First Grounding This Year

South Daytona Beach
N 29 06.477 W 080 57.210

I'm not sure when the last time was we ran aground. I'd have to check the blog archives. However, I think it has been about a year. Well folks, the big sign "365 days without a grounding" must come down to "0 days without a grounding."

We were passing the Ponce de Leon inlet. That area is famous for treacherous shifting shoals. In addition, they have a dredging project underway to make it deeper. Hooray for that. On the other hand, we came to a point where the dredging barge had 3/4 of the channel blocked. What's more, the barge was sweeping side to side in a raster scan pattern over the bottom. As it swung all the way out, 7/8 of the channel was blocked. Unfortunately, we arrive there at just about low tide.

I slowed down and tried to creep around the barge, giving it enough room. No good. Bang we were aground. I tried backing off with the motor. No good. Several boats came by and offered to help. I called to a sport fisherman to make a big wake as he passed to lift me off. Before he got there though, a working boat from the dredging barge came over and did the wake trick for me. It worked. We backed off, but the current pushed us aground again. We backed off again. The current grounded
us for the third time. I was too impatient to wait for the tide (about 4-5 hours) or to wait for Sea Tow. Instead, we launched the dinghy, put 120 feet of chain in it, and I rowed out the anchor to kedge off. That worked fine. We re-floated, retrieved the anchor, then crept past the dredging barge as close as we could get. The barge operators kindly stoped the raster scan as we passed. Thank you everybody.

When I was down there in the dinghy, I see that the bottom needs scrubbing. I didn't do the diving chore last night. Perhaps tonight as we lay at anchor in Daytona.

I noticed something peculiar. Just north of Mosquito Lagoon, there are a series of fishing camps. The camps are full of camping trailers and the patrons are noticeably all blue collar types. The location they have though is idyllic. Besides the Mosquito Lagoon, they have 10 miles of mangrove marshes cris crossed with uncountable channels. It is a wonderful place to explore and to fish. There are lots of dolphins there. They must find lots of fish to eat.

10 miles north of that is New Smyrna and Daytona. This area is populated by affluent people with million dollar homes, and big fancy boats and jet skis. Their area of the ICW is dingy, ugly, nature dead, and unbelievably crowded.

How many times in life do we see the richer people so noticeably less well off than their poorer neighbors?