In previous columns I've made mention of hanging out down at the old boat yard on Shem Creek where my pals and I take odious delight in watching unwary boaters try to cut across the mud flats where, more often than not, they end up running aground.

I've yet to hear a satisfying reason why that area has shoaled up so considerably the past few years but suffice it to say, it's gotten pretty bad out there. On a good low tide the flat now extends to within less than 100 yards of the northern tip of Crab Bank while just a few yards away in the marked channel there's good deep water.

Last week we had some pretty good tide swings and one afternoon it was dead low when I captured these photographs.

I was standing atop the wheelhouse of the burned shrimp boat Miss Karen tied up right at the mouth of the creek.

The first shot is looking westward towards the city with the front range marker at the creek entrance in the foreground. You can clearly see where the flat begins, extending out from the Patriots Point golf course. Even at high tide there's no more than a few feet of water there now.

The second shot is facing southward toward Crab Bank and you can clearly see the center console boat high and dry and one of it's passengers standing on the flat. As you'll notice, the fishing boat Teaser 2 with Captain Mark Brown at the helm has no problem coming into the creek as he has stayed in the marked channel.

The third shot gives you an even better perspective on just how far the flat extends and how close the deeper water is... IF you stay in the channel.

If you're coming into Shem Creek from across the harbor be sure to have Crab Bank to your starboard (right) side and stay about 20 yards away from it, heading directly for the red daymarker number 16. When you get to that marker keep it to your starboard side and come within a few yards of it before turning to port to enter the creek. At the mouth of the creek, on the port side, there are a pair of range markers.

To be sure you're in the channel you line up those markers, one directly behind the other and you should be in the centerline of the channel.