Sunset Off the Bow

Wow, I forgot how much I hate writing by hand.  It took me three false starts just to get going.  I tried the left-hand pages, I tried starting at the back of the book, nothing was comfortable.

You see, being left-handed, the whole ‘writing by hand’ thing was always a bit of a chore.  Quite honestly, my handwriting looks like a friggin’ Kindergartner wrote it.  This was actually one of the first things I noticed when going from hand-written to typed papers in school, my grades immediately went up.  It turns out I was a better writer than I realized, it was just that nobody could read it before.

So, anyway, my hand is already sore, that’s nice.  But you’re not here to listen to my handwriting woes, you want to hear a sailing story, right?  Let’s get on with it, shall we?

It’s the day before our departure on the Betty Ann.  I tried a quick count in my head, and I think this is my sixth leg that I’ve sailed.  Dad and I are getting ready, doing final packing and such, an already the same old jokes are coming out:

“Hey, is that buoy blinking every 2 seconds or 2.5 seconds?”

“You know what, I ‘ll bring my stopwatch!”

“Hey, aren’t these your flip-flops?”

“Wooo, yeah.  I always forget to pack those.”

I guess saying those same jokes over and over every trip helps us ease ourselves into the trip.  So it’s goodbye crappy job, goodbye filthy city, goodbye cruel world (for a week).  We’re bound for yet another adventure, and who knows what we’ll find over the next six to seven days?  That’s the best part about trips like this, you never know exactly what’s going to happen.  You may have a vague idea of what you’d like to happen, but the forces of nature very often have something else in mind.

Speaking of nature, one very good thing is that the weather forecast for tomorrow has changed from cold, rainy and windy, to warmer, sunny and less windy.  I’ll take it!

The real question on everybody’s minds though (surely it’s on mine) is what will the weather do when we get to the Norfolk decision point.  This is where we must decide if we want to stay out in the Atlantic, and go ’round Cape Hatteras, or move inside and take the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

Cape Hatteras beat us back last time, and I would really like to be able to go back and conquer it, but I think the crew has already made up its mind that if there’s even a whisper of foul weather afoot it’ll be the ICW for us.

October 28, 2010 : 10:00 AM

We arrive to a marina shrouded in fog.  Walking down the gangway towards the Betty Ann, I peer into the grey wall at the end of the dock.  Upon nearing the end of the pier, where the Betty Ann sits happily in her slip, I can just make out something on the other side of the fog wall.  I’m not sure what it is, only two small incandescent bulbs betray its existence, without those I probably would have missed it all together.  A second later and it’s gone, absorbed back into the gray nothingness.

Anchor Windlass with Play-dough Packing

Rounding the corner I see Pete up on the bow doing something near the anchor locker, and Archie on the port-side rail, apparently just finishing topping off the water tanks.  Larry has not arrived yet, so dad and I stow our bags down below, then join Pete on the bow.  Pete had been using Play-Dough to pack into the the small spaces between the anchor chain and deck plate where the chain runs down into the storage locker below.  If I remember correctly there’s roughly 200 feet of chain on the primary anchor.  When you’re anchored out it’s nice to know that not only is there a very heavy steel anchor grabbing at the ground below you, but that there’s also pure chain between you and it.  It’s an additional layer of security, but can also be a disadvantage if something were to happen to the mechanical windlass that normally reels that chain back in for you.

There is another job that needs to be complete before we can depart.  The bow lights are non-functional again, this seems to be a recurring problem on this boat.  Most likely it’s due to the light housing’s location at the very tip of the bow pulpit.  During heavy seas the pulpit is routinely awash with corrosive salt water, and the navigation light housing is right there at the foremost point to take a beating.  After a new bulb, some WD-40, and some scratching with a wire brush the lights come back to life.  This time we also wrap the underneath of the housing where the wire comes up from below with electrical tape.  Hopefully this will help to keep out some of the evil salt water and make this particular repair last a little longer.

After Larry arrives a few minutes later, the fog has lifted a touch and we can now see the green buoy that marks the first of a multitude of points we will search for on our journey south.  The forecast was for the fog to dissipate by afternoon, so we take this to be a sign of clearing and start preparing for departure.  Steps come in, along with the shore power cable and spring lines that are slack.  Archie fires up the engine, all hands are on deck and ready.  We slip off the last of the lines from the Betty Ann’s bow and stern and officially begin our passage.  Woo hoo!

