It’s all Dave’s fault. Bill, too. Definitely not my fault. I’ll also blame Navionics for not making waypoint coordinates editable. Someone at that company really needs to think about why they’ve made that coding choice. This all could’ve been avoided. But no. We ran aground. Hard. It’s not news for anyone following along on Instagram, but it was intense and I am still recovering. The trauma and the bruises continue to linger. For sure the emotional injuries are the worst from this debacle.

So how did it happen?

First, weeks before we ever laid a course for Barra de Navidad, our friend Dave aboard SV Cavu joked that when we ran aground, he would need the GPS coordinates so he could add them to his collection on his chart plotter. He has been documenting where all of his friends go aground and it wouldn’t be right if his collection was incomplete. It was the foreshadowing we all should have recognized.

But once we got to Barra, we made it into the entrance, along the little canal, and into the lagoon without any issues despite an utter lack of channel markers past where all the mega yachts go. We dropped the hook and took off into town to catch up with friends feeling proud of our navigational skills. This too, dear reader, was a sign that we forgot to stay humble. A sure sign that disaster was headed our way. When will we learn? Spoiler alert: likely never, and definitely not this time.

After a couple weeks, when it was time to head beyond Barra, our friend Bill on SV Calico Skies took a little video of us leaving the anchorage and told our friends waiting in Zihuatanejo that we were underway. This was a huge error. Based on the subsequent events, I don’t believe that he knocked on wood. It was mere moments after that recording was sent that our keel found mud. Dave has apologized for his role in this debacle, but we are still waiting for an apology from Bill.

Finally, our new chart plotting system gave us some false confidence. These days, after our old plotter started losing GPS signal, we’re using a tablet that runs Open CPN and Navionics. There are pros and cons to each of these systems which is why both are installed and running. During this particular moment while leaving Barra, I was referencing Open CPN because that app had all of the waypoints from the various guide books plotted along a traced route from our passage into the anchorage. On the way into Barra, those waypoints were very helpful for keeping us in the channel and afloat. Wouldn’t you think it was logical to follow that same track that brought you safely into the anchorage and basically retrace your steps? Well you’d be wrong. And I was too.

Both systems allow you to look at a chart view or a satellite view. Unfortunately, I was using the satellite view which didn’t indicate the shoaling we were aiming for, even though the chart view on Navionics did. Plus I’m not sure that the chart within OpenCPN even had the shoaling indicated. And as I mentioned, Navionics doesn’t allow for easily adding/editing waypoints. Realistically, I can’t watch both of the apps at the same time and also drive the boat and take photos of Weezy. Apparently I was about 10ft off ofour previous track, and it was just enough to find ourselves noting the GPS coordinates to deliver to Dave.

And at first it was more funny than concerning or upsetting. As we’ve been told, and as we’ve witnessed, so many boats run aground in this anchorage. Most of the time, people are able to get themselves out of the predicament. But those are the folks who are lucky enough to just nudge the bottom, or get themselves stuck during a rising tide. With all of the jinxes leading up to this day, I should have know that it wouldn’t be our fate to continue onward quickly.

There are some strategies for getting yourself unstuck in these situations. Kedging out an anchor is the most common option that folks know about. If I had it all to do over again…. I may have done that immediately. But we didn’t realize just how stuck we were.

We asked Bill for some help and we radioed the water taxis to request assistance. They said they couldn’t help but would find someone. In the meantime Bill and his dinghy tried to tilt Small World over by pulling on a halyard to shorten her draft and see if we could power out of there. It’s another tried and true method for dislodging oneself from the seafloor. And despite many valiant efforts, we remained in place, now at about 20 degrees of heel.

Several other cruisers stopped by to offer help – some with bigger outboard motors which gave us hope and some with depth finders to confirm that we were surrounded by deeper water – but the tide was falling and we were more aggressively aground every minute. We tried pulling the mast over, pulling the bow, pushing the bow, and I believe Marna was already praying for us. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the humor started to fade as we realized how serious this was becoming. Especially because none of the pangas with bigger motors were showing up to help.

There were some other miscommunications that gave us hope a panga would be coming to help and we made decisions about strategy based on that. I’m not sure how we should have acted differently when we were told that people were sending someone to help, but apparently from here on out we trust no one.

Lucky for us, we were approaching a new moon which means that the the tides are bigger. This is sarcasm because it was in fact not lucky at all that the water would be ebbing and dropping more than normal. We went aground just after the tide started to fall, from a higher than normal level, so we were in for it. Looking around the boat, it quickly became apparent that we were stowed for sailing, but not for being on our side. We worked quickly to move as much as possible from starboard to port since we were already heeled over in that direction. We also snagged several snacks from the French Baker’s boat as they came into the lagoon. I cannot emphasize enough how those quiches were so important. After scarfing those down, it started to become frantic and we didn’t eat again for many hours. And if you know Craig, you know that eating is supposed to happen frequently.

As the water continued to recede and Small World continued to increase the angle of heel, several things started to become concerning all at once.

