Monday, October 29, 2007
October 26, 2007
Big disappointment today. We’re not with Bill and Bev R., friends who were to fly in yesterday from San Diego and join us yesterday for a week of sailing the end of the Chesapeake and into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Bill has a pinched nerve in his neck, coupled with the threat of California brush fires roaring in canyons nearby. They received a reverse 911 call “suggesting” they evacuate. When we spoke on Tuesday they were trying to decide what to take with them – albums, policies, wills, some thought of a few prized rugs. Bill said that being outside was like standing in front of a campfire and their patio was covered with ash, and he described the mandatory evacuation line as only a good golf shot away from there house.
Last night all was well. They had evacuated for only a day, their house was spared, and they were struck by the extraordinary acts of kindness and mobilization of resources in response to people’s needs. Their church, a mile down the hill towards the ocean, had packed up sacred things and other essential goods, but it too was spared. Bill’s likely even more motivated as head of this year’s stewardship drive.
With the exception of the company of Lynn and Ken, Deltaville wasn’t much. The marina had retro loaner bicycles with fat tires, coaster breaks, and big baskets. We tooled into town with the cycling postures of Miss Gulch (who morphed into the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz). Deltaville is a long strip of boat-related businesses, gas stations, and a restaurant or two, and then it started to rain, so back to the boat and the decision to head out the next day. The forecast predicted showers and winds 15 to 20, but out of the north to northeast, with some rain and visibility of one to three miles. We would be on a broad reach, wind behind us on our stern quarter instead of beating to windward and it would put us further south in Yorktown. Besides, these conditions on the Bay when air and water are both above 70 degrees do not bring on hyperthermia as they do in Maine.
Winds turned out to be consistently 22 to 27 with gusts up to 30 and sloppy seas up to five feet. We sailed with a reefed jib only, averaged well over six knots, and discovered Journey downwind in these conditions is no fuss, no hassle as much as she is a good boat for beating to windward in heavy weather. Journey’s is as intent about her work as her helmswoman, only occasionally do they allow waves to push her beam on the wind, and both suffer the slurp of seawater, dousing the cockpit and the mate from head to tow. Gee I wish I was better at the helm so that I could help.
Arrived in Yorktown only to be turned away by the marina where we had reserved a space because their basin on the south shore of the river was rolling with swell aggravated by tidal currents. They radioed that it would be worse at night and suggested a marina on Sarah Creek, across the river and in the lee of the storm. Next day the marina folks offered to drive us to the visitor’s center for Yorktown which is a hub of trolleys and shuttle busses that made it easy to tour Yorktown and Jamestown on Friday and Saturday.
October 29, 2007
Invasive species
Dave B. had told us of conservationists’ concern about phragmites australis, a perennial, coarse wetland reed that has grown in New England for millennia, but now is forcing out indigenous plants in the tidewaters of Virginia and Maryland. It’s uncertain why. Clearly it’s a tenacious plant, sending out both seeds and tendrils. Some scientists think that there may be a new genotype, others wonder about human development activities. State conservationists plan to wipe it out by using herbicides that would allow native plants to return.
Turns out that the stories of both Jamestown and Yorktown are fundamentally about the most invasive life form on the planet. Extensive and impressive displays, recent archeology, and actors in living history museums tell in remarkable candor of the stealth settlement of Englishmen in Jamestown in 1607, where settlers were instructed to look as if they were not staying, but to stay and claim, how they manipulated and overwhelmed native Americans, how Africans were rapidly reclassified and legislated from being indentured servants to slaves as the essential machines that drove the cash crop of tobacco. The initial invaders had a high mortality rate, but the tendrils of ships kept supplying new ones until the indigenous people were overwhelmed.
One hundred and seventy four years later, only about 20 miles away, the offspring of these settlers and many others like them, now American colonists, defeated Cornwallis, ending the revolutionary war. It too is a story of invasion, this time by organized armies. The British army invading to maintain its hold, the continental army and its French allies invading the peninsula between the York and James rivers to expel them.
The acreage along the Chesapeake Bay consumed by the formalized manpower and machines of invasion dwarfs the wetlands occupied by phragmites. Journey has passed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Naval Academy, Patuxent River naval air station, Langley Air Force Base, and now Norfolk – Portsmouth, VA, where the whopper invasion machines of them all dwarfed her on her passage last evening as we ran up Norfolk reach to our berth at Waterside Marina at downtown Norfolk.
We seem to understand as little about why phragmites has become an invasive species as why we are. We just keep doing it, applying vast resources and technology to be the best at it in the world with so little understanding of the ecosystems – social, cultural, religious – that we invade.
We rest on this beautiful crisp cool morning at mile “0” of the Intracoastal Waterway in Norfolk, having made another “near gale” passage yesterday from York River to Norfolk, and now welcome the adventure of the twisty rivers, canals, inland seas, live oaks and sphagnum moss that lies before Journey carrying her southern invaders.
Big disappointment today. We’re not with Bill and Bev R., friends who were to fly in yesterday from San Diego and join us yesterday for a week of sailing the end of the Chesapeake and into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Bill has a pinched nerve in his neck, coupled with the threat of California brush fires roaring in canyons nearby. They received a reverse 911 call “suggesting” they evacuate. When we spoke on Tuesday they were trying to decide what to take with them – albums, policies, wills, some thought of a few prized rugs. Bill said that being outside was like standing in front of a campfire and their patio was covered with ash, and he described the mandatory evacuation line as only a good golf shot away from there house.
Last night all was well. They had evacuated for only a day, their house was spared, and they were struck by the extraordinary acts of kindness and mobilization of resources in response to people’s needs. Their church, a mile down the hill towards the ocean, had packed up sacred things and other essential goods, but it too was spared. Bill’s likely even more motivated as head of this year’s stewardship drive.
With the exception of the company of Lynn and Ken, Deltaville wasn’t much. The marina had retro loaner bicycles with fat tires, coaster breaks, and big baskets. We tooled into town with the cycling postures of Miss Gulch (who morphed into the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz). Deltaville is a long strip of boat-related businesses, gas stations, and a restaurant or two, and then it started to rain, so back to the boat and the decision to head out the next day. The forecast predicted showers and winds 15 to 20, but out of the north to northeast, with some rain and visibility of one to three miles. We would be on a broad reach, wind behind us on our stern quarter instead of beating to windward and it would put us further south in Yorktown. Besides, these conditions on the Bay when air and water are both above 70 degrees do not bring on hyperthermia as they do in Maine.
Winds turned out to be consistently 22 to 27 with gusts up to 30 and sloppy seas up to five feet. We sailed with a reefed jib only, averaged well over six knots, and discovered Journey downwind in these conditions is no fuss, no hassle as much as she is a good boat for beating to windward in heavy weather. Journey’s is as intent about her work as her helmswoman, only occasionally do they allow waves to push her beam on the wind, and both suffer the slurp of seawater, dousing the cockpit and the mate from head to tow. Gee I wish I was better at the helm so that I could help.
Arrived in Yorktown only to be turned away by the marina where we had reserved a space because their basin on the south shore of the river was rolling with swell aggravated by tidal currents. They radioed that it would be worse at night and suggested a marina on Sarah Creek, across the river and in the lee of the storm. Next day the marina folks offered to drive us to the visitor’s center for Yorktown which is a hub of trolleys and shuttle busses that made it easy to tour Yorktown and Jamestown on Friday and Saturday.
