An Accidental Careening

With our time in the Biminis drawing to a close, we eagerly awaited a predicted break in the Trade winds that would allow us to press onward and eastward across the Grand Bahama Bank.  A cold front was scheduled to pass over us in the night.  Winds would spike but, once it had moved on, fair northwest winds would trail behind to carry us to Nassau. 

The night was indeed rough.  The wind was pushing in one direction on Strolla above the water line and the flood tide was pulling in the opposite direction below.  All night long she thrashed about in the starlight, sawing confused and tormented circles around her anchor.  She tugged fiercely on her chain, struggling to break free, fighting to break free like a marlin on a hook. 

Down inside, we four lay in our separate berths, eyes open and unseeing in the dark, listening to the grind of the paid out chain dragging over the rocky ocean floor, feeling the sudden shudder run through the hull each time Strolla came to its end, wheeled about, and raced off in the opposite direction.  

No one could sleep through the noise and jolting and, as exhaustion increased, so too did our anxiety.  Every so often, one or the other of us, overcome with fear from the terrible scraping and groaning and creaking of the boat, would climb up into the cold night wind to have a look around.  The rest of us lay where we were, awaiting their return and the whispered assurances that all was well and holding fast.

"Its not the noise or the violent rocking of the boat that should concern us," I counseled.  "Its was when they stop because then, we will have finally broken free and be drifting calmly and quietly with the wind and waves to our doom."  Sage advice, I felt and, with a certain poetic ring to it as well.  With smug pride, I made a mental note to write it down in my journal next morning.  During the cold, predawn hours, the grinding and bucking stopped.  In the sudden quiet calm we all fell immediately asleep.

My alarm went off early.  After the short, stressful night, I hit snooze several times before getting stiffly out of bed and going on deck to pee over the stern rail.  With bleary eyes I peered through the weak morning light.  The docks on shore looked a lot farther away then I remembered.  I looked down at the bubbles I was making in the water.  The rippled sand and clumps of sea grass under the water's surface looked a lot closer than I remembered.  We were hard aground.  Its amazing how quickly morning grogginess can clear away, if properly motivated.

 

 

(Mark goes for a walk as the tide goes out)

 

It was about an hour past high tide.  I didn't know exactly when we'd run aground but it seemed unlikely that it had happened between then and me stumbling up on deck for my morning micturition.  I reasoned therefore, that we must have already been aground at high tide and, as such, would not simply float free when the tide was high again.  Getting Strolla free and floating might be a close thing.  I quickly formed a plan based on a passage I'd read from a biography of Captain Cook.  It was purely theoretical of course, never actually attempted by me.  But, we were out of options.

(Mark inspects the hull)

 

I called all hands on deck.  Time to go to work.  After explaining the situation and the plan, Mark and Nate began prepping the dinghy while Becca and I rigged a kedging anchor.  We'd dragged our main anchor in the night and drifted sideways onto the side of a large, shallow sandbar.  The winds and currents had pushed us hard up and now the water was dropping.  I thought if we moved fast there was a chance we could get free before the water dropped too low.  

 

Using the dinghy, Nate and Mark carried the kedge anchor as far from the boat as the anchor rode would allow.  The free end of the rode was run aft from the bow to the starboard halyard winch.  Winding the winch, we set the kedge anchor and then attempted to winch the boat free from the sandbar and back into deeper water by pulling on it.  It was no use.  The boat didn't budge.  We would have to wait until the tide was at its highest again.  That would come in about twelve hours.  We would be spending at least one more day in the Biminis.

 

(fun in the cabin)

The day was spent idly, sitting on deck, reading, watching the boat fall further and further over until she rested fully on her side in the sand, wandering around in the ankle deep water looking at star fish and chasing sting rays.  With burning faces we waved away the well-meaning offers of help from passing boaters.  

"Come back at high tide," we said.  I took the opportunity to inspect and clean the starboard side of the hull below the water line.  We schemed and planned and consulted "Chapman's Encyclopedia of Sailing and Seamanship."

As the flood tide returned, the boat rose slowly back toward even keel.  We finalized our plan of attack, tasks and duties were assigned.  As high tide neared, we once again went to work.   We prepared a second kedging anchor.  It took three tries to set the second kedging anchor and Mark finally had to dive down on it with mask and fins to bury it by hand.  I winched both anchor rodes in tight and then we ran madly from one side of the boat to the other trying to rock the boat enough to break the suction with the settled sand around the keel.  Nothing.  

 

 

(Killing time waiting on the tide)

Nate circled the boat in the dinghy to create a wake that hopefully would aid in breaking the boat free while we continued our desperate dance on deck.  Still nothing.  We shifted all our water and fuel jugs and canned goods and spare chain and rope and whatever other heavy objects we could find over to the starboard rail, then hung from halyards out over the edge to try and angle the boat enough that the keel would break free.  Meanwhile Mark, still in the water, worked at digging holes in the sand down along the keel to allow water in to break the suction.  More nothing.  

 

(a moment of self isolation)

I untied the rode for the second kedging anchor, took it amidships, and bent it on to one of the mast halyards.  Then, I ran the other end of the halyard around the winch.  Because of the angle at which it came out of the pulley at the top of the mast, we couldn't get much more than the slack out with the winch for fear of breaking something.  So, Nate swam out to where the second kedge anchor rode entered the water and began climbing it, hand over hand, back toward the boat and the top of the mast, using his body as a counterweight to heel the boat to starboard.  

 

(Analyzing, planning, and waiting)

By the time Nate was six feet out of the water, the boat was heeling hard to starboard.  Becca and I were still perched on the starboard rail amid our pile of possession.  Mark was still in the water digging away at the sand around the keel.  Suddenly, his head popped above the water.  

"It moved!" he shouted.  Becca and I jumped to the winch.  The anchor rode was slack.  With Becca tailing for me, I winched it in tight as a cello string.  

"It moved again!" Mark shouted from the water.  Nate swung happily above the water from the mast halyard.  Becca and I kept up tension on the anchor rode.  Then, just like that, Strolla was free, pivoting towards the kedging anchor and swinging out into the current, Becca and I taking in the slack line as fast as we could.

Floating safely in the deep water once more, we de-rigged, stowed all our things back in their nooks and crannies and compartments and then motored back over to our old anchorage for the night.  The wind was steady and light but we set two anchors anyway and all checked them regularly.