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As we looked out on the water forwhat to do next, the sun made itsway down behind the tree covithappened to me!Run AgroundStory by Chance ReadingOne summer weekend a few yearsback, I went with my girlfriend tovisit her family and spend a relaxingweekend in northern California.They live in a small towneast of San Francisco on the delta,an expansive waterway that spiderwebs in from the coast all the wayto Sacramento. These waterwaysare surrounded by levees and someof the richest farming land in theworld. Ships and personal craftsswarm the waterways passing oldshipping centers, finding fishingholes and occasionally even wakeboarding.A good family friend, CaptainKurt, came over on Saturday afternoonand offered a quick sailboatride around the delta before dinner.My girlfriend and I gladly acceptedthis opportunity to get out on thewater. I bounced upstairs, dumpedmy pockets, grabbed my wallet andwas out the door in shorts, a t-shirtand my flip-flops.A short drive over a draw bridgeand a couple of levees brought usto a neat little marina located in asmall nest of trees. We parked andheaded down to the boat. Althougha bit dusty from lack of use, the 21foot sail boat seemed in overallgreat shape and we gladly pulledour small ice chest aboard and wereoff in just minutes.We motored slowly out of the littlecove and into a larger arm of thedelta heading back towards town.There was a mild crosswind andthe temperature was just starting tocool off the warm day. We ziggedand zagged across the wide channeland made steady headway. I relaxedand enjoyed being out on thewater, watching a handful of boatshead in for the day. The sun wasgetting lower in the sky and youcould already tell the sunset wasgoing to be fantastic.As we moved across the water inone of our zigs, we held our path abit long to avoid turning back intoa motorboat that was heading ourdirection. Captain Kurt turned thewheel and loosened the sail, gettingready to turn to our right. Theboat, leaning to the left in the wind,started to swing its nose around andthen abruptly stopped.On the delta, silt and sand linethousands of miles of waterways.This nutrient rich bed is what hasmade Central California one of therichest agricultural locations in theworld. Unfortunately, this bed alsoshifts almost daily which makes itvery difficult to keep up with. Wewere easily 50 yards from shore,but the deep shipping channel waslocated slightly to our right and ourkeel was stuck in the mud.Not panicked, Captain Kurt workedto straighten us out and get us facedtowards the deeper part of the channel.The gentle cross winds didn’tseem so gentle anymore. The windkept our sail from swinging over tothe right side, which would haveallowed us to sail back towardsthe channel. The harder the windsblew, the more the boat leaned overto the left, which raised the keeland took us into shallower water.After a few minutes of unsuccessfulmaneuvering, Captain Kurtjumped into the shallow water toattempt the release the keel. Hepulled one of the mast lines in thewater with him and used it to pullthe boat over, leaning hard to theleft. At this point, we were “allhands on deck” and I was manningthe wheel for the moment. Ourcaptain then tried to walk the mastaround so that we would be facingtowards the opposite shore. Thisseemed like a good plan, but everytime the keel came up out of thesilt the wind blew the boat closerto shore.I jumped in the water to help outand my girlfriend took the wheel.Captain Kurt again pulled the mastdown while I tried to push the boatback to deeper water. Nothing.My girlfriend jumped in and weboth pushed against the boat, butthe wind was too much. Then ourcaptain reminded us that the deltais affected by the tides and the tidewas going out. We were losing waterdepth by the minute and essentiallyfighting a losing battle.Adventure World Magazine is a GreenZine 55