It didn’t take long for the departure to get a little iffy.  I think the fog hadn’t really retreated too far, because after the initial green buoy there was nothing to see.  Really, nothing.  The only texture to the grey mass in front of us was provided by the floaters in my eyes.  Suddenly I noticed all sorts of little circles and lines dancing in front of me, which was distracting because I was trying to spot the next marker.

I stationed myself up on the bow as a lookout, and immediately little droplets of fog began collecting on my eyebrows, eyelashes, and my general person.

“I should have worn my coat I suppose.” I thought to myself.

The moisture steadily collected as purposefully as we guided our boat past the greens out into the harbor of refuge, somewhere up ahead.

Suddenly, and invisibly,  the deep guttural fog horn of something large boomed into my ears from somewhere up ahead.  I turned around to look at Pete behind me, who was standing outside the canopy giving Archie verbal descriptions of what he was seeing and asked, “Did you hear that?”

“Yep.” and a nod came the reply.

I don’t suppose the question really needed to be asked.  In a land of grey, when a large vessel sounds its horn in front of you, you take notice.

Point Judith channel is shared by a large fishing fleet on the east side.  A large set of commercial docks dominates the waterfront but is shared by ferries to Block Island, restaurants, stacks of lobster traps and just as many tourist traps.

It was the ferries and commercial traffic that were at the forefront of my mind now.  That horn belonged to one of those, an I wasn’t sure where they were.  I’d much rather not have to witness a giant steel bow come out of the fog directly in front of us.  If one did we might not have time to avoid it, and that would not make a very pleasant first day.

Pete was using a gas air horn to sound our own location in the grey soup every 2 minutes.  I was hoping that the other ships heard our horn as well as we heard theirs.

We finally picked our way out into the Harbor of Refuge, which is a good-sized harbor built outside of Galilee.  We followed the man-made rock wall on the western side out to the appropriately named west gap.

This is when the first of the swells began to hit us.  I retreated to the safety of the isenglass (clear plastic) windows inside the cockpit just as the first of the waves sprayed onto the front deck.  For the next forty of so hours this would be the norm as a cold front passed over the eastern seaboard bringing with it twenty knot winds with gusts to 30.

October 28th, 2010 – Night

The Sun sets over rough waves

I don’t remember too much of the next forty hours.  It’s really just a blur of constant boat motion, up, down, roll left, roll right, repeat.  Sleep was very difficult and came in ten to fifteen minute intervals when you would wake to either the sensation of yourself being thrown out of your bunk or something being thrown out of the galley.

Watches were the standard for five men on the boat.  Come up and stand at the helm for two hours, then go on standby/lookout for two hours when someone else comes up for the wheel watch.  Then you go down inside for six hours of “sleep”.

As the waves built around us and tossed the Betty Ann back and forth, we all fell into at least a little bit of “sea-sickness”.  Some more than others.  Even for those of us who weren’t full-blown seasick (i.e. vomiting), I think we were all probably “sick-of-the-sea” by the second night.  Sick of rolling, sick of pitching, sick of not sleeping, sick of getting tossed out of the starboard bunk.

Personally, I came very close to “falling into the pit.”  I remember visualizing myself standing at the edge of a dark pit swallowing large gulps of saliva (I didn’t have to visualize that part), the final toll keeper of the land of sea-sickness.

The toll keeper leans out of his booth, flashes an evil-green smile and spits, “Go ahead boy, pull the trigger.”

Three more gulps of saliva and I’m starting to believe him, or is it hypnosis?

“You’ll feel better if you do, I promise.”  He eyes me over.  I know that he’s played this hand a thousand times over.   What he neglects to mention however is that once you pass through the tollgates into seasick land, you are thrown headfirst into its roiling belly.  Very often you find that you don’t have the change to get back to the other side, just like the proverbial bum who needs change for the bus.  You’re stuck in this town now.

“No thanks, ” I say, “I’ll stay on this side a little longer.”

The toll keeper retreats into his run-down booth, perhaps with a look of surprise on his pockmarked face.

“You’ll be back my son.  Oh yes, you’ll be back.”

Deep inside my heart I fear he might be right.  Everyone has made, or is capable of making that trip.  But for tonight at least I have chosen to stay on the uphill side for as long as I can.  Another large wave knocks us over and I dig myself into my bunk a little deeper in a futile attempt to find purchase.

