Woke up at 4;45am when Pi came into our berth ( usually; out of bounds for her) and was whining. Unusual. And then I noticed a few unusual sounds coming from the hull. Oh Noooooo! Outside……naked as a jaybird in the rain………the shore is way too close! The boat is not moving. DoubleShitt. We are aground and no amount of throttle or swearing is going to change that. A quick check of the tide app; shows a really low, 6:15am low. The boat is now really starting to lean and Laurence is starting to stir. Mutiny and divorce impend. Once; calling the coast guard, abandoning ship, (women and dogs first?!) and lynching the captain are declared inappropriate (by me, of course), and after a vhf phone call from my smarter sailboat neighbour who noticed that I was……..poorly anchored, we decided that all we could do was wait until the tide came back in and access the damage once afloat. Good having a gimbled stove so Laurence could have her morning coffee while we waited. Essential really! Floated off, as predicted. Twaz a soft muddy bottom and we didn’t go “flat over” in about 3 feet of water. I need at least 5 feet to be clear of the bottom, SeaScape recovered fully . My pride and confidence…..not so much. Apparently; I snoozed through my anchoring 101 course and napped through my Tides 100 course. Bad Andy. I’ll just rack it up as a learning experience, never to be relearned, and take the flack from all concerned, with a bit of unusual humility. We left Bottleneck Inlet at @11:30. It was cold (Juneuary) rainy and a bit choppy. The wind was from astern at about 10 and we were into Butedale, a private dock but either unoccupied or deserted, at about 5pm after about a 5.5 motor. It would have been good to practice my sailing but the cold, rain and daylight made it; not a good option. There was only about space for 4 or 5 @40 ft boats and they were all taken by the time we got there at @5pm. I was tired and cold. It was going to be another 2 hour motor to another decent anchorage. One of the boats tied to the dock, saw my dilemma and offered to let me raft up to them. A Canadian commercial prawn boat. The other three boats moored; American yachts, kept their bumpers in and profiles; low.
Nicely anchored in Bottleneck Inlet?
