It took three days for us to get our boating skills approved by a licensed captain. In those days we practiced docking and undocking, navigating in the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), reading channel markers, man overboard drills, sailing and more. By the end of it we knew that we had more to learn, but it was great to review some of what we had learned with the Nautilus Sailing School back in November 2018 and to learn specifically about our boat.

According to Captain Ken the first big mistake we made was changing the boat’s name with the coastguard before changing it on the boat. At his urging we removed everything that had the old name on it and put “Zaratan” on the transom in vinyl. That was pretty easy and the folks from Reel Graphics in Stuart were super helpful.

It felt good to have “Zaratan” on our boat for our last sail with Captain Ken. We headed out for some sailing practice and then we anchored out at Peck’s Lake where we made lunch and had a small naming ceremony before taking the dinghy to shore, walking over the pristine barrier island and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.

We motored our way back to the marina and just as we were about to go under the last bridge we ended up on the wrong side of the channel marker.

It got shallow fast.

We felt a lurch, but before I could even reach down to put the boat in reverse we were off. It was a soft grounding, but served as a solid reminder to pay attention.

With the captains requirement removed from our insurance all we had to do was have the boat surveyor come back and see that we had fixed a few of the items from the original survey. We replaced the line for our propane and added a pressure gauge, capped the dry rotted intake hose for the toilet, fixed the tachometer and tightened the stuffing box. With all of that fixed we were free.

Docking and undocking are anxiety provoking because I worry about wrecking our boat, or worse, doing damage to someone else’s boat in such tight quarters. On our first trip out alone, I backed our 35 ft, full keel sailboat out of the slip no problem. I motored us out of the little marina and we were off.

After that I was feeling pretty confident. I knew I could get us to Peck’s Lake since I’d already done it and anchoring would be a piece of cake. We had practiced with Captain Ken, but we had also spent a week anchoring in La Paz, Mexico with Captain Mark through the Nautilus Sailing School.

While I was at the helm and feeling great, Mark decided to go below to start making dinner. I made the turn to starboard to enter the ICW, but rather than make a right angle into the channel I turned too soon and cut the corner.

There was a lurch.

With my heart in my throat I threw the boat in reverse as Mark came out of the companionway looking confused. We backed off of the shoal and I was starting to feel relieved.

Another lurch.

I had backed us into another shoal. Mark decided to take the wheel. He put the boat in forward and plowed us into the original sandbar.

When I took over again we were good and stuck. Luckily all we hit was sand, but we weren’t moving anytime soon.

The tide was coming in and there were a few hours until high tide, but we could feel the boat bouncing closer to the rock lined shore. We weren’t sure what to do, but we figured it would be a good idea to get the dinghy in the water. Of course we weren’t prepared and the dinghy needed some air, but we hadn’t found the pump yet, so we used it like the squishy mess that it was.

Mark tried to tow the boat off of the shoal with the dinghy. I’m no genius, but dragging a 17,500 lbs behemoth off of a sandbar with a half deflated rubber duck had a slim chance of working. What can I say? We were desperate.

Nothing makes a stressful situation more intense than a crowd yelling at you. In this case they were shouting,

“You’re stuck!”

Duh.

“You can’t stay there, you’re in the middle of the channel.” Yelled one dude, who’d pulled out his lawn chair and a cocktail to watch the spectacle.

“Clearly we aren’t in the middle of the channel or we wouldn’t be stuck!” I wanted to yell back at him.

Another guy standing on a boardwalk yelled, “You’re screwed! This is high tide.”

That jerk clearly hadn’t checked the tide charts for the day.

My favorite bystander was a woman who yelled in a nasally voice, “Do you have cell phones? You should call a tow!”

Of course we had been thinking that, but we knew it would be really expensive and we weren’t members of any tow services yet, despite the advice we had received.

Determined to get ourselves out of this predicament we shut out the growing peanut gallery and thought hard about our options. Eventually we remembered a trick called kedging off. The idea is to stick the anchor in the dinghy and drop the anchor in deeper water and use that to free the boat.

With a plan in mind we went to fire up the dinghy. We yanked on the pull cord, but nothing happened. We pulled on it until our arms got sore, but we couldn’t get the dinghy motor to start.

Sheepishly we called Captain Ken for some advice. I tried to sound casual as I asked for advice on starting our outboard, but he saw right through me. With a knowing, “What’s going on?” I was stuck explaining how I had grounded our boat and that we weren’t able to start the dinghy.

Basically we had flooded the motor and after closing the choke and bunch of tugs on the pull cord Mark got it running. We loaded our 45 lbs anchor into the dinghy and Mark motored toward the middle of the channel while I fed out about 150 ft of chain.

With a splash the anchor sank to the bottom of the waterway. We used the windlass, an electric winch, to pull ourselves back into deeper water and it worked.

It had taken us almost two hours to free ourselves and even the peanut gallery on shore was cheering. Many of whom had decided to eat dinner outside to watch the drama unfold.

On our way to Peck’s Lake we were treated to a beautiful sunset and we arrived at the anchorage just before dark. As soon as the anchor was set and the engine was off we signed up for Boat US, think AAA, but for boats and we haven’t regretted it.

Our first night at anchor was a little nerve-racking. I wasn’t expecting to be so nervous, but with every little noise I was up on deck to make sure that we weren’t dragging. Clearly Mark didn’t share in my anxieties because he passed out and didn’t get up until sunrise. Then I was able to sleep easy for a bit. After breakfast we went to shore to explore the barrier island and swim. Then we had some lunch and headed back to the marina.

I’m happy to report that our first ever solo docking experience, the part that I was the most nervous about, went well. I was at the helm and Mark manned the lines. Happy to be back in our slip, we started planning the next time we would cast off the dock lines.