October 29, 2007
Invasive species
Dave B. had told us of conservationists’ concern about phragmites australis, a perennial, coarse wetland reed that has grown in New England for millennia, but now is forcing out indigenous plants in the tidewaters of Virginia and Maryland. It’s uncertain why. Clearly it’s a tenacious plant, sending out both seeds and tendrils. Some scientists think that there may be a new genotype, others wonder about human development activities. State conservationists plan to wipe it out by using herbicides that would allow native plants to return.
Turns out that the stories of both Jamestown and Yorktown are fundamentally about the most invasive life form on the planet. Extensive and impressive displays, recent archeology, and actors in living history museums tell in remarkable candor of the stealth settlement of Englishmen in Jamestown in 1607, where settlers were instructed to look as if they were not staying, but to stay and claim, how they manipulated and overwhelmed native Americans, how Africans were rapidly reclassified and legislated from being indentured servants to slaves as the essential machines that drove the cash crop of tobacco. The initial invaders had a high mortality rate, but the tendrils of ships kept supplying new ones until the indigenous people were overwhelmed.
One hundred and seventy four years later, only about 20 miles away, the offspring of these settlers and many others like them, now American colonists, defeated Cornwallis, ending the revolutionary war. It too is a story of invasion, this time by organized armies. The British army invading to maintain its hold, the continental army and its French allies invading the peninsula between the York and James rivers to expel them.
The acreage along the Chesapeake Bay consumed by the formalized manpower and machines of invasion dwarfs the wetlands occupied by phragmites. Journey has passed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Naval Academy, Patuxent River naval air station, Langley Air Force Base, and now Norfolk – Portsmouth, VA, where the whopper invasion machines of them all dwarfed her on her passage last evening as we ran up Norfolk reach to our berth at Waterside Marina at downtown Norfolk.
We seem to understand as little about why phragmites has become an invasive species as why we are. We just keep doing it, applying vast resources and technology to be the best at it in the world with so little understanding of the ecosystems – social, cultural, religious – that we invade.
We rest on this beautiful crisp cool morning at mile “0” of the Intracoastal Waterway in Norfolk, having made another “near gale” passage yesterday from York River to Norfolk, and now welcome the adventure of the twisty rivers, canals, inland seas, live oaks and sphagnum moss that lies before Journey carrying her southern invaders.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
October 23, 2007
When we left the dock at Deep Creek yesterday at high tide, the fathometer showed 0.0 feet under the keel. We mushed off, no running hard aground, successfully slalomed the channel, waved goodbye to Dave and Jeanette B. and to an incredible four days of visits with them, Carol and Bill S., and Dick and Nancy L., all who became neighbors and friends 35 years ago when we rented a house in suburban Baltimore and landed amongst some of the nicest people on the planet. Dave and Jeanette now spend their summers at a rambling, comfortable shore house, parts of which date to the 1800’s on a working waterman’s creek. Yes, children, we reminisced about all of you and all of theirs…you cute little nippers.
A non-working water front
Buildings built on pilings in deep creek to house crabs while they shed or molt into soft shell crabs are empty and some are falling down. In Maine, we will see almost at any time during season, a dozen lobster boats working within our view at Teel Cove. We’ve only seen about that many crab boats over the past two weeks, some rigged for clamming or harvesting oysters. Dave said the crabs are just gone and so far the experts are silent as to why. Crab picking plants are closed down, not just temporarily, but permanently. The economy, as in much of Maine, is driven by people who are called locally “come heres,” many of whom are retired.
Crab boats are beautiful things. Their roofs give them the look of a Thames launch, but their prows, while not as robust as lobster boats, are proud and serious. They have two helm stations, one in the cockpit and another aft on the starboard side, so the waterman can operate the boat while pulling his crab pots. The boat pictured is a crab boat rigged with tongs for either oysters or crabs.
We have been beating to windward the last two days. From Deep Creek we worked across and down the bay hoping to make Deltaville on the Western Shore, but went into Indian Creek off of Fleets Bay. The cruising guides reported a marina or the option of anchoring well up the creek. We choose the later. It was like parking a tent camper in a prosperous suburban cul-de-sac with ranch style homes and well tended lawns. Instead of curbs, our watery street was bordered by neatly laid stone rip wrap or wooden timbers and each lot seemed to have a dock with various combinations of sail boats and power boats, the equivalent of a two car garage. It was still, peaceful and a good nights rest. I almost expected the paper to be delivered. A surprise was that next to the marina was a grain elevator with two barges tied to its docks, a vestige of working water front. Indian Creek was once the site of a steamship landing.
On Tuesday we again beat down the Bay to Deltaville, 9.5NM as the crow flies, 19NM by the shortest water route. We sailed 25NM to get there and, ironically, that’s real progress. We were greeted as planned by new friends and long-time cruisers Ken and Lynn W. who you may recall we first met in Shelburne, NS.
When we left the dock at Deep Creek yesterday at high tide, the fathometer showed 0.0 feet under the keel. We mushed off, no running hard aground, successfully slalomed the channel, waved goodbye to Dave and Jeanette B. and to an incredible four days of visits with them, Carol and Bill S., and Dick and Nancy L., all who became neighbors and friends 35 years ago when we rented a house in suburban Baltimore and landed amongst some of the nicest people on the planet. Dave and Jeanette now spend their summers at a rambling, comfortable shore house, parts of which date to the 1800’s on a working waterman’s creek. Yes, children, we reminisced about all of you and all of theirs…you cute little nippers.
A non-working water front
Buildings built on pilings in deep creek to house crabs while they shed or molt into soft shell crabs are empty and some are falling down. In Maine, we will see almost at any time during season, a dozen lobster boats working within our view at Teel Cove. We’ve only seen about that many crab boats over the past two weeks, some rigged for clamming or harvesting oysters. Dave said the crabs are just gone and so far the experts are silent as to why. Crab picking plants are closed down, not just temporarily, but permanently. The economy, as in much of Maine, is driven by people who are called locally “come heres,” many of whom are retired.
Crab boats are beautiful things. Their roofs give them the look of a Thames launch, but their prows, while not as robust as lobster boats, are proud and serious. They have two helm stations, one in the cockpit and another aft on the starboard side, so the waterman can operate the boat while pulling his crab pots. The boat pictured is a crab boat rigged with tongs for either oysters or crabs.
We have been beating to windward the last two days. From Deep Creek we worked across and down the bay hoping to make Deltaville on the Western Shore, but went into Indian Creek off of Fleets Bay. The cruising guides reported a marina or the option of anchoring well up the creek. We choose the later. It was like parking a tent camper in a prosperous suburban cul-de-sac with ranch style homes and well tended lawns. Instead of curbs, our watery street was bordered by neatly laid stone rip wrap or wooden timbers and each lot seemed to have a dock with various combinations of sail boats and power boats, the equivalent of a two car garage. It was still, peaceful and a good nights rest. I almost expected the paper to be delivered. A surprise was that next to the marina was a grain elevator with two barges tied to its docks, a vestige of working water front. Indian Creek was once the site of a steamship landing.