October 29th, 2010 – Afternoon

The sea has not let up, but at least we can see them coming now.  We’ve fallen into a routine, with everybody just looking ahead in our minds to the time that we know will arrive…the time when the sea will calm down again.  There’s nothing you can do about it, so there’s no use complaining about it, just suck it up and wait.

Sometime in the afternoon we heard two loud explosions.  Everyone who was on deck at the time clamored  to the isinglass to look and see who had just fired on us (it was the only reasonable explanation).  Upon finding no ships of the line firing broadsides at us, sonic booms from a fighter was the consensus we arrived at.

We were soon proved right as a few minutes later the jet flew high overhead back to (we presumed) Andrew’s Air Force base.

I am prone to day dreaming when given the chance, and there are plenty of chances on a sailboat seventy miles offshore, I began a new one in my head:

Not the Jet in the story below, but one from the trip...

The pilot of the jet, an F-15, gazed down upon the water 3,000 feet below.  Jack Sturbridge had finished his maneuvers over the Atlantic, but he still had plenty of fuel left and didn’t feel like heading back to Andrew’s just yet.

At the end of his gaze, down in the blue ocean below, he spotted a tiny white dot.  There were whitecaps everywhere today making this ocean look like a white-frosted cake, but this dot was a boat.  A sailboat!

Jack and his father, who was now Secretary of the Navy, used to spend as many weekends as they could out on the waters around Annapolis.  Sometimes they would hear a jet fighter pass overhead and remark how amazing it would be if the pilot decided to hit the deck and give them their own private air show.  It never happened of course, but wouldn’t it be great?

Well, Jack though to himself, I think it’s time to make that happen.

Leaning left and forward on the stick, and advancing the throttle to full afterburner, Jack turned the plane in a downward left-hand spiral towards the ocean-top.  The plane responded by accelerating to over 1,000 knots, well above the sound barrier at sea-level.

Jacked finished his turn just as he lined up with the boat and leveled off at 100 feet.  The plane, still in full afterburner was still accelerating and a quick glance at the airspeed indictor showed the plane now at 1,200 knots.  Jack couldn’t see it, but the plane’s pressure wave was kicking up a gigantic rooster tail behind him.

As he closed to within a half a mile, Jack noticed that the crew of the sailboat had appeared on deck, and were pointing at him and jumping up and down excitedly.

Traveling this fast, Jack closed the remaining distance in under half a second and the boat flashed underneath him.  After letting some distance get behind him, Jack pulled back gently on the stick and brought his plane up into vertical, and then further until he was inverted.  A quick flick of his wrist was all that was required to flip the plane right-side-up and Jack’s immelman turn was complete.  Just as he was about to drop the nose back towards the ocean for another pass, the cockpit became illuminated with warning lights and sirens.

Double engine failure?  This is impossible!  However impossible there was no time to ponder it.  Jack’s training immediately kicks in.  His first task was to adjust the plane’s trim for the best glide ratio.  After completing that task Jack then began the engine restart procedures.  Simultaneously he radioed his predicament back to the tower at Andrew’s Air Force Base.

After two complete restart attempts on both engines, it was clear that Jack was going to have to access another part of his training – ditching and ejecting.  A quick scan of the immediate area indicated the obvious, it was all water and there was no “good” place for an emergency landing .

“Holy shit.” Jack though, “I’m going to have to eject into the friggin’ ocean.”

Jack glanced at his altimeter and saw he was now passing below 200 feet.  He had no time.  As he reached for the ejection handles, he saw up ahead and just to his left, the same sailboat he had buzzed before.  This was the last thing he saw before he pulled on the ejection handle and was thrown, still travelling 200 kots, into the air outside the plane.

Jack feels a tug and then a lift.  He opens his eyes to see a winch in front of him.  For a second he thinks he is on his dad’s old boat, but them remembers how that boat had been sold many years ago.  The last moments of his memory now come flooding back – the sailboat that reminded him of his youth, his little private air show, engine failure and then…ejection?”

“What happened?” Jack asked to the five men around him.

A younger man in a John Prine tee-shirt replies, “Dude man, you ejected right in front of us!  We saw your chute open and you came down right in front of us.  Your plane lande…er….crashed over there.”  The young man pointed over to his left where black smoke was billowing out of the sea.  “It’s a good thing we got to you so quick, you were unconscious.”

