Hitting Rock Bottom

They always say the first step toward recovery is admission. We made our own painful admission in one of those all too common, smoke filled rooms where lost souls gather for comfort and that shaky support that helps people like us to keep going in the face of momentous adversity. We sat uneasily in a darkened corner of the room, interlopers amidst the familiar crowd. Finally someone spied our shrinking forms in the gloom and started toward us. As he neared and glimpsed our ravished faces his eyes widened in sympathy.

“What the hell happened to you?” he roared.

The room quieted and all eyes riveted to us. Next to me, the captain cleared his throat and muttered, almost inaudibly, “We, uh, hit a reef.”

A murmur rushed through the room. Arms were thrown about our shoulders, beers were thrust into our clammy hands, and we were welcomed into the fold. The meeting place was a funky little bar called “Coconuts” in St. Thomas and the injurious reef will remain anonymous since we don’t know the statute of limitations after hitting a reef. With the captain sprouting two fresh black eyes and me, the first mate, sporting a sutured hole in my bottom lip (before the stitch job, the captain observed that I was the only woman he knew that could close her mouth, pinch her nose, and still breathe) we spent the evening being regaled by stories and stories of boat mishaps. Each story grew in grandiose stupidity. That was our first bare boat charter. You people who consider putting your boat in charter, remember this. I wish I could say we’ve never run aground again but we continue our active membership in the “Bottom Dwellers Anonymous Club”. Luckily since the reef incident our groundings have been on friendlier bottoms in our own boat and none have required trips to the boat yard or emergency room. We even have our favorites! Lets see…..

There was the time we were headed out of the Chesapeake City anchorage. Concerned about the current pushing us starboard, we fought to stay in the middle of the channel when you could say we found “higher ground”. After several attempts to get off this mass of earth smack dab in the middle of the channel, we decided to kick back and have a couple of cold ones and wait for the tide to rise. Hey, why didn’t we think of that before we pulled up anchor? Since we were the morning’s source of entertainment for fellow boaters and the patrons of the restaurant off our stern, we decided to partake in some of our own side-poking. We especially enjoyed the smaller powerboats that would buzz by us in the channel, slow down and quizzically circle the boat and then question the obvious.

“Are you guys aground?”

“Nah”, we replied, “We just got tired and thought we’d stop and have a beer”.

That was about 10:00 a.m. and three hours later the tide finally lifted us off and on our way.
And then there was the time coming out of Annapolis. It was a gorgeous late September day when we left our dink tied to the mooring and headed out with two non-sailing guests for an afternoon of sun and sail. Shanna and Danny from our land locked hometown back in Kansas. had come out to visit us and see what a bay looked like. The captain was at the helm (although the captain disputes this, claiming our friend Shanna was at the helm, but that’s not the way the rest of us remember it). I was assisting Danny in raising the main and putting out the headsail. The wind was light. The bow dipped then rose to crest the foam and then…..
“Oh, sh--!” was heard from the cockpit (this indisputably from the captain) as the boat came to a graceful stop. Once again our fellow boaters displayed an uncanny grasp of the obvious. Most astute was the captain of the water taxi who helpfully told us,

“If you all get on the other side of that big white marker (obnoxiously noticeable off our port bow), you’ll be fine.”

Apparently he was not observant enough to notice we were not moving. Tow-Boat US to the rescue. Thank God we had the insurance!

Our latest mishap happened right south of the Carolina Beach Bridge. We were following a boat that we had noticed bumping bottom several times in the course of the morning trip down the ICW. Yep, that’s right we were knowingly following this boat. Now there could be several explanations for this: (A) We thought they might dredge a channel for us, (B) The Pied Piper Syndrome, where we are inexplicably drawn to one of “us”, and imminent peril, or (C) sheer stupidity. Luckily, we had sort of planned on another “occurrence” and had arranged for alternate means of rescue. Obviously we’d had this kind of trouble before. This time we had our own personal towboat following a few miles behind us. Tow- Boat “Next”, a 40 foot Sea Ray and her crew John and Justine, had befriended us months before in Block Island and had served on and off as our “scout” and rescue boat since. We highly recommend this arrangement. Once again, we provided entertainment for the passing rubberneckers.

In closing, I’d like to offer a bit of advice. Next time you’re chuckling at another boater’s misfortune remember, “There but for the grace of God, goes you”. And for all of you thinking it was sheer stupidity that landed us in the last predicament, believe me there were plenty of “followers” that we had to frantically direct to the real channel instead of the one we had just made. I won’t mention their names since anonymity is a right of the members of this non-exclusive club.

Our numbers are great and growing all the time. Just remember, we’re your neighbors at the dock, we’re the couple you met in the laundromat, we’re the boat you’re following right now…..Oh, Sh--!!!