On Tuesday we again beat down the Bay to Deltaville, 9.5NM as the crow flies, 19NM by the shortest water route. We sailed 25NM to get there and, ironically, that’s real progress. We were greeted as planned by new friends and long-time cruisers Ken and Lynn W. who you may recall we first met in Shelburne, NS.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Annapolis and beyond
We took a town mooring in Annapolis, just north of the bascule bridge on Spa Creek. Annapolis is Maryland’s state capital, home of the United States Naval Academy, a well preserved historic district and a place that’s crazy about boats. The Harbor Master efficiently guides you to a city mooring, and one of the city’s boats is soon by to collect a modest fee. The city also has a roving pump out boat to empty holding tanks, so you don’t have to leave your mooring. It’s not that marinas aren’t available. There are at least 25 on Spa Creek and Back Creek containing thousands of boats and most of them are sail boats.
“Creeks” in Chesapeake Bay parlance are not streams with noticeable current, rather more like inlets off of “rivers,” which are inlets off of “sounds” which are bodies of water off of the Bay proper. All are characterized by shallow water. We’re becoming quite accustomed to tooling along at 6 knots with 7 or 8 feet of water under our keel, and not blanching at the prospect of crossing a bar showing 8 feet of depth. It’s a far cry from Maine where white knuckles appear if the fathometer drops below 15. Little wonder, it’s rock not mud!
We missed the in-water sail boat show by a week. The power boat show was on, so the harbor was packed with people. We chose not to go, took a trolley tour to get an overview and did a good deal of walking. Several homes were pointed out to us that have been in the same families since the 1700’s.
We made contact with two great people. Turns out that on the mooring next to ours was a Canadian boat that is captained by a former commodore of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax. We joined the Squadron when we visited Halifax in August and left Journey on a Squadron mooring for almost two weeks while we headed north in Jay and Janet’s boat. Bill R. and his wife Leona (she was away for a few days) are heading south and we had two great visits with Bill and look forward to reconnecting.
We also saw Ian, the son of one of our neighbors in Maine, is an Annapolis resident, sailor and owner of a motor boat. Ian gave us a first-rate tour of the Creeks and marinas in his runabout. It’s always great fun to see people in their places, where they work, play and love to be.
On Sunday we left Annapolis for Oxford Maryland, across the Bay below the Chesapeake Bridge to the Eastern Shore, a peninsula that includes Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We covered thirty miles in light air with the reaching spinnaker up and pulling beautifully almost to Oxford. We arrived late and left early as we have a mission to get another 60 miles down the Bay by Thursday for our rendezvous with old friends from Baltimore.
Monday we motored thirty miles further down the bay to Solomon Island, another dense boating complex, but enough room to anchor. Enough of docking fees for awhile.
Bucking the pace and the wind
There is a tension in sailing that has nothing to do with wind, waves, shoals and the soundness of the boat. It is a tension that derives from the fact if one truly sails a sail boat to get somewhere, it is a project alien from a lifetime of getting from A to B as fast and efficiently as possible. We are like Mennonites, shunning modernity in an archaic mode of transportation. The challenge is to quit doing that simple calculation that precedes every road trip, dividing the distance by speed to yield the time it will take to get there. It is to wean ourselves from straight line thinking, from that life long habit of trying to better the average mile per hour of the last time you made the trip. We’re gradually learning not to travel A to B, but to plan to go from A to options B, C, or D, whichever the wind allows and to not worry about how fast we will get there. I don’t feel that I do justice to what a shift in thinking this is for all of us and its implications for a more contemplative life.
Solomon Island to Crisfield
The wind wasn’t right on the nose so we made better progress on our course on one tack than the other, but we tacked all day in five to ten knots in warm air, understanding more deeply why this Bay is a sailing Mecca. We anchored off the Marina in Crisfield, MD, the “Crab Capital” of the world. Thirty-five years ago we visited this isolated eastern shore community and saw skipjacks, the last sail boats to be used for commercial fishing, on weighs and docks at a salty, working waterfront. Crab and oyster fishing have so dramatically declined, that there are few working fishing boats of any kind, and now the town has succumbed to multi-story condominiums on the water front, that look more like a 70’s model cities revitalization effort; new construction abutting abandoned store fronts and eateries with a smattering of antique stores. A sun bleached architects rendering occupies the window of one such store front envisions markets, pedestrian malls and marinas.
We were told by the marina operator that Crisfield sees few transients as the western shore offers anchorages and marinas much closer off the southern route down the bay. For us, it was a perfect stop before another 27 trip south to Deep Creek, VA, to visit old friends from Baltimore days.
Getting to the Bottom of Deep Creek
Yesterday, October 18, the wind was straight out of the south, directly on our nose as we headed down Tangier Sound to Pocomoke Sound to Deep Creek. We needed to be at the Creek at high tide. When we turned east into Pocomoke Sound the wind freshened and we were dong 7 knots, reefed and still moved us faster than we wanted so we entered the creek about an hour and a half before high. It is a buoyed, zigzagging ,dredged channel that the chart claims is 75 feet wide with four feet depth at low tide that was negotiated splendidly to the point immediately in front of our friends house on the creek at green marker number 17. In front of us were pilings, the channel was to say the least ambiguous. It is now clear that we should have gone to starboard instead of port. Squish! We have now experienced our first grounding, an almost pleasant mush of an experience compared to the jarring kiss of hitting ledges in Maine.
Our seamanship was witnessed by our friends, Dave and Jeanette, who were of course watching for us. Dave reported that he was on the phone with one of their sons and told him that “I’d better get off as I’m about to get another call.” We couldn’t reach Karl Wendly at Deep Creek Marina and Boatyard, and Dave went to track him down and soon enough both arrived in Karl’s power boat. Efforts to Kedge journey off with her anchor were not succeeding, and to our great pleasure with great ease Karl pulled Journey free and to his dock, with no harm done only embarrassment. It had been raining off and on, and Jeanette reported that as she watched us stuck in the mud, a rainbow arched over Journey. A good omen.
We took a town mooring in Annapolis, just north of the bascule bridge on Spa Creek. Annapolis is Maryland’s state capital, home of the United States Naval Academy, a well preserved historic district and a place that’s crazy about boats. The Harbor Master efficiently guides you to a city mooring, and one of the city’s boats is soon by to collect a modest fee. The city also has a roving pump out boat to empty holding tanks, so you don’t have to leave your mooring. It’s not that marinas aren’t available. There are at least 25 on Spa Creek and Back Creek containing thousands of boats and most of them are sail boats.
“Creeks” in Chesapeake Bay parlance are not streams with noticeable current, rather more like inlets off of “rivers,” which are inlets off of “sounds” which are bodies of water off of the Bay proper. All are characterized by shallow water. We’re becoming quite accustomed to tooling along at 6 knots with 7 or 8 feet of water under our keel, and not blanching at the prospect of crossing a bar showing 8 feet of depth. It’s a far cry from Maine where white knuckles appear if the fathometer drops below 15. Little wonder, it’s rock not mud!
We missed the in-water sail boat show by a week. The power boat show was on, so the harbor was packed with people. We chose not to go, took a trolley tour to get an overview and did a good deal of walking. Several homes were pointed out to us that have been in the same families since the 1700’s.
