the cavalry ........................ from P

We carefully picked our way along the channel markers into Marathon Key harbor knowing the water was thin here. I watched my sounder move from 8 feet to 6 feet to 5.5 feet. It is freaky when you can clearly see the bottom, and it looks impossibly close. But we had a slip reservation in a fun marina at the very end of the harbor, walking distance from town. Plus there were hundreds of other boats, most bigger than us, in here. So we ghosted ahead. We split the red and green numbers 18 & 19. I looked ahead and found 20 & 21, but along the way there was a row of four floating red diamonds (shoal markers). To the right of the shoal markers was a mangrove marsh about 60 or 70 feet away from the markers. To the left was a huge mooring ball field with boats tethered to them, again with about 60 or 70 feet in between. 50-50 chance. I chose to take the side where I saw boats floating on their mooring balls. Wrong call. We (once again) experienced that sick instant where you feel the boat's keel plowing into a mud bank. I reversed the engine, gunned it, made a lot of noise, stirred up a lot of white mud, and did not budge. I double checked the tide chart - yes we would gain another 6 inches of water over the next two hours - so I just need to relax and wait. Lo and behold! A small squadron of three inflatable dinghies came zooming toward us from somewhere in the fleet of moored sailboats. The first dinghy to reach us wasted no time with formalities, he just asked a few pertinent questions; "What type of keel do you have? How much do you draw? How deep is your rudder?" Soon, the lead dinghy had my main halyard tied to his stern and was pulling Senara over from the top of her mast, toward the port side, to create an angle in order to lessen the depth needed to clear the keel. The other two dinghies had snugged up to our starboard side near the bow and were pushing like two little tugboats. On the third attempt we were off the mud bar and back over to the correct side of the shoal markers. I never learned their names. As I was hollering "thank you" a hundred times, one of the guys said I was the second boat today, and the fourth boat in a week to get stuck there. They said to just consider myself a member of the club. This was yet another experience of other sailors' willingness to help someone in a jam. My debt grows larger. Just a few guys with dinghies, hanging out on their sailboats, drinking beer, and willing to help. To me they were the cavalry who came to save the day.