Aboard No Boundaries
July 10, 2009
The movie “Captain Ron” came to mind often as we made our passage from Cape May, New Jersey, to Block Island, Rhode Island. His stock line when engaged to train people to sail and survive at sea was, “If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.” “Out there” was at sea, far from land, at the worst possible moment. The things that would happen to his protégés during the movie were surprising and always “out there.”
During 50 hours at sea, a few things happened to us “out there.”
We started from Cape May, because something had already happened “out there.” We had sailed from Cohansey Cove a few days earlier. Sailing down that Bay at 8 knots was a thrilling experience. We cruised out the mouth of Delaware Bay and hit our first waypoint, still under sail. At that time, however, we had to make a decision. If we continued to sail, we had to deal with the speed and direction of the wind, both unfavorable for making progress toward our destination. Unlike Captain Cook, who had no choice but to accept the wind and make the best of it, we could turn to our diesel auxiliary engine. If we sailed, we would increase our travel time by 4 or 5 hours and add more than 20 miles to our route. We decided to motor until the wind direction and speed were more useful. We were seven miles from the New Jersey shore in the North Atlantic Ocean when our diesel engine made a weird noise and quit. We were adrift.
We observed fairly quickly that there was a current in the ocean that wanted to take us to Gibraltar. Or maybe to Casablanca. Rather than drift, we chose to deploy the sails again. There was little wind, so we couldn’t make much speed sailing, but at least we could avoid going to Europe while Larry tried to fix the engine. In theory, we could have proceeded on our journey under sail and waited to repair the engine at the other end. However, the wind was very light and changed direction at the drop of a hat. We couldn’t make much progress, and unless Larry could fix the engine, we had no backup for the sails in any sort of emergency.
Larry worked on the engine for seven hours. I sailed up and down parallel to the Jersey shore, trying not to go to Gibraltar. A pod of dolphins kept me company for several hours. I actually saw at least a dozen fireworks shows, one of which was truly magnificent. Unfortunately, Larry was not able to find the explanation for the engine problem, and he was unable to make it start again. At 2:30AM on Sunday morning we made the decision to go back to Cape May, call a tow boat and get to some location where we could connect with a diesel mechanic.
Larry took a nap, and I continued tacking up and down the coast until 4:30AM. Then Larry took the watch and I took a nap. We thought we were being very self-sufficient and doing the wise and responsible thing to sail ourselves back within reach of help. Without an engine we could not navigate that canal or enter a marina, but we could get to the canal entrance. We did everything for ourselves that we could do. About 8:30 Sunday morning, we called the tow boat and they arrived in 20 minutes. Later, however, when Larry and the tow boat captain were discussing the charges, the captain complained that we didn’t call him sooner. He would have made more money on our account if we had called him when we were still seven miles out! We thought we were being wise and responsible to do everything we could for ourselves, and he thought we could have been a little more dependent so he could make more money!
If you have never seen a professional tow boat captain work, you have missed an experience. Those guys work magic. It was not magic to give us a line to cleat onto our boat and drag us into the canal. However, when the tow boat tied up to the side of our boat and took us into the marina, I am sure that a magic wand and pixie dust must have been in use. The tow captain told Larry to steer our boat without thinking of his boat as anything but our power. However, the tow captain provided guidance that allowed the two boats to navigate in the very narrow fairways of the marina, and at the end, after Larry turned the boats toward our designated slip, the captain gave the signal to let go the lines that attached us together, and our boat slid neatly into its place at slip 14 in Utch’s Marina, Cape May, New Jersey. (I didn’t forget the “H” in the name. There is no initial “H.” The real name is Utch’s.)
We arrived on a Sunday, and we couldn’t get a diesel mechanic until Monday. However, we were in a full service marina with showers, laundry and internet. No cruiser lets such an opportunity go to waste. Even though I had had only two hours sleep the night before, I gathered up my laundry and my shower bag and hustled over to get things done. My energy lasted long enough to manage those tasks, but then I was done.
The next day, we discovered that our problem was beyond the scope of the local diesel mechanic, so we had to wait until one could arrive from Atlantic City. His schedule kept us in the marina past the checkout time, so we decided to stay one more night. The diesel engine mechanic got the thing going again. However, he did not explain the problem, and he did not explain the solution, which bothered Larry quite a lot.
On the morning of July 7 we exited the Cape May Canal under engine power. We needed the engine to get out of the marina and out of the canal. We were still under engine power, about a mile from the canal entrance when the engine made the same funny noise as before and quit.
I could hear Captain Ron saying gruffly, “If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.” We had arrived “out there” and our problem had recurred. What would we do now?
In blogs yet to come, I will recount how we faced the challenges and what we did to solve them. Feel free to disagree with our choices. We were disconnected from the rest of the world in a unique way for this time in history. We had a goal that was being seriously challenged by circumstances. Check back often for more blogs to find out what came next and next and next. After 50 hours, we arrived in Block Island, and both we and the boat were intact.
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