Heather wanted to take a break from driving, so I took over at the wheel just as we entered one of those areas where it opened up. In addition, a Coast Guard boat zoomed past us, heading straight across the bay. I started to follow them, but then realized I had lost the markers. By the time I looked back down at the chartplotter and regained my orientation we were aground again. While the powerboat was able to take a straight line across, we had a much narrower path.
While I don't seem to have learned as much as I'd like yet about not going aground, we clearly had picked up a few things about what to do (and not do) after going aground. Again, we were very fortunate to be in sand, maybe even more mud. I tried motoring out again to little effect, so we quickly moved on. This time we had a rising tide, which was encouraging, but our problem was now more than a few more inches of water was going to fix. Another powerboat zoomed by, and at the top of the wake we were able to make a little progress, which told us we were close.
Fortunately we had a 15-20 knot wind coming abeam that had been annoying us all day. Out went the jib, which heeled us over about 25-35 degrees, and maybe more importantly, provided a substantial amount of consistent horsepower to help the engine drive us the few feet back to the channel. We bumped and grinded and plowed a few more feet and were free again. Heather drove for the rest of the day.
After plans A and B fell thru, and in a desire to keep moving south, we decided to forgo most of Charlotte Harbor for now and just spend a quick night in Boca Grande, which didn't require too long a day, and allowed us a quick exit out to the gulf in the morning (thru a major pass). We were not able to get into the most promising marinas and started calling others. We ended up at a place called Whidden's Marina, which has been run by the same family for 91 years. It was just down from our first choice marina, which was booked full.
It was a real tight approach, and we stayed on the right side of the last green piling at the entrance, but there was a string of dark colored crab pot floats to the left. We have been dodging these floats all over the place, and decided to take these to starboard. As it turned out these particular crab pot floats were not for crab pots, but informal navigation markers indicating the edge of the shoal area. We ran aground again, with the highbrow Boca Grande marina within sight of us, and us in sight of a quickly gathering crowd. Heather rapidly wiggled us off this mud bank and back into the channel, which was very close to shore. We headed into Whidden's and backed into a slip. Must have been a 13 foot and a few inches slip, because we just barely fit. Maybe we just pushed the old pilings apart to fit.
We decided to walk into Boca Grande, where it soon became clear that while Whidden's hadn't changed much in 91 years, much money had been poured on the sand in other parts of the island since. We walked to the gulf side at about sunset, then had a nice dinner a couple blocks in from the beach.
The night was a little nerve wracking as our bumpers squeaked up and down the pilings with the tide. Fortunately there were no wakes to speak of.
In the morning I glanced up into the cockpit only to see a furry face looking down. We had acquired a stowaway cat which had managed to get from the fixed docks to our boat, something Heather was barely able to do. We kept the cabin locked up so he couldn't hide below, and after a walk around to make sure he had bailed, off we went back out into the gulf.
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