Aground

04/01/2008

We were paddling quickly but carefully in the early morning light. Each turn in the creek had us switching paddle strokes, squinting into the sharp light and trying to make out obstructions. Obstructions, in this case, were oyster bars. They’re solid as granite and the shells are extremely sharp. I’d already hit a number of them, one, hard enough to put a small shatter mark on the gelcoat of my canoe. Innumerable scrapes had preceded this and a damaged rudder mount was to follow. But this morning, our main concern wasn’t oyster beds, but the tide. It was dropping.

Heike and I had been out only 2 days on our 7 day trip along Florida’s Big Bend Saltwater Trail on the Gulf Coast. You know where Florida starts turning from east to south? That’s it. That’s us. As you can gather from the discussion about oyster beds, this trail’s not been all that well paved.

The shore in this part of Florida is mostly marsh, the bottom, mud. There are a few sandy patches, but not many. Which is why this whole coast is almost free from any development, so prevalent in the more sandy areas further south. The State owns much of it, as does the Nature Conservancy. The trail follows the shore mostly. And as we paddle north to south (and that how you have to do it according to their rules) to your right is open water clear to Mexico. Starting to feel a little queasy? Open water clear to Mexico would mean huge waves in a southerly gale. But for one thing. The water is very shallow. The main consequence of a capsize would likely be getting your hands muddy as they hit the bottom. This trail is safe. Unless you forget the tides.

That nice, safe, shallow mud bottom is lurking there waiting for you. It’s waiting for your boat too. Should you neglect the tides, you might find your boat comfortably aground on that mud. And you, should you step out to remediate the situation, might find yourself, well, pretty muddy. And maybe stuck.

Heike and I had woken early at our Spring Warrior Creek campsite, several miles up the creek from the Gulf, on a falling tide. It was cold. 34 degrees that night. And windy, maybe 15 knots from the north. We’d eschewed breakfast, hastily struck camp and dashed for the boats, the river mouth and freedom before the tide dropped too far. Heike was all for waiting it out at the campsite. It was a pretty place looking a bit like a Tarzan movie site. I was for rushing things and making a run for it.

And it looked like I was right. We’d cleared most of the creek’s obstacles and were coming into the mouth, as it broadened to the Gulf. In the distance we could see channel markers perhaps a quarter, or was it a half mile off. We were heading for them, fast as could be, when my canoe slowed, then stopped. I pushed off backwards with the paddle and slowed to a halt again. I pushed sideways, then the other way, and then realized I was aground.

Looking up I saw Heike equally aground. I jumped out of the boat, but quickly sank to my knees in the mud. Even using the boat for buoyancy it was going to be a long haul ½ mile to those channel markers. It was going to be a longer haul yet. Heike refused to leave her kayak.

‘Marty’, she exclaimed in her calm, reasonable, German accented voice, ‘I think we are stuck’.

‘Whaddya mean WE? I thought of replying.

But the look in Heike’s eye told me not to. Heike does not like to get messy. Heike does not like to play in the mud. Heike was going to sit there until Florida froze over before getting her feet stuck in that stuff. And so Heike in her kayak and I in my canoe, quietly sat there in the mouth of Spring Warrior Creek, waiting.

It was not much above 34 degree and the 15 knot wind blew hard at us in our exposed location. We had some good clothing on, but our warmth depended on us being on the moving, not sitting still. I looked at Heike in her paddling jacket, balaclava and spray skirt. She didn’t look any warmer than I, and I was getting pretty cold. I lay down on the lids of the cat litter buckets I use to carry gear. I started to doze and got colder. The tide wouldn’t really rise much for several hours. We were stranded.

Heike might have been willing to wait until Florida froze over before stepping into that mud, but, as the hour wore on, she began to think it was Heike freezing over that would occur much sooner. And an hour into our ordeal, Heike finally did a very unGermanic thing. She stepped from her boat into the mud, leaned on it for buoyancy, and began to slog her way seaward to the channel markers.

I watched her for quite a while. In the sucking mud she was making slow progress. But progress still. As she reached the first channel marker, I realized she was committed. There was no turning back for her. So I, too, got out of my boat, and leaning on it for buoyancy, began my own trudge seaward.

Eventually the tide came up enough, or we trudged seaward enough to barely float the boats. With paddles scraping the ground and muddy feet defacing our lovely hulls we struggled on to our next night’s rendezvous with destiny.

Marty and Heike actually did manage to figure out the tides and successfully complete the water trail. But it took a long afternoon with a strong garden hose to undo the consequences of their grounding.

Marty