We made contact with two great people. Turns out that on the mooring next to ours was a Canadian boat that is captained by a former commodore of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron in Halifax. We joined the Squadron when we visited Halifax in August and left Journey on a Squadron mooring for almost two weeks while we headed north in Jay and Janet’s boat. Bill R. and his wife Leona (she was away for a few days) are heading south and we had two great visits with Bill and look forward to reconnecting.
We also saw Ian, the son of one of our neighbors in Maine, is an Annapolis resident, sailor and owner of a motor boat. Ian gave us a first-rate tour of the Creeks and marinas in his runabout. It’s always great fun to see people in their places, where they work, play and love to be.
On Sunday we left Annapolis for Oxford Maryland, across the Bay below the Chesapeake Bridge to the Eastern Shore, a peninsula that includes Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We covered thirty miles in light air with the reaching spinnaker up and pulling beautifully almost to Oxford. We arrived late and left early as we have a mission to get another 60 miles down the Bay by Thursday for our rendezvous with old friends from Baltimore.
Monday we motored thirty miles further down the bay to Solomon Island, another dense boating complex, but enough room to anchor. Enough of docking fees for awhile.
Bucking the pace and the wind
There is a tension in sailing that has nothing to do with wind, waves, shoals and the soundness of the boat. It is a tension that derives from the fact if one truly sails a sail boat to get somewhere, it is a project alien from a lifetime of getting from A to B as fast and efficiently as possible. We are like Mennonites, shunning modernity in an archaic mode of transportation. The challenge is to quit doing that simple calculation that precedes every road trip, dividing the distance by speed to yield the time it will take to get there. It is to wean ourselves from straight line thinking, from that life long habit of trying to better the average mile per hour of the last time you made the trip. We’re gradually learning not to travel A to B, but to plan to go from A to options B, C, or D, whichever the wind allows and to not worry about how fast we will get there. I don’t feel that I do justice to what a shift in thinking this is for all of us and its implications for a more contemplative life.
Solomon Island to Crisfield
The wind wasn’t right on the nose so we made better progress on our course on one tack than the other, but we tacked all day in five to ten knots in warm air, understanding more deeply why this Bay is a sailing Mecca. We anchored off the Marina in Crisfield, MD, the “Crab Capital” of the world. Thirty-five years ago we visited this isolated eastern shore community and saw skipjacks, the last sail boats to be used for commercial fishing, on weighs and docks at a salty, working waterfront. Crab and oyster fishing have so dramatically declined, that there are few working fishing boats of any kind, and now the town has succumbed to multi-story condominiums on the water front, that look more like a 70’s model cities revitalization effort; new construction abutting abandoned store fronts and eateries with a smattering of antique stores. A sun bleached architects rendering occupies the window of one such store front envisions markets, pedestrian malls and marinas.
We were told by the marina operator that Crisfield sees few transients as the western shore offers anchorages and marinas much closer off the southern route down the bay. For us, it was a perfect stop before another 27 trip south to Deep Creek, VA, to visit old friends from Baltimore days.
Getting to the Bottom of Deep Creek
Yesterday, October 18, the wind was straight out of the south, directly on our nose as we headed down Tangier Sound to Pocomoke Sound to Deep Creek. We needed to be at the Creek at high tide. When we turned east into Pocomoke Sound the wind freshened and we were dong 7 knots, reefed and still moved us faster than we wanted so we entered the creek about an hour and a half before high. It is a buoyed, zigzagging ,dredged channel that the chart claims is 75 feet wide with four feet depth at low tide that was negotiated splendidly to the point immediately in front of our friends house on the creek at green marker number 17. In front of us were pilings, the channel was to say the least ambiguous. It is now clear that we should have gone to starboard instead of port. Squish! We have now experienced our first grounding, an almost pleasant mush of an experience compared to the jarring kiss of hitting ledges in Maine.
Our seamanship was witnessed by our friends, Dave and Jeanette, who were of course watching for us. Dave reported that he was on the phone with one of their sons and told him that “I’d better get off as I’m about to get another call.” We couldn’t reach Karl Wendly at Deep Creek Marina and Boatyard, and Dave went to track him down and soon enough both arrived in Karl’s power boat. Efforts to Kedge journey off with her anchor were not succeeding, and to our great pleasure with great ease Karl pulled Journey free and to his dock, with no harm done only embarrassment. It had been raining off and on, and Jeanette reported that as she watched us stuck in the mud, a rainbow arched over Journey. A good omen.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
October 12, 2007
We arrived in Annapolis, MD yesterday after a rollicking 25 NM sail from Fairlee Creek with the wind out of the northwest on our beam with gusts up to 27 and at speeds over 7 knots. The same wind speeds in Nova Scotia produced, well spaced 9 to 10 foot waves that lifted Journey and set her down like burly movers with a chest of drawers. Chesapeake waves are like Chinese soldiers; what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. Even with lots of fetch they only build to two to three feet, but slap your beam and spew into the cockpit, bumpy, lumpy, fast, foul-weather sailing. Compared to motoring it was heaven topped off by our arriving by chance as the 17th annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race was mustering for its start at 1:00 just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading to Portsmouth, VA.
Journey lies on an Annapolis town mooring up Spa Creek, past a bascule bridge that opens only on the half hour.
Marinas
On our way from the Bohemia river to Annapolis we tacked 8 miles further down the Bay and turned east into the Sassafras River for 8 miles to reach Georgetown and Fredericktown, notable for being burned by the British during the War of 1812, and for nothing being developed in the last 195 years except marinas, hundreds of slips, including massive covered slips filled with big square-stern power boats.
Passing down the bay, nearly every creek that a boat can creep into has a forest of masts. There are thousands and thousands of boats in slips, hanging on lifts and on moorings. Anthony Bailey wrote rather snobbishly in The Inside Passage cited earlier: “Waterway veterans know well, a marina is an excellent place for local owners to park a boat...but in general they aren’t any more interesting than motels or trailer camps – in fact, they tend to attract a similar clientele, which seems to go on the water to watch TV, take showers, do laundry in coin-operated machines, and plug innumerable gadgets and appliances into 110 volt ‘shore current.’” We certainly want to appear to be “veterans” at this, but in Georgetown we did laundry and took showers. The only reason we didn’t plug is we opted for a mooring that would be cooler, but we certainly did in Cape May to keep electronics charged that Bailey couldn’t conceive of when he wrote his book in 1963: two cell phones, three rechargeable cameras, laptop, chart plotter, VHF radio, stereo, five pumps, cabin lights, navigation lights, refrigeration and an electric tooth brush. We saw a boat that had a massive array of solar panels and two wind generators that looked like a portable power plant. Is this stuff essential? By no means all of it. Is it useful and fun? Yes, so far, but we'll watch it doesn't become all c0nsuming. Footnote: Cape May Marina has a trailer park attached!
The great thing is the thousands of boats are in their slips or on their racks this time of year, but the marinas are open and not only offer household services, but a full range of mechanical services. We spent a little more time and money ourselves in Georgetown with a special needs engine counselor helping fix the oil pressure sensor and now are confident that our little darling will do well from now on. Marlene noted, helpfully, that at least these mechanic bills are less than paying tuition to a trade school, but not much.
