About 35 years ago one of my friends who lived in the same marina as I did, brought his yacht to the Clearwater Festival at Croton Point [before it became known as the Great Hudson River Revival] as our joint residence. We had a wonderful time but, at the end of the weekend the batteries were flat and the contacts on the charging circuit were corroded. We were also fogged in and one of the people had to be at work the next day. The last train South had already gone. Fortunately, we were in the region of the river known as the Palisades, so what we did was navigate by bouncing the blast of an air horn off the Palisades. That got us down to New York Harbor, where the fog thinned enough for us to see the lights on the navigational markers. We were fine until we got through the Verrazano Narrows and into what is known as Raritan Bay, where the fog was waiting for us. I made up a sounding line and, using that and a compass, we were able to get ourselves approximately opposite the inlet where our marina was. We decided it was safer to anchor out, outside the shipping channel for the night.
When we roused the next morning we were directly opposite our inlet.
Navigating by sound is a perfectly valid approach when used with care and when you don't have to deal with cows.