“I was?”  This was the only thing Jack could think to say.

“Yeah.  Out!  Like lights-out all the way.  It looks like your safety raft or whatever was only half-inflated too.”

As the young man finished saying this, a distinct thumping began coming through the air.  A Coast Guard HH-60 helicopter was approaching.  It was probably a good thing too, Jack thought, the way this guy is so excited he’ll probably start throwing out Top Gun quotes.

“Ha!  Mav’s in a flat spin and he’s headed out to sea!”

Too late.  Might as well chime in, it is a really good movie after all.

Jack responded, “Yeah, I guess that flyby wasn’t such a great idea, huh?”

The chopper finally appeared and cut their movie lines short.  In a well-trained maneuver the Coast Guard swimmer has Jack into the rescue basket in no time.

Over the roar of the chopper above, Jack yelled “Thanks guys, you really saved me back there.”

“Nah.  It was nothing compared to the show you gave us.” came the reply in unison.

Roughly three hours later, the crew of the Betty Ann pulled into harbor and secured their lines for the night.  After tying the last knot, and just before they started tying one on, a stocky man with a small entourage appeared.

“Permission to come abord?” the man asked after his arrival.

“Sure, why not, we were just about to have dinner.  Hungry?”  The crew wasn’t sure who this man was, but something about his presence told them that refusing his invitation would be bad.

Sitting down in the now-crowded cabin, the man accepted his plate.  “Damn good-looking grub” the stocky man thought.

With plates served and Yuenglings given to all, the crew sat looking expectantly at their guest.

“Gentleman, my name is Bruce Sturbridge.  As you may know, I am the Secretary of the Navy, and today you plucked my son Jack out of the ocean, most certainly saving his life.  I am in your debt.  How can I repay you?

This was news to the crew.  Jack hadn’t mentioned that his father was Secretary of the Navy, SecNav for short.  They were thusly stunned and a silence came over the boat.  Finally a young man in a John Prine tee-shirt responded.

“Well.  How about jet rides?  Two each for myself and six of my friends.”

“Well, um, there would have to be background checks and such.  But yeah, I can make that happen.” the SecNav replied.

“Sweet!  Also, how about lifetime access to the newest flight simulators the Navy has?” the John Prine fan asked.

“Well, actually, that’s easier than your first request.” the SecNav replied.

“And I can bring friends too, right?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

The John Prine fan had another question poised but judging from the faint grimace on the SecNav’s face, he decided not to push his luck.

The other crew members made requests too, but none were as cool as the John Prine fan’s requests, so we won’t be covering those here.

The crew was beaming, all of their SecNav-grantable wishes granted, when the SecNav spoke again.

“Now boys, I can make all these things happen, but I need one thing from you.  I must ask each of you to sign the disclosure agreement my aide is passing out now.  Basically, in short terms, it says that what happened this afternoon, it didn’t happen.  None of it.  You sailed here without incident, with absolutely nothing remarkable happening.  We need to be absolutely clear on this.  Are we?”

The crew all nodded their heads in agreement.

So, I can’t really tell you if this was a daydream, or if it’s a real memory.  Sometimes when you’re sleep-deprived at 2AM, fantasy becomes reality, and day dreams become memories.  I’ll leave it to you to decide which is real.

October 29th, 2010 – Night

The wind and waves have still not let up, and as we watched the sun go down I was again reminded of how much more “attached” to the sun you get while sailing, especially when the weather is a little off.  It’s almost like the sun is your friend, a protector, and you’re sad to see it go.  As soon as it’s dark, I end up thinking about the sun, somewhere on the other side of the planet, on its way to some see me again.

A memory I have from the second night is the odd feeling that I’m observing life through the lens of a camera, taking still shots of my own life.  This was somewhere in the early morning, perhaps around 2AM.  I was sleep-deprived, and was doing everything in my power to stay observant.  I remembered how pilots are trained to scan the “big six” instruments in an airplane’s cockpit.  I decided to take that same approach in this boat’s cockpit.  Standing in front of the wheel, I would focus on the chart plotter to scan for anything interesting ahead.  From there I woud move down to the radar display and look for any contacts.  Next I would look to my left at the engine gauges and make sure that they were all at their expected indications.  Finally, I would do a 360-degree visual scan outside the boat looking for lights of other boats.  I found that this helped to keep me alert, and to keep the three sailors sleeping below safe while I was on watch.

