We went to breakfast and I accidentally dropped the creamer thingy in my coffee – it promptly sinks to the bottom of my cup. They call that foreshadowing.
So I buy this boat, this great Herculean thing, and when we finally go to pick it up they really haven’t fixed the things they said. No biggie, they jump right on it. Whilst trying to plug the power cable into the stern, an employee of the boatyard, who retired out of the USCG a chief after 20 years, promptly slips and falls overboard. Into the water. Fully dressed.
Time passes and things begin working and huge amounts of money are spent (just 3.5 gallons of paint cost $1100). It’s time to go and these people are just going to let me sail away without supervision. Like none. At all.
So I do.
I’m following the markers like a good sailor does, but things get – dodgy. There are a bunch if markers and they kind of zig and zag and some are faded and don’t really have a color and I can see right where I want to go. The depth meter says 7.5′ and I draft 5’8″ and I figure all is well. I turn slightly to starboard and the wind blowing into the channel picks up and we drift to a stop. Since I’m barely giving it any throttle.
I push forward on the handle, the engine gets louder.
We stay stopped.
I say something along the lines of “huh?” At the same time Dan says “we’re not moving.” And we aren’t. Ladies and gentlemen, five minutes into the voyage I have run aground. What we discover is the depth gauge is two feet optimistic and if it says you have 7.5′ what you have is 5.5′.
Whelp, got that out of the way.
I call the tow service I signed up for just days ago and they send me a tow boat, piloted by Captain Ron, who tows me through the muck. We motor the whole rest of the way to New Bern because there is no wind at all. We get to the marina with one false start (we started toward the wrong one), and finally got tied up without swapping any paint. Now I’m looking forward to booze.