Proving Ground
We left Georgetown Wednesday, it was a satin water day, did a few tacks when ripples appeared, but motored most of the short distance to Fairlee creek. One of the tacks took us towards a restricted zone on the chart, marked by a buoy and a line and when we approached the buoy, a patrol boat with flashing blue lights lurked and undoubtedly watched us as we tacked away. It was the boarder of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a 72,000 acre site that took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations to buy out farmers in 1917 for $200 an acre to replace a similar proving ground on Sandy Hook, NJ that was proving to be too close to New York City. Aberdeen is bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay and aptly named Gunpowder River. Then boom! It was loud and we could feel it and a great cloud of white smoke arose in the distance, frightening but a piddling scare for us compared to those who live where this stuff is put to use blowing people and things up. This is a proving ground all right. It offers proof that we all remain eternally flawed.
We anchored in Fairlee Creek (located about 28 miles down from the end of the Chesapeake end of the C&D canal) for a night of weather change from torpid tropics, to crisp autumn and hard blows that propelled the sail yesterday, and have given us Fall days to see the sites in this 350 year old city.
We arrived in Annapolis, MD yesterday after a rollicking 25 NM sail from Fairlee Creek with the wind out of the northwest on our beam with gusts up to 27 and at speeds over 7 knots. The same wind speeds in Nova Scotia produced, well spaced 9 to 10 foot waves that lifted Journey and set her down like burly movers with a chest of drawers. Chesapeake waves are like Chinese soldiers; what they lack in stature they make up for in numbers. Even with lots of fetch they only build to two to three feet, but slap your beam and spew into the cockpit, bumpy, lumpy, fast, foul-weather sailing. Compared to motoring it was heaven topped off by our arriving by chance as the 17th annual Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race was mustering for its start at 1:00 just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge heading to Portsmouth, VA.
Journey lies on an Annapolis town mooring up Spa Creek, past a bascule bridge that opens only on the half hour.
Marinas
On our way from the Bohemia river to Annapolis we tacked 8 miles further down the Bay and turned east into the Sassafras River for 8 miles to reach Georgetown and Fredericktown, notable for being burned by the British during the War of 1812, and for nothing being developed in the last 195 years except marinas, hundreds of slips, including massive covered slips filled with big square-stern power boats.
Passing down the bay, nearly every creek that a boat can creep into has a forest of masts. There are thousands and thousands of boats in slips, hanging on lifts and on moorings. Anthony Bailey wrote rather snobbishly in The Inside Passage cited earlier: “Waterway veterans know well, a marina is an excellent place for local owners to park a boat...but in general they aren’t any more interesting than motels or trailer camps – in fact, they tend to attract a similar clientele, which seems to go on the water to watch TV, take showers, do laundry in coin-operated machines, and plug innumerable gadgets and appliances into 110 volt ‘shore current.’” We certainly want to appear to be “veterans” at this, but in Georgetown we did laundry and took showers. The only reason we didn’t plug is we opted for a mooring that would be cooler, but we certainly did in Cape May to keep electronics charged that Bailey couldn’t conceive of when he wrote his book in 1963: two cell phones, three rechargeable cameras, laptop, chart plotter, VHF radio, stereo, five pumps, cabin lights, navigation lights, refrigeration and an electric tooth brush. We saw a boat that had a massive array of solar panels and two wind generators that looked like a portable power plant. Is this stuff essential? By no means all of it. Is it useful and fun? Yes, so far, but we'll watch it doesn't become all c0nsuming. Footnote: Cape May Marina has a trailer park attached!
The great thing is the thousands of boats are in their slips or on their racks this time of year, but the marinas are open and not only offer household services, but a full range of mechanical services. We spent a little more time and money ourselves in Georgetown with a special needs engine counselor helping fix the oil pressure sensor and now are confident that our little darling will do well from now on. Marlene noted, helpfully, that at least these mechanic bills are less than paying tuition to a trade school, but not much.
Proving Ground
We left Georgetown Wednesday, it was a satin water day, did a few tacks when ripples appeared, but motored most of the short distance to Fairlee creek. One of the tacks took us towards a restricted zone on the chart, marked by a buoy and a line and when we approached the buoy, a patrol boat with flashing blue lights lurked and undoubtedly watched us as we tacked away. It was the boarder of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a 72,000 acre site that took an act of Congress and two presidential proclamations to buy out farmers in 1917 for $200 an acre to replace a similar proving ground on Sandy Hook, NJ that was proving to be too close to New York City. Aberdeen is bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay and aptly named Gunpowder River. Then boom! It was loud and we could feel it and a great cloud of white smoke arose in the distance, frightening but a piddling scare for us compared to those who live where this stuff is put to use blowing people and things up. This is a proving ground all right. It offers proof that we all remain eternally flawed.
We anchored in Fairlee Creek (located about 28 miles down from the end of the Chesapeake end of the C&D canal) for a night of weather change from torpid tropics, to crisp autumn and hard blows that propelled the sail yesterday, and have given us Fall days to see the sites in this 350 year old city.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Sometimes things just go right! We made a last minute decision yesterday, Sunday, to leave Cape May at noon to ride the currents north up Delaware Bay even thought it risked yet another night landing in a strange anchorage. Our mast is too tall to take the short cut through the Cape May Canal so we motored the long way around the Cape well off the shoals, headed north with light winds too close on the nose to sail, but enough to have the main out. Then it all started to come together. The wind shifted east as predicted, but with much more vigor, the currents picked up and we were doing 6.8 knots through the water and up to 8.6 knots over the ground. We covered 40 NM in seven hours, unexpected speed that brought us to anchor at dusk, not dark, in a bend of the Cohansey River. (Jay C., the Rocna anchor grabbed instantly and held. And, yes, Johanna N., the Cohansey is still a bit malodorous, but a natural, swampy kind of smell.)
Peacefully at anchor, the sound of tidal current gurgling on the hull was broken only by whaps of the fly swatter as we killed those evil, nasty, vicious little black flies that take chunks of any exposed flesh and that had plagued us in the cockpit before they headed below decks as it grew dark in order to greet us again. Marlene exhibits characteristics of her personality rarely seen when she brings on the death of one of these creatures.
Yesterdays jaunt positioned us this morning to sail, yes sail, the next flood up the Delaware to the Chesapeake and Delaware ship canal and go with the ebb through the canal. Seems that a branch of the flood up the Delaware nicely decides to take a left at the Canal entrance and become the Canals ebb to the west, Now we find ourselves at anchor in the Bohemia River a few miles south of the western end of the Canal and in the Chesapeake Bay, facing a terrible danger. This blog could take on the inanity of a Sail magazine article describing the swim off the boat in the mild water, the 80 degree sunshine, the steak to come, wine, etc., so I won’t go into any of that. Instead, only note that we now have confirmed our draft is five feet by feeling the four inch gap between the mud and the keel, and reconciling all with the fathometer which was right on when it showed that we had about point-three feet of water under the keel as we came to anchor. Fortunately it was low tide, so there’ll be enough water to avoid all but a squish in the mud in the wee hours of the morning when the tide goes low again.
