November 17, 2009
Aboard No Boundaries
The alarm went off at 4AM yesterday. Actually it goes off at that time every day now.
Some retirement this is! If you want lazy days and restful nights, do not retire and go cruising on a sailboat.
We eventually talked ourselves into getting out of bed. It was cold – we have no heat since leaving the marina. We must manage our electricity wisely. (If we had a propane heater, then we would need to manage the propane wisely, too. It’s always something.) It was dark – we were not in downtown Baltimore any more. In fact, we were in St. Johns Creek, just off the Patuxent River at Solomon Island. We made 78 miles on Sunday, in the hope that such a firm break would assure us of not winding up in Harborview again at day’s end.
The cockpit panes were covered with condensation. Larry wiped them down while I got coffee going. We planned our strategy, and shortly after 0530 we were turning into the channel of the Patuxent. I had remained on deck to shine a flashlight on the day markers as we passed them on our way out, but at this point I went below to log our position. When I went back up to the cockpit, I grabbed the absorber we were using to wipe the cockpit panes. As I stepped out to the aft deck, I saw a boat behind us with flashing blue lights.
You know how you get all nervous when a cop with red lights flashing comes up behind, and then you heave a sigh of relief when he passes you and continues down the road to bother someone else. Larry and I watched this boat approach and we felt pretty sure it couldn’t be about us. Who know we were even here? And who cared?
As it turned out, it was the Coast Guard, and they cared a lot. They cared so much that they boarded us and asked us to show them all sorts of things. I wondered later if we had waited to leave until Tuesday, or maybe Friday, would they have made their quota for the week already? I don’t really know how it all works.
The good part was that the two young men who boarded us were polite, professional and thorough. They simply asked us to show them that we were in compliance with Coast Guard regulations – like carrying our registration, possessing the proper life jackets, and so forth. When they were done, they entered all the information into a Palm Pilot and printed us a receipt with the image of Larry’s signature on it.
We appreciate everything the Coast Guard does. We certainly could not complain about being boarded, although I sort of hope that if it happens again, it will be in daylight. Still, it is a good thing they are doing, and it was really nice to meet some of them personally in a situation where we were not in danger. We all count on the Coast Guard every time we go out on the water. Even though it unnerved me to be boarded, it was not a bad experience at all. I take this opportunity to say to one and all that if the people we met are representative of the Coast Guard, our country is well served.
Nonetheless, after they stepped over the lifelines and back onto their own boat, I breathed a sign of relief. It was just like spelling in the third grade. I always knew those words, and I could spell them forward and backward, but I worried every single week that I would miss a word. I was soooooo glad when the test was over. That is how I felt when our boarding was over. We looked behind us as they left and saw them approach another boat just entering the river. It was somebody else’s turn in the barrel. Whew!
Aboard No Boundaries
July 14, 2009
Anybody who has simply blown a puff of air on the surface of water knows that water responds dramatically to the movement of air. Weather is very much about the movement of air, namely wind. It is also about water and temperature and many other things, but on the ocean, the movement of air and its interaction with water is the first and most noticeable component of weather.
It takes a very smart person a lifetime just to begin to understand weather. That is why I pay attention when a man with thirty years of experience talks about the weather. Even he will have a hard time explaining big trends for a whole season, but I don’t have much time for someone with a college degree and a lot of chutzpah. That person needs to grow a little.
So do I.
Mariners need to understand weather. If they miss the signals, they can easily wind up in life-threatening situations. However, if they do not know what the signals mean, they can see them and still be in trouble.
On the evening of July 8, we cruised eastward south of Long Island and marveled at a huge cumulonimbus formation above the island far in the distance. We were about 36 nautical miles south of Long Island at sundown. We had observed this cloud for a while, trying to figure out if we would intersect the part where rain was falling. We observed that the cloud fanned out into a brilliant red sky at sunset, and we remembered the old sailor’s wisdom: Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. We thought what we saw meant a sailor’s delight for sure, because it was red with intensity. In fact, there was a huge panorama in the sky that looked like a brilliantly painted desert scene, with lots of red.
Furthermore, the weather forecast was for 10-knot winds, and we had already seen the windspeed fall before sundown. The forecast indicated 2-4 foot seas and mild winds. We watched that cloud for an hour. We looked at its position relative to our course, and we concluded that we might follow it. We might even catch up with the tail end where the clouds appeared to be breaking up. We thought we knew what was coming. We had a lot to learn.
