpon Springs had made its decision to visit us. We threw everything loose into the cabin and closed ourselves in. I continued shucking scallops as the storm pounded outside. It was fortuitous that we were beached because we avoided being tossed around in a washing machine. Everything happens for a reason.
It was after the sun had set and the storm had passed when we started to notice that the boat was rocking in a more familiar way. We were starting to float off the beach. We did get free but the boat almost grounded higher on the beach as we negotiated the trio of anchor lines, motor depth, and an abbreviated rudder. There was some very very tense moments followed by whooping and celebration as we barely scurried into the safety of the deep water.
We had been tossing around the idea of a dinghy or kayaks for a while and now we think it is a necessity. One more item for the list!