• The vent to the port fuel tank was submerged. Since we had filled the tanks the day prior, we were potentially spilling diesel into the water. Or perhaps the water was finding its way back into the diesel tanks. Or somehow both? Neither option acceptable.
• The heel of the boat made it nearly impossible to maneuver within the boat. We could no longer walk on the sole so much as parkour slowly around and try to figure out new places to step and grip that wouldn’t slide out from under us. Getting from one side of the boat to the other took a long time and a lot of effort.
• Before we made it to the lowest tide, Craig noticed salt water had started to pool around some of the electronics outboard of the dinette.

As we were removing the diesel vent hose to save the tank from salt water intrusion, a dinghy stopped by to offer condolences. This moment will probably live in my head rent free for a very long time. At this point it was probably close to 90º with 65% humidity and Craig and I were sweating uncontrollably as we tried to prevent various disasters from making this whole thing go from bad to worse. Weezy was trapped under the table because she couldn’t get any traction to climb out from under there. She heard these strangers and lost her mind. The barking began and would not stop. Craig was yelling at her while he was twisted up in an advance boat yoga pose and covered in diesel. I was also yelling at her while trying to talk to them and keep a smile on my face. They were being sweet but also wouldn’t leave as they continued to offer to help if possible. Weezy continued to bark so I said “any chance you wanna take a small dog for a while?” Then the most shocking moment of the day happened. They said “oh….no. Definitely not.” That’s when I ended the conversation. Nobody puts Weezy in a corner.

We got the vent hose detached and plugged and started bailing the water out of the boat. It seemed like we weren’t able to get the water level to go down. Craig scrambled into the engine room while I kept scooping. He found the source of the water ingress. We were heeled over so much that water was up over the coaming and covering some of the deck. The big scupper on deck was fully submerged, was apparently and unexpectedly not sealed, and water was pouring in right next to the battery box. I crawled around trying to find the toilet bowl wax and various supplies while Craig squeezed himself into position to apply it. With the heel of the boat approaching 40 degrees, Craig was almost stuck for a very long time.

More toilet bowl wax was added to the outside edges of the scupper and we continued to bail out the boat. Finally we were catching up and the water had stopped coming in. All we could do was lay awkwardly on the sole and eat snacks. Now that we maxed out the inclinometer at over 45 degrees, there was no way the oven was going to be used or the fridge was going to be opened. All of the pantry and cupboard items were ready to topple out if we opened those doors. So we ate saltines, caught our breath, and tried to be grateful that the tide was coming back up.

At this point, all we could do was wait. The next high tide was the low-high and we weren’t sure if it would get high enough to float us off. Bill tried one more time to lean us enough to float the keel, but just like before, Small World settled back into the mud.

The next high-high wasn’t until 6:30am so we were going to have to spend the night like this. Luckily the water wasn’t supposed to get as low again. We strung up a bunch of lights on deck to make sure we were visible to the fisherman overnight and made a plan with several cruisers that if we were still in this spot by 6:30, they would all come with their dinghies and pull together. The only thing left to do was set an alarm and go to bed.

Shockingly, I think we both slept well. The water never got very low again and we weren’t heeled over. It was still dark out when we got up and started to get ready. Before I was able to finish brushing my teeth, Craig shouted that we were adrift. The tide had come up enough and we were officially floating again. We very slowly and very carefully navigated our way back into the anchorage. As soon as the anchor was set and the engine was off we went directly back to bed.

Lessons were learned and in the end there was no serious damage to Small World or her crew. If you have Instagram, you can go to my profile and there’s a highlight reel of the day.

I also found out later that the couple who declined hanging out with Weezy thought that I was trying to give her away forever. So they’re sorta forgiven but also clearly out of their minds if they think anyone gets Weezy while I’m still alive.

Alternative names for this post (thanks for the help, friends):

• Landed, Ho!
• X marks the Trauma
• Trauma Bonding
• What’s the Opposite of a Confidence Boost?
• High and Fry, How Are You?
• Leaning Like a Gas Gauge
• Started From the Bottom Now We’re Here
• That’s Not How I’d Have Done It
• Up, Up, and Aground
• Muddier Dearest
• Like a Stuck Pig
• Stopped, Dropped, and Rolling
• A Sticky Situation
• Living Life on the Edge
• Everyone Does It
• Carving a Literal New Path
• Stuck in the Middle With You
• Stuck, Stuck, Goose
• A Well Heeled Boat
• Heel-arious
• You Spin Me Right Aground Baby, Right Aground
• Send Me Your X
• How to Sail 50 Meters in 24 Hours
• Life at 40 (Degrees)
• Did You Know Boats are Suppose to Float?
• Feeling Stuck
• Angular Adventures
• Mud Bottom Girls Make the Rockin Boat go Aground
• Buoyancy Blunders
• Tidal Turmoil – The Barra Blunders
• Can’t Ketch a Break
• Ketch Me Aground – How ‘Bout Dat?
• Lopsided in the Lagoon
• Just Hanging Aground

What other punny names do y’all have?