Oh, my,
where to begin? I guess I’ll start at the beginning.
We finished
up the necessary jobs and launched on Saturday as planned. Then we took the big
motor home to town one last time. The plan is to load the rest of the things
onto Submit on Sunday and pull out at high tide Monday morning. We need high tide
to get out the channel from Gibson’s. It started raining about 3 AM on Sunday
and continued to dump buckets until 5 AM on Monday. We moved the motor home
next to the boat so we had a fairly short distance to haul stuff and bagged
what we could to help keep it dry. Of course, wet was the rule of the day. It
was slow going, so we didn’t finish. Monday was cold, but not raining, so we
finished loading and put the motor home to bed and pulled away from the dock.
We were later than we had hoped, but we were able to get out without touching
bottom. The engine died partway out but restarted in time to keep us from
hitting pilings. We are on our way!
I think we
mentioned in one previous post that water had gotten into the fuel tank. We
made periodical checks of the filter and switched over to the second one. We are making good time and hope to make it
to the low bridge by low tide. But….the engine dies. We drop anchor in the
middle of the St Johns River and start tracking down the problem. Sleuth Reggie
determines it is the secondary filter. For those of you that know us well, this
will be a surprise to you—we had no spare. (we hqve since acquired several) Reggie
did something to a filter we did have on board to make it work for the clogged
one and, after having lunch, we are under way again.
Reggie was
on the helm and Barbara was below putting away everything that had been
unceremoniously temporarily “stowed” on the V berth. She then decided to let
Reggie go below and warm up, so she took the helm. Reggie was standing in the
upper salon rearming our life jackets. Barbara checked the depth sounder, 17-20
feet. Then she scans the river for a channel marker. Suddenly Submit comes to
an abrupt stop, her bow dips and the shallow water alarm goes off. We are in
5.5 feet of water. Reggie falls backwards like a tree that has been cut down in
a stiff wind. Barbara calls out “Reggie! Reggie!” No response and he is not
moving. She reduces the engine to idle, shifts the transmission to neutral and
goes below. His eyes are slightly open, he is breathing heavily and making a
groaning, gurgling noise. He does not respond to Barbara voice or touch. Then
blood starts coming out of his mouth. Time to get help. Her hands are shaking
too much to push all the buttons on her phone to call 911. She grabs the VHS
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.” The coast
guard answers immediately, “What is your situation?” She answers all the
million questions and Reggie starts to come to. He wants to get up from the floor.
Barbara wants him to stay down, but she has to go out to the helm to get their
location. The Coast Guard contacted Fire Recue and ordered an ambulance and a boat
to come get him off Submit and on shore. They also contacted Boat US to tow us
off. Barbara thinks she also talked to the Sheriff. It took 20 to 25 minutes
for the boat to arrive and by then Reggie was sitting in the cockpit. He was
unstable on his feet and wasn’t real sure what had happened, but he knew we
were bouncing on the bottom and needed to do something. He had bitten his
tongue, hence the blood. He was able to climb into the rescue boat with
assistance. While they took him to shore and to the waiting ambulance a fire
rescue member and Barbara prepared the boat to be left. Barbara thought she
could get Submit off the sandbar as the tide had come it a little. Then she dropped
bow anchor, collected needed items, turned off GPS etc. When the rescue boat returned to take Barbara
to shore, they hauled our stern anchor out and dropped it, too, to help keep
Submit in place. By the time Barbara got
to the ambulance Reggie was almost fully alert and all vital signs were good.
They still wanted to take him in to make sure there were no broken bones in his
shoulder and no bleeding in his skull.
The ER visit
was typical. Lots of questions and waiting. CT scan of head and neck and x-ray showed
no fracture or bleeds. He has a concussion and sprained shoulder. Prescriptions
for pain meds and a muscle relaxer were given as well as a sling. The only unusual
thing that happened was two heavily armed uniformed men walked in, “Mr. Good?” Oh, no, what now? They were from the Florida
Wildlife Conservation. It turns out that they must investigate all boating
accidents. They were very friendly and we had a nice chat. It turns out that
there are only two sand bars on the river and we found one of them.
It was
around 6:30 when Reggie was released. We were miles from the boat and it would
have been possible to get there, but then what? There was no way to get out to
Submit. Boat US had been working on a solution to getting us back on board.
However, their boat was two hours away and if we were, in fact, no longer
grounded, we would not be covered. We were exhausted and decided to take a taxi
to a motel and work on logistics for getting back aboard Submit next day. All
we had with us when we checked in was two life vests and some cash and cards
Barbara grabbed from Submit before leaving.
Because we checked in with our life jackets we figured we would be safe.
The desk clerk did make a comment about
how we pack lightly. They took pity on us and gave us tooth brushes and paste
and a comb. Neither of us, but especially Reggie, wanted to move. Barbara cooked in the room by ordering in
pizza so Reggie could have food for taking his first dosage of meds and sleep
well. The motel offered breakfast the next morning and then friends came to our
rescue. Larry and Barbara picked us up
to take us to Harry and Darla’s because they have a fishing boat and live not
far from where Submit went aground.
We are grateful
to the Coast Guard, sheriff’s office, Fire Rescue, Boat US, and of course our
friends.
We were not
sure what we would find. Would submit have
drifted away? Would she have been
stolen? Did she sustain damage in the grounding and
took on water and sank? Would she have
been vandalized?