The Monarch
The monarch butterfly has become a marker. With an amazing regularity one appears, first on Negro Island in Nova Scotia photographed taking nectar from a thistle and since then in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, in fog off of Block Island, in Cape Cod Bay and yesterday and today on Delaware Bay. Journey’s sails are taught driving to windward held together with wire rope shrouds and stays, fiberglass and stainless steel, and this bright orange delicate creature matches our pace with flits and glides, as light and intent as a child skipping, but its destination is not down the block, but Mexico.
Why do we do this? Behold, the monarch butterfly.
Peacefully at anchor, the sound of tidal current gurgling on the hull was broken only by whaps of the fly swatter as we killed those evil, nasty, vicious little black flies that take chunks of any exposed flesh and that had plagued us in the cockpit before they headed below decks as it grew dark in order to greet us again. Marlene exhibits characteristics of her personality rarely seen when she brings on the death of one of these creatures.
Yesterdays jaunt positioned us this morning to sail, yes sail, the next flood up the Delaware to the Chesapeake and Delaware ship canal and go with the ebb through the canal. Seems that a branch of the flood up the Delaware nicely decides to take a left at the Canal entrance and become the Canals ebb to the west, Now we find ourselves at anchor in the Bohemia River a few miles south of the western end of the Canal and in the Chesapeake Bay, facing a terrible danger. This blog could take on the inanity of a Sail magazine article describing the swim off the boat in the mild water, the 80 degree sunshine, the steak to come, wine, etc., so I won’t go into any of that. Instead, only note that we now have confirmed our draft is five feet by feeling the four inch gap between the mud and the keel, and reconciling all with the fathometer which was right on when it showed that we had about point-three feet of water under the keel as we came to anchor. Fortunately it was low tide, so there’ll be enough water to avoid all but a squish in the mud in the wee hours of the morning when the tide goes low again.
The Monarch
The monarch butterfly has become a marker. With an amazing regularity one appears, first on Negro Island in Nova Scotia photographed taking nectar from a thistle and since then in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, in fog off of Block Island, in Cape Cod Bay and yesterday and today on Delaware Bay. Journey’s sails are taught driving to windward held together with wire rope shrouds and stays, fiberglass and stainless steel, and this bright orange delicate creature matches our pace with flits and glides, as light and intent as a child skipping, but its destination is not down the block, but Mexico.
Why do we do this? Behold, the monarch butterfly.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
October 1, 2007
As I write we are tacking down Cape Cod Bay towards the Cape Cod Canal. Marlene and Charlie H., our friend and neighbor in Maine, are sailing. Charlie signed on for the first leg of the journey south, from Teel Cove to Cape May, NJ. He’s a long-term dinghy sailor and now sails his S2 7.3 from a mooring in Teel Cove. She’s named Harbor Huey, explained by his retiring a couple of years ago from a life-long career and passion for piloting helicopters in Vietnam, the New Jersey State Police and companies.
We departed Teel Cove on Thursday, September 27 intending to do a passage to Provincetown, MA or to Sandwich, MA just off the entrance to the canal. The weather was iffy, not in terms of serious storms, but light and variable winds tending to southwesterly and a chance of a thunderstorm which usually have their energy sucked right out of them by the frigid Maine waters. We were eager to leave behind the chores of pulling the float and closing down the shore cabin for the winter, and the forecast called for a high pressure to move in for Friday with favorable northwesterly winds.
An hour later, lightening was striking not too far away, and we were in a deluge. Someone had to watch the radar which is located in the cabin which was warm and dry. I volunteered for the highly skilled task of watching for blips. Marlene and Charlie piloted the boat, and Marlene noted wryly that at least her and Charlie’s foul weather gear was washed with fresh water.
The rain ended, light wind was on our nose and we chose plan two, to go to the harbor at Cape Newagan at the southern tip of Southport Island and spend the night there. We made only 22 miles the first day, but it proved to be a good plan as it blew and rained in the night. An extra high tied brought the ocean swell over the ledges protecting the tiny harbor. We rocked so much that you couldn’t sleep on your side without rolling over.
September 28th brought thick fog. We hung around until 10:45, again intending to reach Sandwich, then motored a couple of hours in fog, dodging lobster boats with the help of radar. The fog lifted suddenly, the wind picked up, and we sailed on course in light winds until they died about 4:00. We started the motor and an hour later it sputtered and quit.
It seemed to be gasping for fuel, so Charlie and I on our bellies on the cabin sole changed the primary fuel filter, tried the engine, no go, changed the secondary filter, tried the engine, no go, discovered the fuel lift pump bracket was missing a bolt, its wire was pulled loose, attached the wire, no go, and knew at that point it’s a good thing this is a sail boat. We’d been sailing for two hours as we fussed with the engine with Marlene somehow keeping us on course in zephyrs of wind in a heaving swell at about a knot speed. It was also getting dark.
Time for plan three. We jettisoned going to Cape Cod. We don’t know boat yards there, and too few harbor options means too few mechanics, so altered course to the west towards the point where the harbors of Gloucester, Marblehead, Salem and Manchester by the Sea converge sixty miles away as centers for sailing and fishing and lots of diesel engines.
Why in the world do we do this? You may ask…
That night we stood three hour watches. The winds varied, but were steady and strong except for about two and half hours. Surely we felt disappointment that we weren’t making our course and that we were off to fits and starts rather than passage making and that we were losing the chance to rendezvous again with Steffi and Charlie P. at their place in Mattapoisett over the weekend. But disappointment was eased by the transformative experience of a night at sea.
We were lifted on our course by the promised cold front moving east to west with increasing winds throughout the night, up to 16 knots carrying us along with reefed main and jib, close hauled at 6.4 up to 7 knots. About 4:00 AM the red light of Cape Ann Light House came over the horizon. A bright planet emerged. Lightening flashed well behind us from the passing front, the moon again broke from clouds and Journey charged through the night with reefed main and jib. The moon lit the sea and the boat like sailing in dusk, but a silver dusk. That night became a big reason to do this.
Marlene showed her usual great foresight a few weeks ago when she thought that it would be wise to buy coverage for unlimited towing for the next year from the U.S. Boat service. Off Cape Ann a cell phone call to the 800 number was patched to a sleepy Mike in Newburyport, who recommended we go into Gloucester to meet our need to get to a slip where we could plug in to AC to keep the refrigerator cold and more easily get a mechanic to the boat. He would meet us in Gloucester Harbor.
We made one tack to go north into Gloucester, no more than passed the breakwater than Mike in his tow boat came up behind us, passed us a yoke linked to a hawser, pulled us to Brown’s boat yard, came along side, lashed to the tow boat to Journey and eased us to a float, safe and sound at 7:30 Saturday morning.
Val runs the boatyard and referred us go a mechanic. We called Guy C’s home, told his wife our situation and he called back a few minutes later, promising to come to the boat Sunday morning.
The frustration of being dockside on a perfect day to sail our course was greatly eased by friends Judy and Bill S. driving to Gloucester from Boston and treated us to dinner: BBQ from Jim’s BBQ smoked a half block from the boat yard and consumed on the boat. It was emergency, morale building boat call if there ever was one.
