The cruise to Sarasota began innocently enough. We were eager � to meet up with two of my best friends, to get our day off (we call it "shore leave"), and to do our preliminary chat with the reporter and photographer from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for the interview we'd scheduled. Eager indeed. The wind, however, was not. It went from a lusty zephyr to a whimsical wisp over the course of the morning. Thus it was that we found ourselves under power most of the way. "We have commitments and obligations," we rationalized, "normally we'd NEVER do this." Of course, normally we wouldn't have an opportunity for exposure of this sort�..What's a pirate to do? Still, sacrificing the glory of the sail unfurled for the whining of the steel jenny�.BAD SAILORS! NO RUM!
So it was that we witnessed our first shark of the trip not in the whispering quietude of the healing decks but, rather, over the drone of nine horses worth of outboard propulsion. Still, what a monster! Eric, at tiller, noticed the telltale fin break the water twenty yards dead off the bow � his first ever. Brian and I leapt to the fore to gaze on the subtle and ferocious beauty rising ahead. At first a few inches showing above the surface, then a foot, now two full feet with the tip of the tail swishing two yards behind! We gripped the rails just ever-so-slightly tighter at the sight�.But not even this leviathan could deter the stalwart (and hardy as ever) crew from making for the harbor channel just a mile distant. Now let me preface this part by stating categorically that we studied the charts, watched for the channel markers (and found them), made ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that we were in the right place, and were completely aware that very shallow water awaited the unwary, the foolhardy, the insistently intrepid - well, basically us - should we stray from the enveloping bosom of Sarasota's famed (we later discovered) New Pass Channel. Let the record also show that we were very eager, not to say in a hurry, to get to the marina and let the fun begin�
It unfolded like this: Eric was on the tiller and both Brian and I were sighting buoys and matching them to the chart while watching for shallows. The outside marker was passed. Next buoy, a green can, sighted and passed to the right. Second green spotted off the port bow � take it wide, trend to the port, give it plenty of room. Got the third can just down there in the surf WHATTHEHELLWASTHAT!?!?
We had struck sand, hard, and bounced. Well in the channel. Oh dear.
Sean: "Whoa! Eric � hard to port!! Take us out deep!"
Brian: "There! There! See the sand! Cut out further!!"
Eric: (inside own head) "Stay in channel. Stay in channel. Stay in channel."
Eric: (actually) "But, I, well, it's, hurmph."
Sean/Brian: "Eric! Hard To Port!"
The bow swung, obedient to the impetuous orders of the commanders, directly into both heavy tidal current and extremely shallow water. Tidal current, that was, going out. Which is to say, exacerbating matters exorbitantly for us. We found ourselves, after much cursing and praying, after much revving of the engine and leaning off the sides to swing the keel free, and after much staring into the deep � my mistake, shallow, ever so shallow - aqua ripples, grounded on a sandbar in an ebbing tide at the very mouth of the entrance to Sarasota bay, not fifty feet from the last channel marker buoy. Watching a beautiful sunset.
Eric was first in the water. I was second. Brian was�.doing some thinking and a bit of gazing off into the distance � the distance about a mile away. "Sean, Eric," he began in a diplomatic tone of voice, "I don't want to tell you what to do but, you know, we did just see the biggest shark any of us have ever seen just a mile away, and it's a fact that most attacks happen in just three feet of water, and it's feeding time, so maybe�"
It hit like a shark attack (I'd compare it to a bolt of lightening, but realizations such as this � like shark attacks � are more rare than random electrical discharge). Eric and I were on the boat as fast as Jaws was on that naked swimmer in the opening scene. Damn realities of ocean-going groundings! The first time we're stuck in clean, clear, WARM water and wouldn't you know it � Sharks!
Ahhh, what to do? That's the thing � we're essentially proactive people. So we reconvened the Committee for the Future Avoidance of Calamity and had a sit down. Resolutions were adopted, as follows:
Wherein, we are grounded on a bar, not in the rivers but in a tidal area, we should utilize the tide to do the work normally required of us.
Heretofore, we should move some anchors and full gas cans and ourselves up to the bow so as to create a pivot point (the very front of the sloping keel) upon which any wave action incurred may operate in our favor, to whit, bouncing us toward the channel.
In Conjunction with aforesaid, we should throw the anchor out in order to facilitate NOT getting thrown higher onto the shallows, but rather, for the betterment of our situation, swing the boat toward the channel.
In Conclusion, all of this worked�����..extremely������.slowly. And we got sick of waiting. So we facilitated the hell out of the anchor, throwing it out and hauling Faith toward the last channel marker while utilizing our rocking-the-boat potential to the max until, with salt puckered hands and aching shoulders, we were a few feet closer. So we did it again. And Again. And�.Eric exclaimed: "We're floating!!!!"
And we were! Ten feet shy of the marker!
At this point we had a revelation: Calm Down. Relax. Get in the channel. And go slow.
This we did. And at 12:30 am, in the earliest of morning hours on the 26th day, we made our approach to the bascule (lifting) bridge for our celebrated entrance to Sarasota Bay!
Horray! See you in the morning.