About 9PM, I went below. There is a whole school of discussion about the right length for watches in a boat crewed by two people, but for now, our watches are two hours. I expected to sleep until 11PM when I would take my turn on watch. I expected mild rocking as the boat cruised through the night. I had inappropriate expectations.
I was just laying my head on the pillow to sleep when I heard a roar and the boat rocked violently to starboard. I lay there for a few minutes, thinking that perhaps it was an errant gust that would settle down. It didn’t. The boat rocked wildly. I continued to hear the terrible roar. I put on my lifejacket and went back to the cockpit.
The sea was raging. That is the only word for it. Larry had turned off the autopilot, because it could not handle the violence of the wind and water. The waves were huge, and I refused to allow myself to speculate on their height. The wind was overwhelming. I could not see the windspeed display and I refused to ask Larry what it said. I put on my sailing gloves, because I expected to need to help change sails. We were traveling under engine power with a reefed main and a staysail. Every so often we heeled violently to starboard. Finally, Larry said, “That was enough fun for me.” It was time to haul in the staysail.
Our boat is well-designed for two people to manage. In fact, one person can manage pretty well, because most of the lines are led to the cockpit. However, the furling lines for the staysail and genoa end on deck just outside the cockpit under the 6-inch bulwark at the edge of the deck. In order for us to furl the staysail, someone had to bring that line into the cockpit, because neither of us had any intention of trying to stand up and work on deck in that maelstrom.
I unzipped the cockpit curtain directly across the deck from the end of the staysail furling line. I hung out of the cockpit, crawling across the deck with my hands while leaving as much of my body inside as possible. I grabbed the furling line and retreated to the cockpit with it in my hand. I pulled on that line as hard as I could after Larry released the sheet. I could only barely move that sail. The wind had the sail in its teeth, and it wasn’t letting go. Larry was trying to steer us into the wind, and I was trying to furl the staysail, but I wasn’t strong enough. Finally, Larry took hold of the furling line and pulled. He let go of the wheel for a few seconds and his extra strength brought the line in. I cleated it quickly and the staysail was secure. We stopped heeling, but the tumult of the water continued.
It was a startling surprise. Nothing we had read about weather and clouds had prepared us for this. Nothing we had previously experienced had prepared us for this. The North Atlantic Ocean was free-wheeling and accountable to nobody as trivial as either or both of us.
Larry searched for a course that would alleviate some of the stress. The direction of travel relative to the wind at any time will very much affect the experience on the water. Eventually he found a course that gave us a little relief from the terrible pounding. I emphasize, only a little. It was the least violent choice that didn’t turn us around to go backward. At that point, Larry, the captain, ordered me to go take my nap, so he could have one later. I followed orders.
You might think that nobody could sleep in such a situation. I am learning that I can sleep when I have the opportunity. The first night we were out I remember that I felt that God was rocking me to sleep. I slept deeply and restfully. This time was the same. I had confidence that God would go with us through the night. I had confidence in Larry’s navigation skills. I knew he would call me if he needed me. I fell to sleep quickly. The next thing I knew he was calling me for my watch.
The tumult was still terrific. We seem to be traveling under that big cloud at about the same point where we first intersected it. Maybe we intersected on a course and speed that kept us in the same relative spot for a long time. Whatever it was, the huge wind and waves continued all night. They actually continued into the next morning until we entered the Block Island Channel. We still do not know how we would have known to expect this storm. There was no rain, no thunder, and no lightning. Just ferocious wind and huge waves.
The delightful thing about it all was the way the boat handled the seas. It was tipped over again and again, but it always righted itself. It slid down waves. It climbed up waves. It rode over waves. It was wonderful to see. We felt that we had discovered a whole new side of this boat that we never knew about. This boat will keep us safe if we have the wit to be sensible.
Which comes back to what we have to learn. We can see that a lot of reading and some informed speculation combined with official weather reports can still lead to the wrong conclusion. We know that we have a lot to learn. Still, we have learned that we can count on each other. we can count on the boat, and we can count on God. I found myself singing, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” in the midst of the storm, because I was fully and richly aware of His presence with us. As long as He goes with us, I will not be paralyzed with fear. I will always respect the sea, and I know we have a lot to learn about the sea, but we know one important thing about God. “I will not leave you or forsake you,” is God’s promise. We have already learned that lesson.
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.