Tues, Nov 15, 2011 Daytona anchorage

  There was no fog.  Katja and Geoff were off for showers.  We hauled out the dinghy motor and put the dinghy on the deck and were ready to leave, heading out about 7:50.  I was at the helm and immediately grounded us on a shoal right outside the mooring field.  To my credit, there was no indication of it on the chart plotter, but Skipper Bob mentioned it and Geoff said he’d been warned of it when he stopped at the dock.  And we were aground!, in less than 4’, and we draw about 4 ½ feet.  So….we sat there.  And sat there.  I called the marina and they said back out into the mooring field.  We tried that every few minutes and would really gun it on a passing wake, to no avail.  Finally we figured we were backing into the shoal and Ken went forward and got us off, after an hour of rising tide.  We knew we could get off eventually with the 5’ tide, but didn’t want to wait forever.  We were even considering staying another day, if it got any later.

  Florida is a straight shot south, which is nice because progress is fast, but it tends to be rather boring.  We had 4 bascule bridges to go through but all were accommodating and fast.  Came into the anchorage field south of the Memorial Bridge and anchored next to Blue Planet.  There was only 8-9 feet of depth, not the 14 feet shown on the chart plotter.  It was a beautiful, calm, peaceful night.