It all started with a phone call at 1000 Friday, January 27. I was drinking my last cup of coffee and contemplating a leisurely day. The voice on the phone identified itself as a representative from the United States Coast Guard. He informed me that my sailboat, Swirl II, was aground on the beach on the southwest side of Squaxin Island. He said the Mason County Sheriff’s department had phoned them and they were phoning me to let me know. Oh, yeah, and I think he also wished me good luck!
So, I bagged my leisurely day, checked the tide tables, called Mark Osborne, who owns the tug, Teredo, grabbed my foul weather gear, and headed out to Boston Harbor where my boat should have been safely moored.
When I arrived at Boston Harbor Marina, I learned that Teredo was out of commission. Mark was working on his fuel lines and the boat was going nowhere. However, his partner, Marty, agreed to come with me in the marina’s skiff to check out the situation. I rented the skiff, we jumped aboard, and motored across a gray and choppy sea under an equally gray and sullen sky. We couldn’t see the boat until we were almost on top of her. In fact, we had begun to wonder if she had drifted off or the Coast Guard has given us bad information for her location. She was hard aground and listing about 15 degrees to port, bow in to the beach. Her mooring buoy, mooring line, shackle, and half of the swivel were bobbing merrily off her bow.
We arrived at the top of the lower high tide. We concluded we could not back her off without damaging her rudder. But we might be able to kedge her off. We unearthed the spare anchor, rigged it with chain and rode, put it in the skiff, and took it out to deeper water on her starboard side. Then we ran the rode from the bow chock back past the mid-ship cleat to the starboard winch and we started to grind ... and grind ... and grind on the winch. Slowly, the rode became taut and the winch became harder and harder to turn, but the boat failed to move. In the meantime, the tide had turned.
About then two tribal security folks showed up in a fast little work boat. They told us Swirl was aground on oyster beds operated by Island Enterprises. Any diesel contamination would destroy the oysters. I assured them I was just as interested in getting Swirl off their oyster beds as they were. They did their best to help. They moved the kedging anchor out into deeper water. We ran the main halyard from Swirl’s masthead to their boat hoping they could yank her keel out of the sand. Marty and I continued to grind the winch. The tide continued to fall. We succeeded in getting her turned around so her bow was facing open water, her stern was to the beach, and she was now listing to port. But in the end we had to concede that we were not going to get her to float until the next rising tide. Marty and I loaded our aching bones into the marina’s skiff and made our way back to Boston Harbor to meet Mark and make a new plan. We decided to meet in morning and take Toredo out to pull her off at high tide.
The night was stormy. I woke every time something blew thumping past the house or down the street wondering if the anchor was holding and if Swirl was filling with water or running higher up the beach. I didn’t sleep much. I met Mark and Marty at the marina at 0430. It was dark, very very dark. The wind blew in fits and starts. Rain spattered down. While Mark and Marty prepared to get underway, I pumped gallons of water out of the marina’s skiff so we could take it along. They cleared their slip, I brought the skiff alongside, made it fast, and climbed aboard. We chugged out of the harbor, weaving our way between the double handful of boats on moorings. We used the spotlight intermittently to look for buoys, boats, and logs and monitored the GPS to make sure we were going in the right direction. It was so dark that you couldn’t see the waves that kept slapping against the tug. The winter constellations shone bright between the scudding clouds.
At 0530, we rounded the buoy marking the shoal that extends southwest from the tip of Squaxin. We motored slowly, scanning the shore with the floodlight for the boat, and monitoring the sounder for depth. We went the entire length of the island and didn’t see her. Nobody said anything, but privately, each of us was imagining some disaster; she had dragged the anchor and was beached somewhere else in the Sound; she had filled with water and only her mast was above water; she had been towed away by salvagers. We turned around and moved slowly back down the channel shining the spotlight into each little nook and cove and suddenly, there she was, ghost ship flickering in and out of the spotlight’s beam. She was upright, floating, straining against the anchor line. Without that anchor, she would have been even higher up the beach. We turned in toward her, but the water was too shallow to approach from that direction.
The tide had started to ebb. We didn’t want to end up with two boats on the beach, so we decided to use the skiff to carry a tow line to Swirl. When we got to Swirl, we checked the depth and decided we would try to motor her out on her own. I started the engine and eased the anchor rode, which was so tight we couldn’t get if off the cleat. Marty fastened a float to the coiled rode, and threw it overboard. We’d come back for the anchor later. Right then, the important thing was getting out before the tide dropped any more. We motored out behind Teredo, weaving our way around the bars and shoals between Squaxin and Hope, and into open water. The wind had risen again, and rain was falling as we motored back to the Harbor. But, it was daylight, we could see; the boat was free; and all was right with the world.
We tied her at the marina, went to breakfast, and then I went home and took a long nap. I am grateful to all the folks who helped me: the Coast Guard officer who checked back several times; the tribal security men for their valiant efforts Friday and their offer to pick up and return my anchor on Saturday; the Boston Harbor Marina for the use of the skiff and dock space while I repair my mooring; and most of all Marty, Mark, and Teredo. Thanks to all of you for you assistance and support.
Moral: Check your mooring buoy regularly!! And know some really wonderful people.
Jo Sohneronne, Swirl II