N 33 04 W 79 27.796
I woke up at 0630 to overcast and cold, and woke Peter up to make coffee at 0700. The others were left sleeping in. All the other boats were gone from anchorage here on the South Santee River already when I went on deck.
We hauled anchor and were under way at 0800. Eugene woke up, had cereal, and took the helm at 0830.
We hailed Mysterious Ways to let them know we were already under way. They were going to swing into the South Santee River to join up with us.
El Tigre was passed up by a whole fleet from Canada early in the morning, with Mysterious Ways in the lead...
A light rain started in at 0900. It was still cold and turned into a heavy drizzle at 1000.
Eugene Jr managed to run us hard aground at 1040, right at harbor River. The strong cross current caught him by surprise and swung the bow to port. Before he could recover we hit the beach of mud. I worked the outboard port and starboard in full reverse to try and wiggle free with no luck. We called Sea Tow at 1100 when the engine cooling got clogged with sand. The tide was falling quickly, so we decided we wouldn't try to unground until 1600. He got in the dinghy and laid out an anchor aft to hold when we were floating again.
Noonsite: N 33 02.378 W 79 32.692
Peter made us all ramen noodles and hot dogs for lunch, and we settled in for the afternoon. I kept a carefull anchor watched, and hailed several vessels southbound on the ICW to notify them of our hard aground condition and warn them of our anchor line out. Eugene Jr laid a second anchor out off to port from the bow to pull ourselves into the channel and hold us when free.
We were afraid we might have a serious list on by the time low tide came about 1300, but El Tigre settled nicely into the mud and we only listed about two degrees. We waited out the tide, and managed to pull ourselves free with the kedge anchor at 1530. We pulled up the anchor that had been laid out aft, and held on the bow anchor in 15 feet of water. We still were not going to be going anywhere with the engine cooling clogged.
Sea Tow arrived at 1620 and we were under tow at 1630. It was a very FAST tow, at 7knts. The old shaft packings were doing some leaking, and the bilge pump was running once a minute. Eugene Jr took the helm in the cold rainy weather as we were towed along. Sea Tow dropped the tow line and came along side to rig for a hip tow to take us slowly up Jeremy Creek into McClellanville.
We docked at Leland Oil Company at 1740. It is more of a shrimp boat fuel and service dock than a marina, with no other cruising boats to be seen.
Capt Doug of Sea Tow stuck around for a while to talk with us. He saw that El Tigre had a documented home port of St Petersburg, FL, but a New Jersey State registration sticker. We explained that we'd purchased her down in Florida and sailed her home to New Jersey, offshore. We asked him about 'Sailvation', and our old neighbor from New Bern Capt. Arless. He told us that 'Sailvation' had been anchored out in Charleston for the past few weeks.
We met the resident operator Wayne, his wife, and their dogs. His wife was peeling shrimp for dinner as she chuckled and commented that we hadn't been hard aground. As an old fishing captain's wife she knew what hard aground was about. We found the head and showers. Wayne opened up the ice locker for me to grab a bag for my evening gin and tonic. I'd been worried about getting some ice for my evening cocktails, which I realy wanted after a hard aground day. Wayne told me he'd be glad to give me a ride to the local Yamaha dealer with my motor in the morning.
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(c)Copyright 2006 by Eugene Kashpureff