Sunday brought Guy. He’s in his forties, has been a mechanic for 32 years, starting with his father and now running the business. It turned out to be a healing service. As Charlie noted, Guy laid his hands on our engine, which we now know has “special needs.” He not only fixed the immediate problem, he fixed a flaw brought on by previous mechanics messing around that led to the current problem. Guy could explain what was wrong and what he was doing. He’s a born teacher and we learned a lot.
We departed Gloucester about noon, had a beautiful sail to Scituate, MA on Cape Cod Bay, and spent last night on the mooring there.
Clearly another reason to do this is the intensity of sailing a small boat on a big ocean makes the value of Charlies, Mikes, Guys, Vals, Bills, Judys and Jims so immediate and present. Wonderful people always seem to be there when needed most.
October 4, 2007
Motoring on and on
We’re motoring off the coast of New Jersey expecting to be in Cape May by 11:00 or so tonight. If we were a coastal packet depending on making a schedule to deliver a profit to its owners, we’d be broke! Those glorious north westerlies spent themselves on our sail to Scituate on Sunday. On Monday, the wind moved southeasterly 5 to 10 knots. Remember how scratched LP records would repeat the same thing over and over again. That’s what has happened to the weather radio’s computer voice no mater what station along the coast, southeast 5 to 10. A high planted over Nova Scotia is pumping east southeast, producing a five foot swell – great - waves with no wind!
We have been doing nothing but motoring for the last three days with our special needs engine that is behaving quite well, except for an erratic oil pressure gage, and we are proud, for it is an “exceptional” engine and note at every chance we can the “good job” it is doing by starting and running. We motored through the Cape Cod Canal that had to be timed with the current and gives a sailor the thrill of seeing a stodgy cruising boat racing along at 10.5 knots speed over the ground. But it was a let down. I for one had been prompted by a Boston friend who likens sailing in Massachusetts and Buzzards Bay akin to the tropics compared to frigid Maine. I thought the Cape Cod Canal would be like opening the window to a summer breeze, but it was a raw day and night on the mooring at the Mattapoisett Boat Yard was cold!
When we fueled there the next morning they had been expecting us because Charlie P. had called. Thanks Charlie, we were treated well. We motored off bound for Cape May, NJ with a full tank and a five gallon jerry can on deck for the 260 mile, two night trip, hoping for those south easterlies to build. Nada, Nothing Nyet! Just south of Block Island, motoring, at 6:00 PM we made the decision to go into New Harbor on Block Island, spend the night and fuel up. It was our first night approach in fog, well piloted by Charlie using the cockpit – appropriately – GPS. I kind of think it was a piece of cake for Charlie. He’s done most of his instrument approaches at 160 knots rather than five. We caught the mooring and were greeted by a pair of swans and their cygnet who the parents were diligently teaching to beg. Swans are mute, but these guys made a funny kind of guttural sound. Marlene told them to stop pecking the side of the boat and they did.
We thought that it would be a good idea to have 10 gallons reserve so the next morning, I walked to the hardware store, bought a can, started to walk back, put my thumb out and a service van of some sort stopped. After thanking the fella for the ride I noted that it had been more than 40 years since I had hitchhiked. He said well that’s alright as when you get older you don’t want to walk so far. Thanks again!
We motored from Block Island mid-morning yesterday, October 3rd in southeast zip to 8 knots only once in a while, thick fog, and have been motoring for the last 36 hours straight with dense fog coming and going, each standing a three hour watch, tethered in, moving from cockpit to radar at that navigation system. The GPS says 5 hours and 39 minutes to go before another night approach, this time at long last into Cape May.
October 5, 2007
By golly we made it. Night pilot Charlie H. tutored us through a zero visibility, instrument approach on Journey, a.k.a. Cobra Gun Ship, through the Cape May, NJ inlet into the harbor, where prompted by the cruising guide recommendations for anchorages and the blurred images of anchored boats silhouetted by shore side sodium vapor lights, we too anchored off of the Coast Guard Station at about midnight, a little close to the channel but good enough. This was the second situation, Block Island being the first, that called for a wee dab of single malt scotch donated as a bon voyage present by Steve H. And now, the next day, we are comfortably on a slip, showered, with a cleaned boat and having bid a fond farewell to hearty crew member Charlie H. Many thanks friend.
Here’s another reason for why we do this – building on a theme from thoughts on Allen Island over a year ago – which is how voyaging instructs, even enforces a different way of living. Our friend Roland passed on to us a book from his library on his 17 foot cat boat Ibis that made the Intracoastal Waterway passage last spring. It’s The Inside Passage by Anthony Bailey written about 50 years ago of a trip on a slow moving motor boat. He writes: “In a sense, the whole thing (the voyage) was a kind of running down, a process in which the ticks of the clock were more widely spaced apart. In which – for that reason – each tick presumably might sound louder and larger than before.”
Next stage, Delaware Bay, C & D Canal into the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll keep you posted.
As I write we are tacking down Cape Cod Bay towards the Cape Cod Canal. Marlene and Charlie H., our friend and neighbor in Maine, are sailing. Charlie signed on for the first leg of the journey south, from Teel Cove to Cape May, NJ. He’s a long-term dinghy sailor and now sails his S2 7.3 from a mooring in Teel Cove. She’s named Harbor Huey, explained by his retiring a couple of years ago from a life-long career and passion for piloting helicopters in Vietnam, the New Jersey State Police and companies.
We departed Teel Cove on Thursday, September 27 intending to do a passage to Provincetown, MA or to Sandwich, MA just off the entrance to the canal. The weather was iffy, not in terms of serious storms, but light and variable winds tending to southwesterly and a chance of a thunderstorm which usually have their energy sucked right out of them by the frigid Maine waters. We were eager to leave behind the chores of pulling the float and closing down the shore cabin for the winter, and the forecast called for a high pressure to move in for Friday with favorable northwesterly winds.
An hour later, lightening was striking not too far away, and we were in a deluge. Someone had to watch the radar which is located in the cabin which was warm and dry. I volunteered for the highly skilled task of watching for blips. Marlene and Charlie piloted the boat, and Marlene noted wryly that at least her and Charlie’s foul weather gear was washed with fresh water.
The rain ended, light wind was on our nose and we chose plan two, to go to the harbor at Cape Newagan at the southern tip of Southport Island and spend the night there. We made only 22 miles the first day, but it proved to be a good plan as it blew and rained in the night. An extra high tied brought the ocean swell over the ledges protecting the tiny harbor. We rocked so much that you couldn’t sleep on your side without rolling over.
September 28th brought thick fog. We hung around until 10:45, again intending to reach Sandwich, then motored a couple of hours in fog, dodging lobster boats with the help of radar. The fog lifted suddenly, the wind picked up, and we sailed on course in light winds until they died about 4:00. We started the motor and an hour later it sputtered and quit.
It seemed to be gasping for fuel, so Charlie and I on our bellies on the cabin sole changed the primary fuel filter, tried the engine, no go, changed the secondary filter, tried the engine, no go, discovered the fuel lift pump bracket was missing a bolt, its wire was pulled loose, attached the wire, no go, and knew at that point it’s a good thing this is a sail boat. We’d been sailing for two hours as we fussed with the engine with Marlene somehow keeping us on course in zephyrs of wind in a heaving swell at about a knot speed. It was also getting dark.
