Most cruising blogs are pretty similar. They are littered with pictures of captain and crew sipping boat drinks, while watching the sunrise or sunset, and smiling from ear to ear. They tell of smooth sailing, dolphin sightings, and long peaceful walks hand-in-hand along uninhabited beaches. When I decided to blog about our adventures, I promised myself that I would not only write about the beaches, the dolphins, and the boat drinks (which, by the way, have become a daily thing around here), but I wanted to tell the whole story. It can’t ALL be rum and sunshine, now can it? But, to be perfectly honest with you, now that some very un-paradise-like events have transpired, I’m a little leery to tell those stories. But, I think, if we’re going to tell you our story, you may as well hear it all. Sooooo, I’ll give you the good, the better, and the down-right scary.

Our trip out of the Rigolets was fairly uneventful. We were a little worried about the dreaded CSX Railroad Bridge crossing. Sailor after sailor told stories of waiting hours on end to get under the bridge, hailing the bridge operator with no response, or worse yet, approaching the bridge only to be turned away due to mechanical problems. I’m happy to report that the CSX Rigolets operator didn’t live up to his nasty reputation; he answered my call right away, and we were on our way in less than 30 minutes. (A side note for those of you planning this trip. I read on a fellow cruiser’s blog that a female caller would receive a prompt response versus a male caller. So, I hailed the bridge instead of Scott. Perhaps this is just a coincidence…)

After a beautiful, smooth sail over the Mississippi/Louisiana state line, complete with several pods of dolphins along the way, we spent our first night in Mississippi in the Pass Christian Harbor. The Harbor is right next to a public beach (not the best, but Riley had fun anyway) and a pretty cool restaurant named “Shaggy’s”. After having dinner at Shaggy’s, we walked the short distance back to our boat, sprawled out in our cockpit, sipped a few cocktails and listened to the live music next door (yes, a Jimmy Buffett cover band, what else?). The trip, we decided, was off to a great start. After two days in Pass Christian we were anxious to set off again. Riley had been hanging off of the side of the boat for two days now, waiting for the water to turn blue, and we want to give him some so badly.

We decided that we’d make the jump over to Cat Island. A few sailors we know had raved about lovely weekends spent on the hook there. We checked the weather, winds, and tides and sailed the short distance over to the island. After a little housekeeping, the three of us hopped into the dingy to check out the beach. Unfortunately, the dingy engine died unexpectedly and with the strong current, we decided to skip the island and head back to the boat. I should have known it was a sign of things to come.

Scott is happy as a clam on the hook. He loves it the middle of nowhere. And at first, I find it peaceful and quiet, too. But as the sun starts to set, I grow anxious. Something is definitely bothering me. Maybe it’s that I’m just not used to the hook yet. Maybe I’m too neurotic for this free spirit thing. Maybe it’s PMS. Who knows? I just feel so vulnerable out there. I play twenty questions with Scott as we climb into bed. What if this? What if that? He rolls his eyes at my paranoia, turns over, and falls straight asleep.

Ten o’clock rolls around and just as I’m drifting off to sleep… a jerking sensation wakes me. I wait. Once more. And again. I wake up Scott. “What is that feeling?” Groggy and none too happy to have been woken up by his nervous wife, he wants to know, “What feeling?” “That jerking feeling. Don’t you feel that? Is that the anchor line jerking us around? Or are we touching bottom?” I ask. He rolls his eyes at me (again) and assures me that if we were touching bottom we would know it. But we lay there for a minute and listen. Tap. “Like that?” Again, tap. “Yes!” he shouts and jumps out of bed, me quick on his heels. We turn on the depth sounder. Holy. Crap. 4.6 feet! We draw 5.2 feet! This isn’t good. We do everything we can think of to get ourselves out of there, but nothing works. We’re stuck. Scott turns on the GPS and checks the hourly tide predictions. The winds shifted on us, and we’ve drifted into a shallow area. Low tide is just beginning. We’re stuck with four hours of dropping water ahead of us. Welcome to Hell.

By this time, Merissa has started to let us know that she’s a very unhappy girl. It’s around eleven, and the tapping from earlier has become a solid thumping. The keel is solidly pounding against bottom, the vibrations of it traveling through the whole boat. Thirty more minutes pass, and the noise becomes unbearable. It feels as though we’re occupants in a toy boat that’s constantly being slammed against the concrete by an angry toddler. My heart hurts. So do my bones. It’s as though my body is manifesting the pain of Merissa’s torment. It’s miserable. Everything is creaking and cracking. It seems as though the walls will explode out and Merissa will give up the good fight any minute now. Meanwhile, the rudder is solidly buried in the mud; we can’t move the steering wheel any longer and there’s a popping sound that is definitely NOT a good sign. Then, silence. 3.6 feet of water; we’re set hard on bottom.

We decide to sleep; there’s nothing we can do to help her until the tide starts coming back in around one o’clock or so. It doesn’t seem to take long for the tide to start coming back up, though, and the racket to start up again. We’re ready this time, though. We watch the depth sounder like hawks. 4.1 feet. 4.6 feet. 4.8 feet. 5.0 feet. Scott works himself raw. He runs from bow to stern alternating between pulling the anchor up foot by foot and hanging off the side of the boat on the boom to encourage her off of the shallow. The wind is howling; the lovely five knot wind we were expecting a mean, cold twenty knot wind working against us as hard as it can. He gets the anchor up, though. We reset the hook in much deeper water. Scott passes out almost immediately, but I’m too busy trying to figure out where the best place to have my parents pick me up at in the morning is. I’m exhausted, and I want my mommy. Don’t judge me. You weren’t there.

The next morning, things are looking better. The boat sails and steering just fine. But we decide to skip anchoring out on Ship Island. My nerves can’t handle another night, and Scott isn’t exactly hard to convince at this point. We head into the Point Cadet Marina in Biloxi, Mississippi. I try up the last cleat, and we grab Riley and head over to the Hard Rock Casino for a little civilization and libation.