It Was Bound To Happen . . .

Sunday, February 14 – It is said about boating in Florida, it is “when you run aground”, not “if you run aground”.  As it turns out, our turn to run aground was today.  We left the anchorage just after 8:00 a.m. on a low, but rising tide (mistake #1) and then when passing around the second corner of the island where we should have hugged the island more closely, we swung too wide and drove the boat onto a mud bank in 2-1/2 feet of water.  A distressing situation to be sure.  Because LeeLoo has a single engine and full keel, there was never any concern that the boat would be damaged plus it was a soft grounding in mud.  At this point, we had 2 options.  One would be to wait about 4 hours for high tide.  And the second option would be to call BoatUS for a tow.  The first option seemed problematical because a strong wind would push us further into shallow water as the tide continued to rise.  To prevent this from occurring, we deployed the anchor where it sat there in full view, as if laughing at us, in 2-1/2 feet of water!  Using the BoatUS app on the cell phone, we called the dispatch center and they in turn contacted a local BoatUS towing operation to effect rescue.  A few minutes later, the BoatUS towboat called us to confirm that we were indeed aground.  He said he would arrive in about 20 minutes.

When a towboat arrived, the first order of business is to fill out the paperwork to be sure there is payment.  This prevents cases where a boat once rescued tries to escape without paying.  In our case, we had towing insurance so this was not an issue.  Had we not had towing insurance, the fee would have been $875! 

The towboat operator was very skilled and he maneuvered his boat close enough to LeeLoo to attach a polypropylene tow line to LeeLoo’s port (left) bow cleat.  Polypropylene lines are used for towing because they float and thus won’t get caught in either boats’ propeller and also because it has a lot of stretch which minimizes mechanical loading on the boat that is aground.  The towboat slowly pulled LeeLoo off the mud bank and onto deeper water.  The entire exercise took about 30 minutes.  Once we were back in the main channel, the towboat headed home and we headed south through Pine Island Sound, then out into the Gulf of Mexico, and then on to Naples. 

From this point forward, there is no ICW, so all passages will be offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.  While cruising in the Gulf, our main concern is the wind, the height and direction of the waves and trying not to hit the hundreds of crab pots!