[QUOTE=sleddog;22780]"Taking the ground," AKA running aground, whether on purpose or by accident, is fading into last century sailing diction. Once an English Admiralty law definition, lest you "take the ground" with your Thames River Barge onto private property as the tide falls.
The Mahurangi River, 36 miles north of Auckland, New Zealand lies on the east coast of the North Island and trends northwestward for 6 sublimely scenic miles from Mahurangi Harbor, near Kawau Island, into the interior, ending at a waterfall that I wondered if accessible to WILDFLOWER, my 27 foot Tom Wylie sloop that drew 5'3".
There was only one way to find out, and that was to ascend the Mahurangi, by necessity near high tide, as at low tide the narrow estuary fully dries.
The first thing was to find a chart. But as near as I could determine at the time, no chart existed for the Mahurangi except for a hand drawn sketch with notations like "leave broomstick one-half length to starboard," and "nesting swans will be passed to port."
No matter, the bottom was mud from the fertile land upriver. My only concern was if we took the ground mid-river, would WILDFLOWER stand on her fin keel overnight without falling over?
Not to worry. I gently set WILDFLOWER aground near some historical limekilns. And as the tide ebbed, I rigged a plank ashore so as to be able to celebrate Christmas with friends who lived on the nearby hillside.
That night, Christmas Eve 1996, I fell asleep to the sound of the Morepork owl, hooting "morepork, morepork.'
Christmas Day I was back afloat and left my mud berth early, bound upriver for the village of Warkworth. Nothing was open in Warkworth, so I continued up the rapidly narrowing stream, only a boat length wide.
In the morning mist I could see a waterfall ahead blocking further progress. Pohuehue Falls. It seemed a good idea to turn 180, and slowly approach Popuepue Falls stern first ..
Only a few feet from the Falls, and making slow sternway, there was an audible clunk. I'd hit a rock with the keel. Discretion the better part of seamanship, I shifted my single cylinder, 7 hp Yanmar into forward, snapped some pictures, and headed downstream.....past Warkworth, the limekilns, the nesting swans, and broomstick marking the best guess where the edge of the channel was...