How much do you love me?!

3.7.10

We left at the crack of dawn this morning, despite the fact that I was running on little to no sleep. We motored further down the ICW and made it as far as the Matanzas Inlet (if you have no idea where this is and you are an avid follower of our adventures, you should now go out and invest in a FL map so that you can follow along!) At this point, all of our books and charts say "BE AWARE OF SHOALS!!" so we were carefully navigating along this very narrow inlet. We saw some dolphins beside us and were avidly watching them off our portside when suddenly we hit a shoal. We checked our location on the chart and compared it with our physical location in the inlet and realized we had traveled only a few feet outside the channel. Realizing our mistake, we navigated off the shoal and back into the channel. Not more than 10feet later, we hit another shoal - while still being completely in the channel!! This time, we were stuck good. We tried and tried and tried to get off that shoal, but it was just not in the cards. About the time we were ready to give up, a large power boat came flying into the inlet. We quickly regrouped hoping that his wake would dislodge our boat. No such luck - as he slowed down to make his way around us he suddenly got stuck too! He backed our pretty easily and tried going around our other side but got stuck again. We radioed over to him and found out that it was dead low tide and there was no way either of us (both drafting 6ft) were going to make it through this channel at that time.
Brad and I decided to call for a tow. Unfortunately a tow cost $800 - the towboat told us to hang in there until high tide. Bummer.
I pulled out my book and Brad went down to take a nap - we were in it for the long haul. 30minutes later, Brad came back up and looked at me with a lopsided smile. He said, "How much do you love me?" His bright idea - to have me shimmy out to the end of the boom and hang there while he swung the boom out 90degrees over the water. Hopefully this would make the boat heel over enough that we would lift the keel somewhat out of the sand and be able to get off the shoal.
Although I was hesitant, I was ready to do whatever it took to get out of this inlet. So up I went. He swung me out over the water and the only thing I could think was "it sure will be cold if I fall in!!" It worked enough that we were able to maneuver off the shoal!!! Finally!!! The power boaters looked on in awe as we passed them and then laughed when I looked up and waved.
Having successfully navigated that, the rest of the day seemed bland and straightforward - although that was completely alright with us!!!
We motored down to Daytona and stayed there for the evening for some much needed peaceful rest and a trip to West Marine to replace our batteries!!!