Time for plan three. We jettisoned going to Cape Cod. We don’t know boat yards there, and too few harbor options means too few mechanics, so altered course to the west towards the point where the harbors of Gloucester, Marblehead, Salem and Manchester by the Sea converge sixty miles away as centers for sailing and fishing and lots of diesel engines.
Why in the world do we do this? You may ask…
That night we stood three hour watches. The winds varied, but were steady and strong except for about two and half hours. Surely we felt disappointment that we weren’t making our course and that we were off to fits and starts rather than passage making and that we were losing the chance to rendezvous again with Steffi and Charlie P. at their place in Mattapoisett over the weekend. But disappointment was eased by the transformative experience of a night at sea.
We were lifted on our course by the promised cold front moving east to west with increasing winds throughout the night, up to 16 knots carrying us along with reefed main and jib, close hauled at 6.4 up to 7 knots. About 4:00 AM the red light of Cape Ann Light House came over the horizon. A bright planet emerged. Lightening flashed well behind us from the passing front, the moon again broke from clouds and Journey charged through the night with reefed main and jib. The moon lit the sea and the boat like sailing in dusk, but a silver dusk. That night became a big reason to do this.
Marlene showed her usual great foresight a few weeks ago when she thought that it would be wise to buy coverage for unlimited towing for the next year from the U.S. Boat service. Off Cape Ann a cell phone call to the 800 number was patched to a sleepy Mike in Newburyport, who recommended we go into Gloucester to meet our need to get to a slip where we could plug in to AC to keep the refrigerator cold and more easily get a mechanic to the boat. He would meet us in Gloucester Harbor.
We made one tack to go north into Gloucester, no more than passed the breakwater than Mike in his tow boat came up behind us, passed us a yoke linked to a hawser, pulled us to Brown’s boat yard, came along side, lashed to the tow boat to Journey and eased us to a float, safe and sound at 7:30 Saturday morning.
Val runs the boatyard and referred us go a mechanic. We called Guy C’s home, told his wife our situation and he called back a few minutes later, promising to come to the boat Sunday morning.
The frustration of being dockside on a perfect day to sail our course was greatly eased by friends Judy and Bill S. driving to Gloucester from Boston and treated us to dinner: BBQ from Jim’s BBQ smoked a half block from the boat yard and consumed on the boat. It was emergency, morale building boat call if there ever was one.
Sunday brought Guy. He’s in his forties, has been a mechanic for 32 years, starting with his father and now running the business. It turned out to be a healing service. As Charlie noted, Guy laid his hands on our engine, which we now know has “special needs.” He not only fixed the immediate problem, he fixed a flaw brought on by previous mechanics messing around that led to the current problem. Guy could explain what was wrong and what he was doing. He’s a born teacher and we learned a lot.
We departed Gloucester about noon, had a beautiful sail to Scituate, MA on Cape Cod Bay, and spent last night on the mooring there.
Clearly another reason to do this is the intensity of sailing a small boat on a big ocean makes the value of Charlies, Mikes, Guys, Vals, Bills, Judys and Jims so immediate and present. Wonderful people always seem to be there when needed most.
October 4, 2007
Motoring on and on
We’re motoring off the coast of New Jersey expecting to be in Cape May by 11:00 or so tonight. If we were a coastal packet depending on making a schedule to deliver a profit to its owners, we’d be broke! Those glorious north westerlies spent themselves on our sail to Scituate on Sunday. On Monday, the wind moved southeasterly 5 to 10 knots. Remember how scratched LP records would repeat the same thing over and over again. That’s what has happened to the weather radio’s computer voice no mater what station along the coast, southeast 5 to 10. A high planted over Nova Scotia is pumping east southeast, producing a five foot swell – great - waves with no wind!
We have been doing nothing but motoring for the last three days with our special needs engine that is behaving quite well, except for an erratic oil pressure gage, and we are proud, for it is an “exceptional” engine and note at every chance we can the “good job” it is doing by starting and running. We motored through the Cape Cod Canal that had to be timed with the current and gives a sailor the thrill of seeing a stodgy cruising boat racing along at 10.5 knots speed over the ground. But it was a let down. I for one had been prompted by a Boston friend who likens sailing in Massachusetts and Buzzards Bay akin to the tropics compared to frigid Maine. I thought the Cape Cod Canal would be like opening the window to a summer breeze, but it was a raw day and night on the mooring at the Mattapoisett Boat Yard was cold!
When we fueled there the next morning they had been expecting us because Charlie P. had called. Thanks Charlie, we were treated well. We motored off bound for Cape May, NJ with a full tank and a five gallon jerry can on deck for the 260 mile, two night trip, hoping for those south easterlies to build. Nada, Nothing Nyet! Just south of Block Island, motoring, at 6:00 PM we made the decision to go into New Harbor on Block Island, spend the night and fuel up. It was our first night approach in fog, well piloted by Charlie using the cockpit – appropriately – GPS. I kind of think it was a piece of cake for Charlie. He’s done most of his instrument approaches at 160 knots rather than five. We caught the mooring and were greeted by a pair of swans and their cygnet who the parents were diligently teaching to beg. Swans are mute, but these guys made a funny kind of guttural sound. Marlene told them to stop pecking the side of the boat and they did.
We thought that it would be a good idea to have 10 gallons reserve so the next morning, I walked to the hardware store, bought a can, started to walk back, put my thumb out and a service van of some sort stopped. After thanking the fella for the ride I noted that it had been more than 40 years since I had hitchhiked. He said well that’s alright as when you get older you don’t want to walk so far. Thanks again!
We motored from Block Island mid-morning yesterday, October 3rd in southeast zip to 8 knots only once in a while, thick fog, and have been motoring for the last 36 hours straight with dense fog coming and going, each standing a three hour watch, tethered in, moving from cockpit to radar at that navigation system. The GPS says 5 hours and 39 minutes to go before another night approach, this time at long last into Cape May.
October 5, 2007
By golly we made it. Night pilot Charlie H. tutored us through a zero visibility, instrument approach on Journey, a.k.a. Cobra Gun Ship, through the Cape May, NJ inlet into the harbor, where prompted by the cruising guide recommendations for anchorages and the blurred images of anchored boats silhouetted by shore side sodium vapor lights, we too anchored off of the Coast Guard Station at about midnight, a little close to the channel but good enough. This was the second situation, Block Island being the first, that called for a wee dab of single malt scotch donated as a bon voyage present by Steve H. And now, the next day, we are comfortably on a slip, showered, with a cleaned boat and having bid a fond farewell to hearty crew member Charlie H. Many thanks friend.
Here’s another reason for why we do this – building on a theme from thoughts on Allen Island over a year ago – which is how voyaging instructs, even enforces a different way of living. Our friend Roland passed on to us a book from his library on his 17 foot cat boat Ibis that made the Intracoastal Waterway passage last spring. It’s The Inside Passage by Anthony Bailey written about 50 years ago of a trip on a slow moving motor boat. He writes: “In a sense, the whole thing (the voyage) was a kind of running down, a process in which the ticks of the clock were more widely spaced apart. In which – for that reason – each tick presumably might sound louder and larger than before.”
Next stage, Delaware Bay, C & D Canal into the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll keep you posted.
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