Our 1979 Cheoy Lee 41, Avocet, was anchored in Morro Bay during the worst storm system the state of California had seen in two decades. It had been two weeks of what seemed to be nonstop rain and high winds while we patiently waited for some sort of weather window to safely get around Point Conception—the Cape Horn of the West Coast. My husband, Chris, and I had done our best to make use of our time on the hook, but the cabin fever had set in, and morale was at an all-time low. And what did mother nature do? Kick us, hard, when we were already down.
It was another gray morning with the now-normal sound of rain pitter-pattering on the deck. We lay in our berth, tucked away from the cold, and did our best to ignore that another gloomy day had arrived all too soon. The sound of the strong fleeting tide rushed beside the hull, while the wind opposed the tide, forcing Avocet to take the brunt of it all on her beam. It was around 4:00 in the morning when the gentle bumping of what we thought was just moving water turned violent, and our belongings began to cascade from starboard to port, slowly then all at once. We were listing heavily, which could only mean one thing: We had run aground.
Some people think that you must be underway to run aground, and although in most cases that is true, the nautical textbook definition is to be immobilized in water too shallow to allow your vessel to float, which was most certainly true for us. Chris did his best to pace within the cabin, thinking quickly while trying not to lose his footing. It was 6:00 a.m., and we were listing at 20 degrees.
We had anchored in 25 feet of water at mean low tide the day before using our beloved Rocna Vulcan 55-pound anchor with 5:1 scope in anticipation of the strong northwest winds that blew throughout the night. It was the exact spot we had weathered 60-knot gusts from the previous storms that month, only pulling anchor to use the yacht club’s long dock for laundry and power (since there was not enough sun to farm the solar). The water was plenty deep in all directions with a 7:1 scope during those earlier storms. We had thought there would be no issues this time around, but we hadn’t anticipated what those storms had done to the bottom.
Somewhere around 4:00 a.m., the wind flipped to a faint easterly at the same time the tide began to ebb, ultimately pushing the boat toward a freshly extended sandbar that the recent storms had created. It was a foot deep around only our keel, and 10 feet down off our stern and bow, but with our 6 1/2-foot draft buried deep, we were definitely not going anywhere for a while.
“Harbor Patrol said they would likely do more damage than good if they tried to pull us out, so let’s try to kedge,” Chris said as he opened the companionway door to let the surprise of sunlight pour inside. He used our dinghy to deploy our stern hook, a 10-pound Fortress 16, 200 feet off our port aft quarter, and used our primary hook as a second anchor point. Instead of winching our primary in from the bow, we brought a 75-foot snubber line midship, using the mast winch in conjunction with the kedge anchor to pull us back off the sandbar. That was the plan, but first we had to wait for the tide to come back in, which was not until 6:00 p.m. that night. Meaning it was going to be a very long day.
As Avocet listed more and more, we found ourselves trying to make the best of our situation, which was hard since we were giving Morro Rock a run for its money as the main attraction for the onlookers walking along the embarcadero. It was odd to be able to see the horizon out of our hatches, watching the water creep higher up the port side, hoping it wouldn’t spill over and beneath our bulwark.
As we tactfully hid from the tour boats full of photo-happy tourists and paddle boarders that circled us, we recognized the sound of a familiar outboard approaching.
“I see you have careened yourself to clean the bottom, how clever!” our friend Reid announced. He and his pup Ellie live aboard a Landfall 39 moored in Morro Bay, but before boat life Reid had called the area home since he was just a kid. Although he did his best to assure us that we were not the only ones to have run aground in the Bay, the constant gaze of those onshore didn’t make us feel like any less of a freak show.
Eventually the tide returned, and as Chris winched us out, Avocet freed herself from her muddy restraints with a triumphant “pop.” Since she has an encapsulated modified fin keel and strong tumblehome we saw no signs of distress, remaining thankful we found ourselves in sand holding rather than rocks.
The rain had just started again as the sun set over the breakwater, so we continued with the next phase of our plan under spreader lights. We brought in some scope from our primary anchor and began to retrieve our secondary that had acted as a kedge. Chris dinghied out as he collected the line only to discover that the Fortress was very, very stuck. We initially thought it had fouled on our primary, but we pulled up the Rocna with no issue, meaning that the Fortress was stuck on something else. Since it wasn’t going anywhere and the rain had intensified, we decided to use it as our primary hook for the night until we could try to retrieve it with the windlass and opposing tide in the morning.
Waking to the sound of birds and sunshine spilling through the cabin was much more pleasant than the rude awakening of the day before. After our morning coffee we began the motions of retrieving the Fortress, which was much easier with the help of our windlass.
“You were the talk of the town!” new friends said as they circled us in their dinghy. After we shared how we ended up in the predicament, they assured us we had joined a prestigious club of sailors who had shared a similar story in Morro Bay.
What We Did Right
For the long-term cruising we do in sometimes sketch places, we chose a boat with an encapsulated keel, rather than a bolted-on fin. That meant she could handle being unintentionally careened without damage.
We didn’t freak out (although it was unnerving seeing the water coming closer to the bulwark).
We called the Harbor Patrol and informed them of our situation.
We developed a plan to kedge off and executed it properly when the time and tide were right.
What We Did Wrong
In retrospect, we should have rolled out of our berth at 4:00 a.m. when we first felt the boat bumping unusually—the first indication of grounding. Had we realized what was going on, we would have had time to bring in some scope, pulling us out towards the deep water near the channel where our hook was.
Perhaps we should not have assumed that everything had stayed the same in this anchorage after the intensity of the previous weather. Asking for more recent local knowledge before anchoring in the same place might have been instructive.
August/September 2024
