A month and a half after the amazing dinghy voyage from Bay Point to Cudjoe, comes another feat of navigation, with a similar impetus: Moving a boat. For some time I had wanted to move up from the Porta-Bote to a larger, more conventional craft, and fate finally smiled on me and I purchased a 1994 Celebrity 180 Status, which is a nice little bowrider-style boat with a 4.3L Mercruiser (Chevrolet V6) inboard/outboard.
Wow, slick boat eh? It has a bimini top, dive platform, dive ladder, anchor, and a trailer. Except... the Honda Element has no hitch (yet, going to get one at Hitch King in Big Coppitt soon). Therein lies the rub. The seller agreed to drop the trailer at my house, and I and his son would deliver the boat to my dock via the Big Blue Watery Road. The kid, a much better boater than I, navigated us out of Kemp Channel and into the ocean. From there, I took over, navigating mostly from memory, to the marked channel into Cudjoe Bay, and departing from it to enter my canal. The route looks something like this:
The circuitous route was necessary due to all the shallows between Cudjoe Key and Lois Key, and the resulting trip was probably at least as long as the last epic voyage from June, although it took a lot less time, I'd say about 45 minutes. The seas were relatively rough, and the little bowrider took up to 3-footers at speed. It wasn't made to do that, but it didn't complain much about it. 3-footers would have been just plain impossible in the Porta-Bote, mind you, they'd probably sink the darn thing. The other point of concern, was the extremely shallow entrance to my canal. That went something like this:
"Yeah, I'm a bit worried because I don't know what I'm doing here."
"Okay, let's slow down and get off plane."
(Christopher throttles back, boat drops off plane)
*BANG* propeller becomes excavation equipment
It was then that I learned about Trailer Trim, the higher-than-high trim that can be used on a running engine at about 1200rpm to crawl through exactly such places. By and by we made it through and into my canal, only missing a few small pieces of propeller (drat, only owned the boat for an hour or so and already broke something). But that will get fixed when I put a hitch on the Element and pull the boat out at Cudjoe Gardens someday soon. Till then, she still runs at least.
We're still set for a weekend of boating, and I'm sure it's gonna be interesting, so I'll let you know how it goes.
-Chris