High and Dry

Every longtime boater has run aground, even if they don’t admit it. Odd things do happen. I learned that during the peculiar grounding of my 57-foot ketch in the Intracoastal Waterway.

Off-watch in the forward cabin, I was jolted awake by a loud thud. I jumped out of my bunk and ran aft. The helmsman stood frozen, so I leapt to the controls and shut the engine down. Forward, the bowsprit pointed toward the treetops as we peered overboard. Like a circus elephant posing for the crowd with its front legs on a pedestal, the entire cutwater was high and dry. We were perched ridiculously on top of the middle of a cypress stump submerged just inches under the surface of the black water. The boat remained motionless on a freakish incline while we wondered how we had wandered so