Kenneth Hayward of Gwynn Oak, Md., is definitely in the running to become the champion of every boater in the world who has found himself high and not-so-dry atop a mud flat in a river, bay or lake, or stranded in the water in some other way. His story is true, but I believe he’ll have to do better to beat my personal best.
Here’s Mr. Hayward’s tale of woe, which was relayed by e-mail to an acquaintance who visits the tidal waters of the Potomac River nearly every day:
“I left home at 5 a.m. to fish the Mattawoman, Wednesday morning,” he began. “It was windy, it was chilly, I should have stayed home. Around 3 p.m. a strong wind had blown our boat onto a mud flat and there we stayed. [The] tide was rushing out. Low tide was at 6:30 p.m. and we were high and deep in mud.”
Obviously, something had to be done as quick as possible.
Hayward called 911. A Charles County rescue boat was sent, but it could not approach near enough to the stranded Hayward to toss him a line and pull him off the thick, gumbo-like mud that most would not dare wade in for fear of sinking in up to their arm pits.
But bless the fire and water rescue crews who do not know the word “quit.”
Suddenly, an airboat arrived that could maneuver across the wet, slimy stuff, but it also wasn’t able to push or pull Hayward off the mud flat. Time wore on.
A small boat from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources came near, but it couldn’t get close enough to lasso the stranded bass boat without getting stuck as well.
“We sat and waited for high tide [which was to arrive] at midnight,” Hayward recalled. Sadly, the tide came, but it didn’t bring enough water with it to free the boat from its muddy prison. (It happens when prevailing winds blow against the incoming water.) Eventually, the good people from the DNR returned. They’d arranged for a rescue boat to come from Woodbridge, which is across the Potomac in Prince William County, Va.
A large 27-foot-long diesel-powered rig soon approached and a fellow actually waddled like a duck toward Hayward’s boat and attached a tow line.
“We were finally rescued at 3 a.m.,” Hayward said. “I got home at 5 a.m.”
The boater returned to his house 24 hours after he left and — are you ready? — the rescue by the Virginia tow service cost “only” $1,340.
That’s one thousand three hundred forty dollars in case you misread the numbers.
Ouch!
My personal best, after having run across shallow ebbtide flats and gotten stuck at least three times in the past 10 years — yet somehow managed to get out or be freed by friends who wouldn’t charge a dime — was a 1970s incident when my friend Pete Cissel, the original Potomac River bass guide, invited me and my photographer friend, Dean Lee, for a day of bass fishing.
We would run up the Washington Channel and slide through the flood chamber doors adjacent to the Tidal Basin, promised Cissel. The chamber’s insides held fine numbers of bass, but you had to be careful and watch the huge flood gates and be certain to leave the hollow, cavern-like, flooded “room” before the tides changed and closed the doors.
We caught so many bass that afternoon that we completely ignored the flood gates. The first thing I remember was Lee shouting, “The doors are closing.” We quickly maneuvered the boat to one of the thick wood-and-metal doors, but found that Cissel’s bass boat would no longer be able to side through the ever-narrowing gap. Wedging the boat into the gates eventually would have crushed the boat.
We retreated, but then put the boat against one of the closed portals and feebly tried to push it open.
Imagine, we three brain surgeons tried to actually budge a huge door against a flood tide and — what? — a trillion tons of water. Good luck with that.
We didn’t get out until late night when the tide reversed and opened the flood gates. By then the D.C. Harbor Patrol was out looking for us. Our wives were crying, thinking we had drowned. When we finally made it back to the Fort Washington Marina where we had launched the boat earlier, a Prince George’s County policeman greeted me with, “Mueller, you’d better have a good explanation because your wife is here and she’s madder than a wet hen.”
I can’t remember what it was I said to her, but she wasn’t a happy camper for at least a week afterward.
• Look for Gene Mueller’s Outdoors column Sunday and Wednesday and his Fishing Report on Thursday in The Washington Times. E-mail: gmueller@washingtontimes.com
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