Aground....(twice)

I blogged too soon. We had enjoyed a fantastic day's run. The waterway was nerve-wrackingly shallow in parts and we bumped the bottom uneventfully, but we soon learned to ignore the depth sounder and just plough on regardless along the marked channel. I watched all the shorebirds as we passed - colonies of white pelicans, egrets and roseate spoonbills - and ospreys nested on the channel markers. We had an almost constant guide from the bottle-nosed dolphins who thought nothing of almost going aground themselves. The weather was clear and cold, and we somehow managed to arrange our arrival with the scheduled bridge opening times. The quoted distances seemed to be in statute rather than nautical miles so we hoped to make Daytona before sunset.

Then we ran aground. The first 40 miles had been easy so James hadn't spotted the warning in the guide to favour the east side of the channel after the New Smyrna Beach Bridge. We were overconfidently doing 6kts and hit the bottom hard. We managed to flag down a local boat who eventually managed to drag the bow round and we got off. However, two marks further along we had to turn left into the cut which bypasses the Ponce de Leon inlet. We had read the guide and nav warnings for this area. It was always going to be tricky in such a deep draft boat, but we hoped to follow the advice and trickle through. No such luck. Immediately we made the turn for the cut, we hit the bottom hard once more. This time we had been slower and more cautious, but we were now stuck properly.

James swinging on the boom to try to lift the keel

The tidal range here is only a couple of feet so we were not hopeful to float off anytime. We flagged down another passing boat who tried to pull us off but failed. The tide was now rising, but the flow and the breeze would be pushing us more onto the shoals. We had to inflate and launch the rib, and with judicious use of Croix des Gardes' engine and the rib, we crept inordinately slowly off the bottom.

Navigating through the 'dangerous' shoals

The guide told us there was a 6' shoal across the entire channel and it was worse at the other end of the cut. A local told us they could guide us through the 'dangerous' inlet itself for a $300 fee. We turned that down, but SeaTow did give us detailed advice of how to navigate the inlet. We tiptoed anxiously into the inlet and out of the marked channel as advised, and found ourselves in 11' of water. Further in was a secluded row of docks, complete with fine dining bars and live music. Now we were doing fine, one of the boats that had helped us before rejoined us and told us where the best spot to stop was, so we are now anchored for the night off a torch-lit pontoon with a band playing R'n'B whilst we watch the ever-present dolphins cruise lazily in the setting sun.