The tough part about this night was that apart from the endless white crests of waves throwing our Betty ann over to 50 degrees, not much interesting was happening.  It sounds odd, reading back what I just wrote, but it’s true.  The Betty Ann is such a strong well-built boat that even getting tossed around like this you never feel in danger, it’s just uncomfortable.

However, just because you don’t feel danger doesn’t mean that you don’t get tired of it.  At a certain point I started to get frustrated with the sea.  Usually, there are occasional waves that are larger than the others.  These come in what are called sets, and they come in threes.  A particularly brutal set was passing underneath and I counted the third go by.  As we were coming back to level again a fourth wave hit us and again rolled us over bringing the prop out of the water.

“Enough!” I yelled.  Yes Ocean, we get the point, you can toss us ’round and ’round and there’s nothing we can do about it.  We get it.  Now can you please stop sending those breaking waves and rollers our way?  And while you’re at it, can you get the wind on the phone and tell her to give it a rest too?  Maybe somewhere below twenty knots?  M’kay?  Thanks.

Somewhere in the above internal rant going on in my head, Pete asked me if I wanted a Ritz cracker.  I pondered the question for too long. “Do you want a Ritz” is a yes or no question that should take approximately one-tenth of a second to answer, and the answer is always yes. Unfortunately my stomach had posted the “Sorry, closed for an indeterminate amount of time due to the weather, please try again later” sign quite some time ago. However, my brain was saying, “The last thing we ate was a handful of stale Doritoes last night, I order you to open the gate and let the Ritz through!”  The stomach, being the lower-ranked of the two had no choice but to comply.

“Sure, a Ritz sounds good.” I replied to Pete.  I tried to sound as chipper as I could.  I don’t think I succeeded very well.

Pete handed me the Ritz and I pondered my best plan of attack.  I decided a test bite from the periphery was my best bet.  I raised the cracker to my mouth and took the smallest bite I could.

Crunch.  Chew.  Swallow.  Wait.

“No complaints from Mr. Stomach in the engine room.  Continue consumption Mr. Mouth.”

I nibbled my way through the rest of the cracker, still not very enthused about the whole thing.  But I got it down and felt an odd feeling of accomplishment.  Laughing to myself I thought, “Am I really excited that I was able to finish an entire Ritz cracker?”

October 30th, 2010 – 06:00 AM

Somewhere between the end of my last watch, and the beginning of my 6AM watch this morning, the seas finally calmed. Hallelujah!  Pete roused me from my bunk, and I crawled out into the still-dark cabin of the Betty Ann.

Pete, who sometime the previous day had made his way out of sea-sickness purgatory was happily munching on some Fig Neutons.

“Fig Neuton?” Pete asked, holding out the rectangular container.

“No thanks.” I replied.  Even at 100% I’m not a big fan if “The Neuton”.  I don’t really understand why anybody even buys them.  It’s kind of like Strawberry Quick, Tequiza, and Clamato, just not that good.

“Are there any more sleeves of Ritz though?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a second.” came Pete’s reply.  Pete bounded down the companionway like Tigger into the galley and returned with a fresh sleeve of Ritz, yeah he’s feeling better.  He handed me the package which I cautiously opened.  The waves had settled it seemed, but Mr. Stomach was still a little reserved.  I took out a cracker and went straight for a “full-fledged” half-bite.  Then I waited.

Mr. Stomach replied, “All clear!  Send down the second half!”  I was on the road to full recovery as well!  I took out four or five more and began eating them at faster and faster rates.

It was here that I decided that building your appetire back to full-strength after looking over seasick hill was a lot like building a fire, you have to start small and slow before you can get up to full strength.  So with ever more confidence I fed Mr. Stomach more Ritz, or as what I was now calling them, “Appetite Kindling”.

In no short time I had finished one-half of a sleeve.  I could have gone all the way but decided to leave some for my dad since he was to arrive on deck soon and I wasn’t sure what his “stomach situation” was.  I instead opted to slug the rest of my water and watch the sun rise on what was turning out to be a banner day.

October 30th, 2010 – 11:00 AM

Dad and Pete are Happy Campers

Larry is back!  With a crew’s appetites restored Larry is back in his element and asks if coffee, pancakes and bacon is in order.  Is it ever!  Pete had gone to bed, but was quickly roused by the aromas of cooking bacon and popped up on deck with a big smile.  Piping-hot cups of coffee arrived and the smiles grew all around.

