Last week I took delivery of my first boat, a 21 ft. Seahunt w a Yamaha 150. Prior to this, all I?d ever owned was a little 10 foot John Boat w a 6 hp Tohatsu.
So I?ve been taking it out of Shem Creek, under the bridge and up the Wando, all under break in conditions, following the beacons.
Yesterday I learned a valuable seamanship lesson, where despite following a previously travelled course, I wound up in shallow water, and was grounded in low tide, not 100 yards from the mouth of Shem Creek
Nothing to do except wait till the tide came in. So we set the anchor to prevent us from drifting into the oyster beds and watched as more experienced captains raced by us on a crescent shaped arc into harbor. Local knowledge. I had to laugh as a Sea Tow captain came out and anchored some 100 yards away, next to the dredging barge. Very kind of him, but also a big payday if I lost my cool. I didnt.
After about two hours the tide lifted the boat off the flats, and I raised the trim and powered out into navigable water, and on that same arc back into Shem Creek.
The lesson I learned is don?t assume that your navigational aid (Garmin 740) will always be accurate, and most importantly, don?t panic if something goes wrong.
I?m sure this little tale will sound familiar (maybe even tedious) to many of you, but I wanted to post it as a newbie boater in the hopes it might be instructional for others in the future.
Dave, We have all been there before. And your right the first thing is don’t panic. I always trust my GPS for direction, but not for depths. Although it can be helpful.
As for seatow. I am a member and would not have called them in this situation. With that said I would recommend getting seatow or towboat.
Dave, I’ve had that same situation happen to me…not at Crab Bank, but stuck in the mud for over 3hrs! I did call Sea Tow, since I’m a member. THey came out in a reasonable amount of time, but since I was so far up in the mud, they couldn’t get a line to me! I had to wait and wait until the water started trickling back over the mud. But Sea tow kept in contact with me the whole time, making sure that we were ok.
I went out to the south side of Capers one time and there was a rental boston whaler stuck high and dry on the sand about 100 feet from any water. It was a classic photo. My buddy’s idea, but we got out of our boat with 2 fenders and used their 2 fenders and Egyptian style rolled that boat the whole distance into deeper water. The tourist were very appreciative. Probably works only on hard bottom, but if there is a will, there is a way.
Definitely been there, more times than I’m willing to admit. Good on you for maintaining a level head. Best of luck in the future! It takes a few trips in a new vessel to learn you’re routes in these waters… 2’ can look like 200’ in a lot of cases.
That’s a tough spot to judge, as are many others. Best advice I learned from an old salt was “unless you know, go slow!” I keep a fair sized paddle in my boat to check depth, and to give me a chance when I do find some unexpected bottom…but that being said, my boat with a load of fuel is heavy, heavy ,heavy. I’ve got two transom mounted transducers that give me redundancy on depth finders, but they don’t tell me what’s happening up front, and sticking half of my hull on a mud flat can add unplanned hours to a voyage. Not to mention Mr. Murphy always seems to make the wind quit when I get stuck, and the no seeums call in reinforcements!
It’s usually a matter of “when” not “if” this will happen to you. Like others have said, don’t go on a plane in a new, unmarked area, if you don’t know it well. I got outside of a channel in the St Helena Sound once with the family, outgoing tide. Got the sea pro stuck in mud. Ordered everyone out and started walking in opposite directions till we found the channel. Then my boys and I were able to move the boat with everyone out and slowly make our way to the channel before we got really stuck. It was a close one! I’ve also run hard onto a sandbar at about 30 mph in Edisto, so I speak from experience!
I have been grounded on the other end of Crab Bank. It was a beautiful day so I just chilled and waited for the tide to come up. Got grounded one night coming out of Bulls Bay. Had to call Capt. Woody at Towboat. Man was I glad to see him. You boat long enough, you will probably end up grounded at some point.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
If you have a really narrow channel make sure you zoom all the way in on your chart plotter, a couple of feet off your mark and you’ll run aground. glad you made it off ok.
Got stuck on mudflat in Jenkins Creek, off of St. Helena Sound, for 6 hours last year. Garmin was stuck in acquiring signal and thought I knew the channel better than I really did. Saw only 1 other boat in that period of time.
I know it will happen again, but hope not for a long time.
You have to follow the channel further out than you think you would. Helps to have a GPS showing you where the channels are. Where you think there is deep water, it usually isn’t.
If you go at low low tide… you’ll find the way. People always get caught there. There are spots in the rivers that hold way more silt than you’d think too. I’m making mental notes all the time! Now if I could remember where I put them…
Tough area there bud. Many, many, many people make that mistake. What looks like the more shallow water is the lesser and vice versa. Must hope you had some cold beer
