I was driving the boat down the Intracoastal Waterway (All the East Coast boaters just call it the “ICW” or “the ditch”) today. Since it wasn’t a weekend this time, there was some traffic, but it was pretty reasonable. Sunday it reminded me of the Lake Washington Ship Canal on an equally sunny day, just after the large locks had opened. Except that the traffic didn’t seem to slow down between lockings.

Back to today, a Monday. One of the larger powerboats was coming up behind us, and was nice enough to slow down. They were no longer moving much faster than we did, so I slowed down and went over to the right side of the channel to let them around us. When the had finished passing us, I was a little distracted by something, and then noticed that the depth was decreasing pretty rapidly, so I backed the throttle off a little more and turned back toward the center of the channel. Too late. We were aground. I was acting a little unsure, so Brian took the wheel, throttled up and pushed us through a little mud or sand, and back into the “deep” part of the channel. We were back on our way, and no damage was done.

That was when I said “Does this mean we average running aground once a day in the ICW?” I’m not sure exactly what the depth is supposed to be in the channel, but I’ve usually been seeing 10-12 feet around here, occasionally under 8 feet, but so far, never under 7 feet inside the channel. Cayenne draws six and a half feet, so this really doesn’t leave a whole lot of margin. By the time we were anchored tonight, everybody aboard except the cat had run us aground! I’m not sure I’ve done the math correctly, but this assessment is way too close for Brian to want to stay “inside” much longer. In fact, we’re all looking forward to the nice easy navigation on a passage once out of sight of land and in enough water that the depth sounder can’t find bottom.