After breakfast, we walked across the Million-Dollar Bridge to South Portland and found Marineast. They had a good end tie available, so we rented it. The channel coming in is narrow and shallow, so we can only enter at fairly high tide. High tide this morning was at 9:45. Low will be at 3:35.
On the way back to the boat, Roy stopped at a marine-supply store to look around, and I stopped at the Visitor Information Center to pick up maps and brochures. It was nearly noon when we got to the boat. Since we were tied to the fuel dock, it made sense to get diesel before leaving, so we pulled the boat back twenty or thirty feet to where the hose would reach and filled the tank.
The wind was fairly strong and was blowing us toward the dock, so Roy was worried that we might bump the pilings at the end of the dock on our way out. We stood around for a while, hoping the wind would die down, but it didn't. A man came along and offered to help, so we had him push the center of the boat away from the dock, and we took off, no problem. By then, it was about one o'clock.
We motored across the harbor and into the channel. I was on the deck, getting fenders and lines ready. Roy kept sticking his head out of the cockpit, telling me what to do when we reached the dock. He should have been watching where he was going. All of a sudden, BLOOMP, we were stuck fast in the mud. Roy had overlooked one of the channel markers. He tried to back up but couldn't, and the tide was going out. We were only a few hundred feet from the dock, but there was no way we could get there until the tide went completely out and then came back in again. We figured it would be about seven that evening before we could move.
After an hour or so, the marina manager and another guy came by in a work boat to see if they could help. Roy asked them to carry our anchor out to the channel and drop it. That way, when the tide came in, we wouldn't blow into shallow water. Also, we'd have a way to pull ourselves into the channel. They were very nice and set the anchor right where Roy told them to. They also put out the red ball on the line that's tied to the anchor to facilitate raising the anchor if it gets wedged in.
A little later, a power boat went by and got the line wrapped around its prop. They cut the line away, but apparently the ball had been chewed up by the prop; we never saw it again. Roy tied the other red ball to the line.
As the tide went out, Jofian tilted farther and farther to port. At lowest tide, she was over 37 degrees, much to the amusement of passing boaters. Walking was a major problem, so I sat on the port side and read the brochures I'd picked up yesterday. Roy dropped his Royak in the water and paddled around.
The boat began slowly righting herself around five o'clock. By six, she was upright, and by six-thirty, she was afloat. We pulled up the anchor and motored to the dock.
We like this marina much better than DiMillo's. It's in a quiet residential area instead of a bustling, noisy commercial area. We don't have the awful surge here that we had at DiMillo's, and the scenery is prettier. We can even hear the bugle calls from the Coast Guard base a short distance away. Really neat.
It's only a few blocks to a super market, so while Roy cleaned the anchor chain and hooked up the electricity, I walked to the market and bought some groceries.
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