Where the heck is the water??????

RichardS

New Member
Nov 15, 2015
173
South Jersey
Boat Info
2009 Sea Ray 270 SLX
Engines
Merc 496 375HP, Bravo III
WTF???

Yesterday, FINALLY, I got the dealer to come get my boat, so I drove up to meet him at our place in Tuckerton and none of us thought to look at the tide chart. (We need a lot of water to travel around here.)

It wasn't exactly the lowest point of "low tide", so it actually got WORSE, but when we met up at my place, the tide was so low I couldn't believe my eyes! Where we would have normally had, let's say, 4 feet of water, it was less than TWO! NO WAY could we even think about taking the boat down the lagoon and to the public ramp, because the water is even skinnier along the way. And on top of the extremely shallow water we had wind gusts between 20-30 mph, and I knew that even if I could make it to the ramp, I'd have a really hard time lining up the boat to the trailer and keeping it that way long enough to get it loaded. And later, the water dropped even further, so low I actually was fearful my outdrive would touch bottom! That didn't happen, but there were places along some of my neighbor's bulkheads where the water dropped away completely, revealing the muddy bottom! (We don't have our boat along our bulkhead, we have it on the other side of a floating dock, so we had more depth where our boat was.) Anyway, it was CRAZY low, as if we have been suffering a long drought!

So we aborted our mission and rescheduled for this morning in the hope the water would come back, and the winds would leave. Cathy and I stayed at the house and watched some old movies, and the dealer's driver (what a patient guy!) came back at 7:00 AM this morning, when it was SUPPOSED to be High Tide.

Well......I don't know what's going on, and I really hope you guys can explain this, but at HIGH TIDE the water was at the LOW tide level before this week!

Here's a pic of my neighbor's bulkhead (yes, it sure needs work!). Take a look at the water level! You can see where it is SUPPOSED to be. Look at where it IS! I took this at today's HIGH TIDE!!!! How can this be????



2243d52d-b3fe-4631-894d-6ca79ed23faa.jpg


So........

I don't usually take my boat out at low tide because it's just too easy to ground, but I HAD to get the boat to the shop, so I cautiously rode down the middle of the lagoon, watched my depth gauge while biting my lip (it read less than two feet and my depth alarm sounded a few times), finally got to the ramp, and after some nervous maneuvering, successfully got the boat on the trailer.

Now it's all about the dealer's place taking care of my overheating issue, which I am confident is my port manifold, after shooting temps the last time I was out. But that's another story for another thread.

What THIS thread is about is this incredible disappearance of water!!

Where did it go??

When will it come back??

WILL it come back??

If it didn't, no one in our neighborhood would be boating anymore, at least not anyone who requires more than 2 feet of draft!!

Please guys....explain this!
 
Most likely it is due to the storms that have come through the area recently. Last group of storms put a storm surge into the south shore of Long Island that added more than two feet of water at high tide (more than full moon high tide level).
 
Wind is supposed to lay down tomorrow (finally) all that water should work it's way back. I ran a short sea trial on sunday, and oh boy was it a wet ride. I was taking spray up on the bridge, ducking under the helm at times (glass is not up yet). All is not lost, I hear August has nice weather :grin:
 

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