Archie arrived from down below and not seconds later did the food begin to come on deck.  Fresh-made blueberry pancakes with butter and syrup.   Crispy hot bacon.  More coffee.  Orange juice all around.  None of us had eaten anything substantial in a while and this was a spectacular late-morning breakfast.

Archie Enjoys the Sun and Calm Waters of Norfolk

“Your mother must have loved cooking for you.” Archie says.

“Sorry?” I reply.

“You’re picking the fat off your bacon,” Archie says, “…don’t worry, it’s a good thing.  You’ll live longer.”

A couple more pancakes were delivered up from below, and thusly consumed.  We all sat back in the warm sun, relishing it’s positive effect on our soul as much as the food energizing our bodies.

Disclaimer: The following wasn’t in my actual journal so the time might be off, but I’m pretty sure that this is correct.

One of the Carriers at Norfolk

We came around the corner and crossed over the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel to see the first of many aircraft carriers moored at the Naval base.  There were (five?) carriers, a few cruisers (not sure what kind), and one of the new stealth-looking ships.  There was als a pair of helicopters doing some sort of maneuvers, and a fighter jet flying CAP.

Everyone kept ribbing me as I was taking pictures with my big 200mm zoom lens that someone from the base would come out to get me thinking I was a spy.  Nope.  No spy, just someone who loves military technology.

Ship in Dry Dock

We made our way up the river passing more military ships, including one that was in dry dock.  It’s always cool to see large ships completely out of the water, I’m usually more amazed at how little is really below water than anything else.  I always picture these huge cavernous hulls extending down into the water.

This ship was getting some sort of work done on it as well, the upper towers were all wrapped with what looked like Tyvek house wrapping.  Apparently they didn’t want us to see whatever it was they were building inside there.

We slipped past the drydock and made our way further up the river, passing derelict  bridges and train trestles along the way.  There are also various factories and a concrete plant.

October 30th, 2010 – 01:30 PM

In what has become a day of food, our ravenous bodies were not disappointed at lunch time either,  For lunch Larry served us up:

• Beef and bean chili,
• Beef Barley Soup
• Bread and Butter
• Sliced Oranges
• Giant Grapes

Documenting...

We all devour our plates, our bodies craving nutrition, and again fall back against the cockpit seats with satisfaction, this maneuver quickly became the signal that “I am done eating, I am full, and I am happy”.

Afterwards we all retreat to various corners.  Some make phone calls to home, relating our last two days in the Atlantic washing machine, others open sailing magazines something that twenty-four hours ago would have been pretty low on the “I want to do that” list.

I retreat to this journal, something I’ve been neglecting for a while and spend the next couple hours writing down everything I can remember from the last couple days.  Including this line right here. Apart from the “I want to do that” list, there’s also the “Needs to do” list, and journal writing gets crossed off pretty quick during bad weather, it’s right next to “brush teeth” for me.

October 30th, 2010 – 6:00 PM

Dad handles his line while in the Lock

Not quite sure when we made it to the lock that, for me at least, marks the true beginning of the ICW.  It’s always a pretty cool thing, especially when you think about the mechanics and hydraulics involved.

Whenever I picture a lock, for some reason I picture this violent boiling water as millions of gallons of water are added or removed from the enclosed space.  I guess this isn’t really the case because as fas as locks go, this one’s not super exciting.  We all remarked that we didn’t really move that much, maybe a foot to a foot and a half.  The evidence of this, as Pete pointed out, was on the pilings, a swath of wet piling indicated where the water had been just a few short minutes ago.

October 30th, 2010 – 06:30 PM

Sunset on the ICW (actually taken just before the lock)

After making it through the lock we were forced to wait for a swing bridge to open on the other side.  The night was super still so we hovered effortlessly in the water.  To out left was a restaurant that appeared to be quite popular.  Pete and I joked together that maybe someone should hop off the boat real quick and go grab a couple beers.

While waiting for the bridge to open a tug and barge appeared at the lock behind us.  We couldn’t see too much as it was quite dark by this point, but we could see a giant mast with his lights on top.  How big could this thing be?  We started to worry that the swing bridge operator was going to wait for the tug to arrive, and that we would have considerably more “boat” to deal with around us.  Our fears were quickly alleviated though as the bridge bells sounded and it began to swing open.  On the way through the smells of a KFC came wafting down off the bridge from up the street.  After the mandatory South Park Cartman joke, our thoughts began to drift down into the Galley where Larry was slinging pans.

