Day 2 – Aground on the Matanzas River
Modern navigation is a true wonder. Satellite mapping and imagery, GPS, digital charts, crowd-sourced sonar bathymetry, and the shareability of the internet, all make even detailed local knowledge available to anyone. Even with all that, though, reality still imposes limits.
Doug spends many winter nights carefully plotting courses and stopovers using all available tools for the coming season. But even the best information can become stale and outdated before you have a chance to use it. A single storm can change the location of channels and shift shoals overnight. This is especially true in the shallow waters of the southern coast, where sandbars swept by strong tides can snake offshore for 10 miles, and inlets will open and close suddenly in really big storms.
The spot chosen to anchor for the night is a side creek just outside the ditch, just inside the Princess Place Preserve, where a string of small islands separate the ICW from a broad expanse of open water called Pellicer Creek.
Notes in the chart book from other boaters recommend it as a good anchorage, with 6 feet of water outside the channel. Tidings only draws 2 feet with the board up. Easy peezy. But just to be safe, Doug lowers the motor to idle, reducing our speed to around 1 knot. He has me steer between two islands for the open water while he watches the depthfinder.
Continue reading “Sea Islands 300 : 04-Grounded Near Marineland”
