I cant really say for sure what I was thinking as I headed on out into Wassaw Sound. I know now a lot of things that I was "not thinking". But that is hind sight. I was able to keep close enough to see one river bank all morning. I figured I would just ease on out into the sound and by the time I got out there the fog would surely lift. The first thing that went wrong was the water got real shallow at the edge of the river and I had to get out to where I couldnt see the bank. Knowing what I know now I should have put the anchors down right then. But I didnt and the tide was going out. Now I couldnt see anything, in any direction. This is where I started to panic. I didnt really know what to do next. Maintaining control I was able to get a longitude and latitude coordinate off my chart for a bouy that I knew was across the sound and not way out to sea. Fumbling around in an urgent state I was able to find the page where I thought that I needed to enter the coordinates into the GPS. It is only a small hand held, but at this point it was now my eyes. Literally. Finally I was able to get the gps to "goto" the bouy. Not knowing for sure that I was actually goint twords the bouy at this point I was literally putting my safety in the hands of technology. That wasnt an easy feeling. After about 25 minutes the gps flashed a message that i was "approaching my mark". Sure as heck, I looked up and there was the green bouy. Feeling much releif but still worried because I could not see anything but the bouy. I didnt know which direction I should turn. I decided to kill the engine and try to get another coordinat entered into the gps. Only this time the chart didnt have one pre-determined. I had to actually try to figure the degrees and minutes in the crudest of ways.....like the Mayflower pilgrims. Only I felt a lot dumber that they must have felt for sure. As I rushed and fumbled I had just let it slip my mind that the tide as taking me out to sea. I could hear waves crashing but I thought that they were more distant and didnt heed the sounds. Suddenly I heard the fuse (wooden dowel used as a retaing pin to hold the rudder down in the water) on the rudder snap and then before I could even rise to survey the danger the boat slammed into the beach, nearly slamming me back into the cabin. This is where all efforts suddenly changed to tring to get the boat back into deep water. After about 30 minutes or so of abusing the motor, jumping in the water and trying to physically push the boat I gave up. At this point all I could do was get my anchors out and try to keep the boat that was being slammed by waves on the stern from being tossed around. At least as much as possible. Now I was at the mercy of the rise and fall of the tides. I was stuck until the tide came back in because it was going out. And I could only hope that it would rise enough to float the boat where the keel would come up out of the sand it was stuck in. At this point it was 3:30 in the afternoon. I now had lots of time on my hands. The first thing I did was get out of my wet clothes and got warm. After consulting with my mentor "Lamar" I realized that it would be late in the evening before I had any hope of getting off the beach. Trying to keep my spirits high, as I have found is the best thing to do in these screwed up situations, I walked around the beach and took photos and videos of my poor boat. Then after boring of that I actually got out some "409" and cleaned my boats hull in some areas that I cant normally reach. Then I made some spam sandwiches and waited on the laws of nature. I was still worried about what I was going to do when I did get the boat off the beach if I did. The fog was still just as bad as when I started. I guess it was about 7pm I noticed a red flashing light that wasnt moving and after consulting the chart I realized that it was a channel bouy in the direction that I needed to go for safety. So that was a relief to put it mildly. I now had a plan.......if I didnt screw that up! Finally at about 8:30 pm I managed to fight the boat off the beach with the help of all three anchors which I had put out to hold the boat in place. I worked my way to the red light of the bouy and got the bouy number and knew I was now safe and out of immeadiate danger. Then I spotted another bouy flashing and at about 10:30 pm I had made it to a point where I could get my anchors down and was holding at one of the red flashing channel markes. I took my chances and finally layed down for a few hours of sleep and waited for dawn. At about 11:am the next morning, just as quickly as the deadly fog planted itself

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