The End of the Season

The title sounds like some socialite affair. Well I am anything but a socialite, but I am social, just not lite, and they (the socialites) never invite me to their shindigs..but we had our own going on.. We pulled Gulleywhumper II out for the season. Nothing like sitting in one place having all kinds of things attaching to her bottom.. We could have someone dive her once a month, but really, she is small enough that we can bring her out and that helps prolong the life of the hull too. So pulling her out is really not a big deal. But never having witnessed something like this before - it was pretty interesting , in a low key kind of way...It did allow us to see our one boo boo of the entire season. On our last sail, it was getting late and had taken us twice as long to get back as to go out, such is the nature of sailing. Anyway - we were getting close, we could see the channel markers and we thought, shoot we only need 3.5' of water, surely we could come into the channel a bit short, basically meaning cut across and enter the channel a couple of markers in from the end of the channel. It would save us a bit of time. Well there are evidently 3 kinds of sailors: those who have run aground, those who will and those who lie about not running aground. We are now part of the run aground club. It is super shallow around here, they call it skinny water. Thus why we have a 2.5 mile channel.. luckily when we hit the obstruction (aka ROCK) we skimmed over it and didn't hurt anything too drastic, but in put an ugly gash in her concrete keel which we will put a layer of fiberglass over the area that took the direct hit. Cap'n Steve knew right away what had happened. Was very cool about the whole thing and immediately turned us around and we headed out to the end of the channel markers and came in through the channel. Taught us a lesson for sure, can't skimp on the channel, even with high tide. Luckily nothing more serious didn't happen to us.. because we are just day sailing we don't have a radio or depth finder on board. We are looking at purchasing a portable GPS - but basically we just carry the cell phone with us. We see the tow boats going out and they bring in boats, mainly power boats.. I am sure glad we didn't have a more serious situation. And luckily Cap'n Steve was at the helm..cool calm and collected while I am sweatin' bullets..