“HELP! HELP! I’m stuck in the mud!”

I remember well the day our son Bob spoke these lines in his début performance in a third grade skit. And that is exactly what came to mind after our second grounding within twenty minutes..  Yes, I said second grounding.  But wait- there’s more.  You’ll soon discover that there was a total of three- count them, 3- groundings in less than three hours. 

We had cruised the waters of St. Martin, FWI/St. Maarten, NA several times before and felt familiar enough with the main anchorages to make the crossing under sail during the day (for a change) and arrived in Simpson Bay on the Dutch side around 6PM.  We were looking forward to spending a few weeks on both sides of the island to relax a bit on the beach, indulge in fine French wines and baguettes, and catch some bargains on a waterproof camera and bikinis on the Dutch side, as well as B.O.A.T. (Break Out Another Thousand) for Exit Strategy’s maintenance.

One day at the chandlery, we happened upon a few friends who were anchored inside the lagoon on the French side. There was an ugly North swell affecting most of the Caribbean at the time and they encouraged us to come into the sheltered waters of the lagoon and drop our hook near them. Captain Dan and I had never ventured into the lagoon because the guidebook’s description made it sound too shallow for our 6’9” draft.  Our friends said that the channel had been dredged to 12’ and we should have no problem.  They even drew a map to indicate where they were located within the French waters of the lagoon.

We proceeded around to the bridge on the French side to await it’s scheduled 2:30 pm opening.  Our place in line was behind a catamaran. We saw it pass to the LEFT of a GREEN channel marker and noticed that there was NO RED marker.  Figuring that cats-shallow drafted vessels could go anywhere- Dan followed the learned "KEEP RED on RIGHT" navigational standard and Exit Strategy went BUMPH right into the mud!  Our worse fear was finally realized, having gone aground for the very first time!  We felt sick as we watched as the monohull boat after us keep the GREEN to his RIGHT, passing without a hitch.

What should we do?  What could we do? Dan threw the boat into hard reverse. The engine raced, yet we didn’t budge. Just then a dinghy zipped by, abruptly stopped, and turned around to lend an experienced hand, informing us that he had gone aground at that very same spot only days before.  Chris of s/v Mr. Mac was a Godsend!  He positioned his dinghy perpendicular to the bow and began to push as Dan kept powering ES in reverse. Nothing. So Dan got in our dinghy and both dinghies were able to shove our boat out of the mud with me manning the helm in hard reverse. Chris aimed us toward the next set of channel markers and we inched along with great caution as our depth meter was reading between 0.1-2.0 feet.

After rounding the next bend, we BUMPHED and stuck again. Dan jumped into the dinghy immediately and I powered ES in reverse. The vessel slowly slipped out of the muck and the Captain ordered me to turn back toward the bridge to await the 5:30 pm opening to make our EXIT!!! (Enough was enough.)

We dropped anchor near the bridge in 4’ and began to wait. A German couple we’d been trying to connect with for over a year saw us there and stopped by to chat.  That visit was the highlight of our afternoon. Around 5:15 pm,  we raised the anchor to make ready for our escape from the shallows of the lagoon. Unfortunately,  as soon as the anchor came up, WE WENT AGROUND for the third time!  This time Dan only had to gun the boat in reverse for a short while- just in time for us to slip into line and exit the lagoon forever more when the bridge opened.

[ Glass Half Empty view:  We will NEVER go into the lagoon in St. Martin again! 
                  Glass ALWAYS brimming view:  We are no longer VIRGINS of the MUD! ]

PS: When we related our mishap to our friends anchored in the lagoon, they said THEY CAME IN THROUGH THE DUTCH SIDE whose channel is well dredged…