Haha .... yeah, I don't feel so bad now, after the Cruise Ship grounded on a sand bar .... since I did the same thing back in the early 1970's fishing the ABF State Classic. I was following some friends to a creek on Barkley, and they had much bigger motors than my boat had, so when they swung a long swooping right to go into the creek I thought I could gain some ground by running a straight angle towards the creek mouth. There was a channel buoy on the far side, but none on the side I was coming in. The boat started bogging down & slowing down, and when I looked behind me all I saw was a 100ft trail of muddy water. Come to find out I was smack dab in the middle of a big sand bar .... pulled the motor up (no TnT) and the white aluminum prop was now 50/50 white & shiny silver. Pushed the boat with the skulling paddle until I got the boat floating, then dropped the trolling motor just far enough to get to deeper water. Stowed the trolling motor, dropped the big motor, fired it up and went on about the day's fishing practice.