Getting to the beach - Middle River area

[skibum]

Hello everyone. I have a few questions about beaching in general, and one about the Hart Miller Island beach in particular.

I've only had my 260DA for about 3 weeks now and I am still learning every time I go out. I was out with my girlfriend and her 2 children last weekend around HMI. I pulled up on the beach side and went as close to the beach as I could without getting into the areas marked less than 3 feet deep on both the GPS and my paper chart. The area between my position and the beach was showing 1 foot on the GPS. Her kids really wanted to get to the beach. There were boats much larger than mine buzzing right up to within about 60 feet from shore. Are the GPS and chart wrong about the depth? I know that HMI is a dredge material disposal facility. Maybe they dredged after the soundings of the area were taken? Maybe my boat is the only one on this side of the bay with more than 1 foot of draft? Naaa...

The kids weren't too happy with me, but I stayed in the area that was 4'ft deep on the chart and matched the reading on my depth gauge.

Later on, after we got back, I realized that my girfriend and I could have used 2 bow lines to walk her in with the sterndrive up. Is this the typical method one uses when approaching a beach area? Got any tips or things a newbie might want to consider before making such an attempt? I guess I am just asking ya'll to teach me how to beach...

Mike

 

[chuck1]

Mike,

Not going to be a Hart Miller Island beach area specific reply.

With that said.

Rule 1: IMHO Charts are never going to be 100% accurate.
Rule 2: Go Slow, just to be safe.
Rule 3: Local knowledge is best, watch where the other boats are going with out a problem and you can almost bet that it is safe to go too, but remember rule 2 "Go Slow"

Personal I don't have an offset set on my depth gauge or GPS so when I get readings it is how much water I have under the boat not how deep it is.

Are you beaching stern or bow in? I always used to beach bow in, but have since started beaching stern in with both a bow and stern anchor our. I get to thank Stilhbolt for that one I learned at the CSR PCB get together this summer

Hope it helps.