Submit was
still in place hard aground and sitting about 8” higher out of the water than
usual. We were able to board from Harry
and Darla’s nice fishing boat. We
hoisted the bow anchor and were able to drag the stern anchor aboard. We tried to back off the sandbar but she
would not budge even with their boat trying to help. There really wasn’t much else Harry and Darla
could do for us, so, after carrying our stern anchor out to deep water for us
to use as a kedge, we said our goodbyes, thank you and sent them home. We would set an alarm for high tide in about
5 hours and settle in for the evening.
Water depth
said 5.1ft. Reggie hauled in as much
slack as the stern anchor would allow and we went below to have dinner. Barbara was all set to cook a nice hot meal
when we discovered the propane system would not work so no cook stove? What to do? No problem! We had been carrying, for YEARS, a supply of
military MREs (meals ready to eat! Yum!)
So, out of the depths of a storage compartment came a chicken fajita
dinner with seasoned rice and tortillas, and a pasta primavera dinner. Just stick the primary portion of the dinner
in its self heating pouch, add a little water and in about 5 minutes a hot
dinner. Other parts of the meal just needed
small amounts of hot water. Sorry, no
propane means no hot water. And, after
30 or 40 years, self heating pouches don’t.
We managed to eat some of the dinners cold and didn’t die!
Water depth
was checked over the next couple hours and dropped to 5.0 ft and then 4.9
ft. When it came back up to 5.0 ft,
Reggie again took up what slack he could on the rear anchor line and we settled
down to read and sleep until the alarm went off. In about ten minutes, Barbara looks out the
window and asks if those are airplanes or moving lights? They begin to reverse their motion so it
seems they must be lights. Reggie heads
to the cockpit to check depth and the anchor line only to discover that we are
in 30 feet of water. We did not even
feel moving off the sandbar. Quickly the
aft anchor is hauled in, the engine started and we head directly away from the
sandbar to mid river and drop anchor in 17 feet of water for the night.
Not our most
pleasant night. It is bitterly cold and the wind is howling, the river is
rough. Reggie gets up to tie the boom down so it quits squeaking and banging.
Then Barbara get up to remove a gender that had been forgotten and kept
knocking on the hull to be retrieved. Then it was Reggie’s turn again to reset
the anchor chain lock because the anchor was banging every time we rode up a
wave.
Wednesday
morning dawns cold, overcast and a north wind blowing 15 with higher gusts and
wind chills in the low 30’s. And, we
must head north into the wind and waves.
Neither of us was very hungry so we had a little snack and headed out. Reggie donned long pants, long sleeve shirt
and fleece top to wear under his foul weather jacked. Barbara found his black watch cap with a bill
and his supposed-to-be warm gloves and he zipped to his nose, put up his hood
and started north. Our hope was to make
at least 13 miles to a bridge which we could only get under at low tide.
The north
wind caused 3-4 ft waves on the river.
Bashing into them threw spray over the bow and occasionally into Reggie’s
face. The waves also caused the fuel in the tanks to
slosh a little. This dredged up some of
the water which had leaked into the tanks.
It slowly began showing up in the Racor dual fuel filter. After about two hours, there was so much
water in the first filter that Barbara had to go down into the port lazarette
and switch to the other filter. In
another hour and a half or so, the second filter showed almost at the maximum
we could allow for water. On top of
that, Reggie had gotten chilled to the bone.
We pulled out of the main channel and dropped anchor. We had a bite of lunch and then curled up
below with every blanket we had to see if Reggie could warm up. This led to
some napping.
After the
nap, Reggie warmed up enough play Whack-a-Mole and crawl down into the
lazarette to drain water from the filters.
Decision time. No way to heat
anything to eat or drink, let alone a way to keep us warm, and there are freeze
warnings out for tonight. Thanks to the
headwinds and waves and sometimes only making 3 knots speed, we still have
about 4 miles to go to the too low bridge and it is nearing low tide. Do we grit our teeth and just stay put for
the night and shiver ahead in the morning or buck up and leave now? The wind and waves have eased some. Reggie remembers a marina not far past the
bridge which has one slip which might work for us if we can get there before
5pm and it is after 3pm now. Pile on
clothes and blankets, haul anchor and away we go. The possibility of electricity to run a
little heater is too appealing. We are able to make better speed now and are
able to squeak under the bridge. We
arrive at the marina at around 4:30 and are able to fit into their tie up spot. We decide to stay two nights since tomorrow
is still supposed to be so cold.
The shore
power cord just barely reaches the power outlet and the tiny electric heater
starts to try to thaw the interior of the boat.
We gather up dinner fixin’s and are able to cook a hot meal in the
community room. A lady tied up near us
sees us arrive and gives us four packets of hot chocolate mix to help us warm
up. After two, Reggie can feel his
hands. After three, he feels his
feet. We have a nice hot meal, head back
to the boat to bed down with all the blankets plus the little heater. The heater manages to warm the boat and us
and we sleep well. Next morning, we take
breakfast supplies and coffee to the community room and have hot showers and a
hot breakfast. An Enterprise rental car
helps provide a temporary solution to the propane issue and allow for a take-out
lunch. A later run covers lots of miles
but is unable to solve any issues, but does allow for a dinner out which keeps Barbara
from having to cook and wash dishes. Perhaps
on the way for an early drop off of the rental car tomorrow, we’ll get
breakfast before returning to Submit to cast off lines and heading farther
north to Jacksonville.
We are not
posting any pictures this time. Between
Barbara’s frightened shakes at seeing Reggie in the bottom of the boat
unconscious and Reggie’s shakes from freezing half to death, all the pictures
are too blurry to post. (actually, we
never took any!)
