After nearly two months of trouble free and accident free cruising our arrival at Lewisporte turned into quite an adventure. He had done everything we could not to make it s drama. Team Shimshal were on the port deck with mooring lines and fenders ready to go. We had checked the chart which said least depth was 2.6m giving us a spare foot under the keel. We had called ahead and 3 marina staff were on the pontoon beckoning us in.
Then the the depth sounder started to protest and went down to 0.0m. Moments later, and ever so softly, we were aground in the entrance of Canada’s most northerly marina. Maybe 30m from the pontoon the marina guys were beckoning us in but we weren’t going anywhere either forwards or backwards. I powered the bow round and pointed it a deep water but nothing moved. Only with the boom out and the crew on the port deck did she power off into slightly deeper water.
By now the marina guys were in their launch and beckoning us to follow them with a slightly different approach. We followed in their wake precisely and ever so slowly until we crashed to a complete halt somehow finding the only rock in this mud bottomed marina. The boat skipped over the rock and, moments later, we were safely docked and Brian and Reg from the marina were offering profuse apologies. Only last week a boat twice our size and with the same draft had had no problems.
So our arrival in Lewisporte was rather more dramatic than anticipated but the welcome was warm and no harm has been done as we were drifting dead slow ahead at the time but the noise and the shock sent shivers down the spine..