See You In Seven Days
In April 1969, my wife and I loaded the "Duckling," our little 21' Starcraft aluminum mini-cruiser with a 110 I/O, and headed south to Marathon, Florida and the Florida Keys. We were ready to tackle the Intra-Coastal Waterway, ready for the 1,400 miles north to our Kent Island Marina, Chesapeake Bay.
We spent several days cruising the Florida Bay and under the Seven Mile Bridge at Marathon, into the Atlantic. Then we awaited a calm day to head over Florida Bay to Cape Sable and the Gulf of Mexico, and start north. While waiting, we had a boatyard in Marathon enlarge our gas tank and add an extra battery. We wanted good weather and calm winds for the trip across the bay and up the gulf. We had learned the hard way the previous year that the Duckling was a poor performer in rough water.
We cast off finally, and took a due north magnetic heading to Cape Sable, the southernmost part of mainland Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico. We raised the Cape Sable light and continued up the Gulf shore to Fort Myers Beach. We ran east up the Calooshatchee river and canal, to Clewiston, the entrance to the route across Lake Okeechobee.
The good weather had held, and the two day trip was uneventful, except for a broken rib and mangled tongue sustained at Clewiston when I fell between the dock and the boat, banging my ribs and chin against the Duckling’s gunwale.
Crossing Lake Okeechobee, entering the St. Lucie canal and river, we arrived at Stuart, Florida for the trip up the Intercoastal. With ribs hurting, especially when I had to lift the cooler, empty the water and put in a new 50-pound block of ice, we enjoyed the following days running up Florida, Georgia and most of South Carolina. The weather stayed fine.
We got almost through South Carolina, where we crossed the mouth of the Pee Dee River, intending to run up the river to Georgetown to spend the night, when we ran out of gas. Setting the anchor, I tried calling the Coast Guard on the ship to shore radio. Got no reply. But the captain of a fishing boat answered, asked my problem, reported the fishing was bad and that his guests were getting tired. He was coming in the inlet in about an hour and would tow us to Georgetown.
He asked if we were all right, in no danger and apologized for an hour’s delay to give us a tow. I glibly replied we were fine, thoroughly safe, had plenty of food, and enough beer to last a week. To which he replied he would then “See us in seven days”!
My heart stopped racing when he arrived on “Nauti-Gal,” a 40' sport fisherman, about an hour later, threw us a line and towed us to a marina in Georgetown. He would accept no money, but gave me a stern lecture about using some common sense when boating. Had he not been where he was and when he was, on a not very traveled area of the waterway, it might have been a long, long wait.
-- Bill Corey