Meaning of "stranded after many wrong turns and shallow bends"?

Hello everyone. I am reading a novel, and I came across this expression. Could you please let me know its meaning?

It had seen us come and go and, for a minute now, seemed to light up its deck to hail us from far away across the Hudson, as if to say, You mortals, you lucky, holy pair who remembered me tonight when you could so easily have looked the other way and made light of my years, take a good look at this damp, ferruginous, scrap-metal tub stuck out in the middle of my hoary winters, don’t think I don’t know what it means to be young, to hope, to fear, to crave, as you come and go, and may come and go again on this drive, I who have seen riversides aplenty and gone up and down the world like so many phantom ships before me, oh, never become ghost ships, marking your years with layers of rust till the water seeps through and you’re nothing but a slough and a hollow hull stranded after many wrong turns and shallow bends, till the rudder is no longer quite yours, and the rust is no longer quite yours, and you won’t remember you were a ship once—yours is the real journey, not mine.

- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, Third Night

This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. This novel is narrated by the nameless male protagonist who meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Two days after the party, Clara came to the protagonist's house in the morning and drove him to her best friend's house. During the drive, they spotted a ship named Prince Oscar. And the protagonist is imagining some words that the ship itself might speak.

In this part, I wonder what the underlined expression means, especially what "shallow bends" might mean.

I am guessing that this empty snake skin (=slough) and empty ship's body (=hollow hull) is fixed in place (=stranded) because it made many wrong decisions with respect to turning left and right (=many wrong turns). I hope my guess is okay.

But I just cannot grasp what "shallow bends" might mean, so I just wanted to ask you.

Thank you very much for your help.