Today was my turn to go aground. We were approaching a bascule bridge, and Roy was talking with the bridgetender on the VHF. I was straining my ears, trying to hear what the bridgetender said, instead of watching where I was going. Actually, I wasn't going much of any place, as my speed was down to about half a knot. The boat managed to drift over near the bank and go bloomp. Roy was hopping mad, but he calmed down when I reminded him he'd gone aground a couple of days ago. We weren't hard aground, and Roy soon had us back in the channel.
There are an awful lot of bridges in this part of the ICW. Farther north, many of the bridges are high enough to go under, but down here they're nearly all low, bascule bridges. One would think there would be consistency in their procedures, but each one seems to be different. Some bridgetenders are nice and open the bridge when they see us coming. Others make us wait ten or twenty minutes. Some open on demand and others follow a rigid schedule. Some open every fifteen minutes; some open every twenty minutes; some open every half hour. Some bridgetenders respond to a whistle, but most insist we contact them by radio. Some don't bother to respond when we try to radio them. It's a mess. Bascule bridges are what I hate most about the ICW.
We didn't get quite as far as we hoped today, due to all the bridge delays. The sun was going down, so we ducked into a little cove that was supposed to be seven feet deep and dropped anchor. Roy didn't put out much chain, because he was afraid we might swing into some pilings. The boat turned around, so we were facing out, which was convenient. Roy dropped a weight off the stern, so we wouldn't swing any farther.
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