Bumping Into Bembridge

We had always hoped for a landfall in Bembridge, but the window of a decent depth of water in the entrance channel would close at 21:30. It was 21:00 and we were half an hour off the entrance, and the journey up the narrow entrance channel would take at least twenty minutes. Frustrating but there you are, half an hour too late after a thirteen hour channel crossing from Cherbourg and we would now have to spend another hour and three quarters getting into Portsmouth, but so be it, that’s sailing.
Anne, my wife, crew and recently qualifed Day Skipper went down to check tide direction for our entry to Portsmouth and came up excitedly brandishing the Almanac.
"It's Ok." She bubbled "We can get into Bembridge until about 22:10"
She showed me the page where the tidal differences specific to Bembridge harbour were laid out. With a simple calculation Anne demonstrated that Low Water would be later than Portsmouth by about 40 minutes at this time of the day.
At the end of a long day at sea, when your entire soul wants to get into the nearest harbour rather than battling on for another couple of hours is not considered the best time to start interpolating secondary port calculations on the fly.
"Sorry love, It's a falling tide and that channel is very narrow. It's getting dark and we would be running in right on the edge of the time window. We haven’t been in there since last year, things might well have shifted around. We keep on to Portsmouth."
Dejected she dissapeared below.
A few minutes later she was back again with some more detailed calculations, this time written on a piece of paper.
Determindly she thrust the note under my nose and explained her workings and subsequent results..
In the abscence of anything factually incorrect about her chartwork I muttered something about expereince.
She looked hurt and pleading with me I finally caved.
"Alright, alright, we will take a look at the tide gauge." I conceded "If it shows over 2.5 we go in. If it shows less than 2 we don’t and that’s the end of it."
I hoped it was one or the other because I did not feel confident I was in the mood for making sensible, well considered decisions.
Benbridge tide gauge is a yellow stick protruding from the water like a functional Excalibur.
It has some slowly corroding numbers nailed on at intervals which in theory represent the minimum level of the water in the winding and narrow gutway that leads into Bembridge harbour. When sailing I have learned that one should be very wary of trusting anything that makes perfect logical sense, and I trusted this one about as far as I could throw a piano.

Enigma draws 1.2 Metres and the gauge said we had 2.3 Metres of water in the channel, giving us over a metre of water to spare,
"Its a falling tide" I said angrily at Anne as if my continuing to point the boat onward toward the harbour was somehow her fault
"I’m not happy about it." I spat "Not happy at all. Never mind your calculations, or what the tide gauge says, I’ve been at this sailing lark a long time and I DO NOT enter harbours on falling tides with only minutes to spare before our channel turns into a pile of damp sand"
However by this time we had already entered the channel, and since I was still driving, it was clear that all the bluster and rhetoric was because, although I wanted to play it sensible I, like my wife, really just wanted to get somewhere safe and all the information available to her said we would be perfectly safe going into Bembridge harbour.
Ahead of us a small Yacht was heading out of the channel toward us.
"Is there plenty of water? " Anne yelled across as we passed.
"Loads" said the helmsman assuring us "you’ll be fine" .
With this new and human source of information I apologised to Anne for not having more faith and not trusting her judgement. As we passed the Baywatch Café on the promenade the depth sounder consitently showed we were in 2.9 Metres of water. I knew the bar ahead was the shallow bit, but I felt a little more confident now and continued at full speed ahead.
As we apporached the narrow harbour entrance the falling tide was sluicing toward us and we inched toward the bar at less than two knots. Suddenly the tide slackened and we were through, but as we gathered speed the narrow channel of water between the red port hand bouy and the sand bank looked barely wide enough to get Enigma through.
Then everything happened at once.
The depth sounder started beeping its alarm, the depth plumeted from 2 Metres to 1.5 to 1.2 in the space of five seconds and I didn’t have aywhere to steer to, the sounder dropped to 1.1 Metres and I swore loudly as the boat hit the sand at full ahead, I wrenched the wheel toward the bouy and the bows swung into the deeper water, the engine never faltered as Enigma lurched into the bar at full speed, wriggled along with her keel in the sand and then slithered back into clear water over the other side. The sounder showed 1.3 then 1.6 then 2.5 then the alarm stopped beeping and we were back in 3 metres of water.
There was a stunned silence from Anne as I slowed the engine to slow ahead for the approach to the marina ahead of us
"Right then." I said very quietly and calmly "Lines and fenders please. We will go in starboard side to."
She had been right, we could get into Bembridge Harbour, but I was right, we should never have tried it.