Stuck in the mud

[SeaLady]

Ok Ok We females also get stuck in the mud.

My mooring in Mooney Mooney Creek has a shallow access around Spectacle Island.
Last winter, when I was heading out to sail to Sydney, I was delayed getting on board so the tide had dropped more than I would have liked for safety.

I was watching the depth sounder very closely and then, STOP. A speed hump.

Stuck in mud.
By this stage it was almost low tide so thought, just stay here till the tide comes in.
Good idea but alas the wind was blowing us closer and closer to the Island into even shallower water and the incoming tide rather than lifting us would have driven us even further in.

Hanging the one crew off the boom was not enough to lift the keel.

A call to Sea Tow was necessary.

They put a line over the bow and towed us in a way that we heeled quite a way over. With both of us hanging over the side as well.

It only needed a short distance of that and we were in deep water again. Thankfully.

A word of warning to the wary in this part of the Hawkesbury. The charts are not accurate. The bottom moves a lot and even the access to the boat ramp and pontoon, despite locals saying there is 2 metres at low tide. There is not.

There is at the pontoon but not its approaches.
There are what the locals call 'speed humps'.
And as soon as you get used to where they are they move.

I have now learned that you need at least 0.6m tide. More if posssible. Don't attempt with any less in a Top Hat.

P.S. I have also run aground in the mud in the 'channel' on the Western Side of Spectacle Island in a dingy!!!
Locals told me "everyone knows there is a speed hump there!!!" Afterwards.. Thanks guys.
It is on the Eastern side of the channel near the markers.
Stay to the western side in a dinghy. Don't even attempt to go through in anything with a keel.

That time I was able to row my way through the mud.

Lesson.... Don't trust charts!!!!!

[rob.lovelace]

In the morning I couldn't see from one channel marker to the next, barely 20ft viz this thing loomed up out of the mist. on my way back I wondered how I missed his mast, you can see the markers one at his stern. I was following the channel by looking in the water at the edge, until I got to the main channel then followed the plotter. Hit the mud once but backed out.