Doh!

Thank goodness there are no pictures of today’s fiasco. Today, I managed to run Alana aground. I could tell myself that it really wasn’t my fault; we WERE in the middle of a marked channel supposedly dredged to 10 feet, but I didn’t feel good going in and I should have stepped back a few steps to rethink the plan. Here is what happened:

We were intending to anchor in Willoughby Bay, just inside the Hampton tunnel. We turned south between markers 1 and 2 and had a clear view of 3 ahead. These are all fixed aids, so there was little doubt about their position, but an uncharted green can buoy labeled 1A was in what appeared to be the middle of the channel between beacons 1 and 3. This is the point at which I should have retreated, but instead I altered course to starboard so as to leave 1A to port. Almost immediately Alana ground to a halt in the mud, defying my brief attempt to power back into the channel. Dad helped me quickly rig the dingy so that we could get a kedge upwind, and here is where I screwed up again. I chose the starboard CQR with an all-chain rode and quickly discovered that the dingy’s 6hp motor simply lacked the umph to overcome the weight of the chain which kept me from being able to effectively set the CQR. I dropped the CQR where it was and returned to Alana for the Bruce anchor. The Bruce’s rode is primarily 5/8” 3-strand so I had no difficulty carrying it as far up wind as I could before dropping it from the dingy. That accomplished, Dad and I heaved around on the line, maintaining a steady strain in order to draw the boat a little closer to good water every time a swell lifted her from the mud. While this was going on I used the dingy and considerable effort to retrieve the CQR and its chain (we couldn’t risk heaving around with the windlass for fear of breaking out the Bruce). I parked the dingy alongside Alana’s bow and Dad used the windlass to recover the CQR and chain without further incident. We got lucky in that we ran aground right at low tide, so I never really doubted that we would eventually float free, but just to help the process along, we pumped both water tanks overboard. Once Alana floated free I became concerned that we would not be able to retrieve the Bruce in the normal manner without drawing Alana into the shoal water on the opposite side of the channel, so we marked the line with a fender, threw the whole mess overboard and motored across the ship channel and a safe, temporary anchorage. Once safely anchored, I returned to the scene of my humiliation in the dingy and recovered the Bruce and its nylon rode.

Alana suffered only some very minor scratched to her paint where I ground the chain between the dingy and her hull, so in the end there was no real harm done. I just feel stupid at having gotten myself into the situation to begin with. We did alright freeing ourselves; there just should never have been anything to free ourselves from.

Once the whole grounding was behind us we transited down to the anchorage off of Tidewater Yacht Marina where we’ll be tying up tomorrow. Dinner consisted of green bean casserole, a change from the planned spaghetti, but without any potable water aboard, spaghetti was out of the question.