Grounded in Garibaldi: Smoke, Salad, and Small Victories

The Midnight Gauntlet

Throwback to 2020 in the Pacific NW! From midnight to 3 a.m., I was making my approach into Garibaldi, Oregon. What should have been a sleepy little channel turned into a full-blown obstacle course: crab traps everywhere, fishing boats zipping around like caffeinated hornets, tugboats lumbering through the fog, and tankers pushing water like floating skyscrapers. No moon, no horizon—just pure black.

That’s when my chartplotter started cutting out. Radar, AIS, GPS—gone. A sailor’s equivalent of suddenly going blind.

And just as I was white-knuckling the wheel, threading between rocks and crab pots, my ex called. Drunk. Angry. The same ex who had left me stranded in San Francisco five days earlier. She didn’t want to talk—she wanted to yell. And here’s the worst part: I missed her voice. So there I was, dodging hazards in the dark, listening until the call dropped. That was the last time I ever heard from her.

Full Send into Nowhere

I had rerouted to Garibaldi because I was out of gas—physically, emotionally, spiritually. I just needed a place to stop. First attempt into the channel? Picture a horror film: thick fog, pouring rain, zero visibility, the chartplotter flickering like a broken strobe light. When I reached the breakwater, the water was boiling. Currents colliding like two heavyweights in a bar fight. The ebb tide grabbed me by the stern and flung me back to sea like I was late on my bar tab.

But I didn’t have another option. No sleep, no fuel, no willpower left. Screw it. Full send.

The current caught my boat and spun her in a perfect 360. Then again. My 45-foot, 30,000-pound floating home tossed like a bathtub toy. At one point I was moving 3.5 knots—completely sideways. Eventually I clawed my way up the channel and spotted the marina. Charts promised 8–10 feet of depth. Reality? One foot. I tried three times from three different angles, dodging wooden pilings like a drunk pinball. Finally I gave up and called the Coast Guard.

“Ahoy, Brian from Serenity. One soul aboard. Haven’t slept in days. Intending to drop hook outside red marker #10.

”They came back calm as ever: “Copy that, Captain. Get some rest. We got you.”

Except the anchor wouldn’t hold. I dropped, backed down, slipped. Over and over. The ebb tide just yanked me out like I was on a conveyor belt. What I didn’t realize then: I was trying to set a Delta anchor in a thick eelgrass bed. It was never going to bite.

By the end, I was cold, soaked, cracked. I made one last desperate charge at the marina. Depth dropped from 12… to 10… to 8… and then—boom. Grounded. And grounded good.

Salad à la Garibaldi

I laid into the throttle a few times, but the keel was stuck fast. I gave up, called the Coast Guard again:

“No assistance needed. I’m considering myself anchored. I’ll rise with the tide.”“Roger that, Captain. We’re standing by.”

I tossed forty feet of chain off the bow, collapsed in the cabin, and passed out at a 20-degree angle.

When the tide finally lifted me free, my relief lasted about thirty seconds. White smoke poured out of the exhaust. The temp gauge redlined. The engine was cooking itself alive. I killed the throttle, raised a sail, and limped offshore like a wounded animal.

Closed the thru-hull, cracked the strainer—and pulled out six fistfuls of slimy, snot-green eelgrass. It was like pulling clown scarves from a magician’s sleeve: one handful after another, never-ending. Enough to make a Caesar salad for the entire Oregon coast. Cold water dripped off my elbows, lungs burning as I cleared the mess. Reassembled everything, hit the starter—she purred. Ten and ten, just like nothing ever happened. Except I was a little more broken.

The Fog Lifts

And then the strangest thing. The fog lifted. For the first time, I saw where I actually was.

Garibaldi. A tiny, charming fishing town carved into lush green hills. Pines stretching for the clouds, seabirds wheeling overhead like a choreographed ballet. After twelve hours of hell, it looked like paradise.

No heroics, no poetry. Just another weird, brutal, beautiful day afloat.

Oh, and the fuel? Didn’t get a drop in Garibaldi.So I motor-sailed north, whispering prayers to the fuel gauge needle as it sank like the last grains in an hourglass.

I ghosted into Astoria on fumes, tied off at the fuel dock, and passed out cold.

Let them yell at me in the morning. I ain’t anchoring.