October 30th, 2010 – 06:45 PM

(Poorly Done) Atlantic Boat Basin Sketch

Just on the other side of the bridge is the Atlantic Boat Basin, where we would be spending the night.  Although Archie had called ahead, they seemed to have forgotten about us.  Apparently the front side of the piers were all full, but the man on the radio informed us that there were more slips “around back”.  We motored past all the other boats, most of them large motor yachts and into darker and darker territory.

The man on the radio said he would ride down to the other end and tell us where to go.  We reached the end of the marina docks and a large patch of water opened up to our right, apparently this was where we were supposed to turn.  Tensions were elevated because this was possibly the worst marked entrance in navigational history.  There was a broken piling out in the middle of this water that was supposed to mark the entrance to their “channel”.  The guy on the bike never showed up, although we did see a light bouncing around in the woods, we started to call him “the E.T. guy”.  After a while it became a little more apparent where we were supposed to go, although the tension only abated somewhat.  After two ninety degree turns we were headed opposite our original course from the ICW, but up into the belly of this odd marina backwater.  As usual in times like this, many eyes were on the depth gauge which was hovering somewhere around 7.

Finally te “E.T. guy” appeared at the end of a narrow slip and guided us in.  Finally!  Lines secured and engine off, the crew stood on solid ground for the first time in a couple days.

October 30th, 2010 – 07:00 PM

The food continues!  This is odd for me to be so entranced by food, normally it’s just something that gets in the way of other things I’d rather do, but today it’s all I seem to want to document.  Dinner tonight was Italian Country Chicken.  This dish has become a Beardsley sailing staple ever since we had it on the Maina Brittany cruise in France.  It’s basically Chicken, onions, artichoke hearts, black olives, and roasted peppers served over pasta.  Dad had made a batch of this beforehand along with a loaf of fresh sourdough bread.  In addition there was salad and brocoli with cheese sauce (which I skipped).  The beverage choices were Yuengling  and/or Rum without ice (there was no ice on board).  I had seconds and thirds of the Chicken with pasta, then finished it off with more bread, more beer, and rum.  Nice.

After dinner it was already quite dark, and with a full belly and a couple drinks in me my desire for a shower had waned a bit, even though I hadn’t had one since the morning we left (roughly two and a half days).  I asked myself, “Is it really possible that I’m considering skipping the shower?”  It’s hard to believe, but after that big meal and a few drinks my fatigue is getting the upper hand and telling me just to go to bed.

However, common sense prevailed and I grabbed my towel, soaps, and flip flops, and popped out into the low fifty-degree air (it felt even cooler that this).  If I didn’t shower here it would be an unknown amount of time until my next one.

After some preliminary intelligence from Pete and Archie, dad and I were informed that there were three showers, one single and one double.  Archie headed off towards the single shower which was in the main office building, while dad and I trudged off to find the double.  I hadn’t taken two steps before I was reminded of my own words, “Oh flip-flops, how much I loathe you.”

Dad and I managed to pick our way along the uneven, too-thin, slightly dilapidated dockside.  The narrow walkways routinely pitched up and down causing more than one stumble on my part.  At the end near the Tron Haul-Out Machine (that’s what I call a travel lift), there was a small puddle of diesel fuel.  Apparently dad made a mental note of this because he would later remind me not to step in it.

We turned left onto the gravel main thoroughfare of Atlantic Yacht Basin.  Archie peeled off to the right, towards the main office building, and dad and I continued on looking for the dual showers. After one wrong turn into the laundromat (maybe that would be a better way to clean a sailor), we found our way into the showers.

Upon first look, the showers actually look like a bathroom door (which it also is).  You walk through a small office-like lounge which contains, among other things, a TV with VCR/DVD, candy and soda machines, a take-one-leave-one library and a small table suitable for playing cards, or drinking beer while watching the game.  I wouldn’t describe it as clean, and certainly not modern.  It had more of an auto garage office kind of feel.

Through the door marked “men” in one of those black-plastic-with-white-lettering signs are the showers.  The stall appeared to have been built in the late-eighties, and it hadn’t been updated since.  On the right was a urinal, sink and toilet, in that order.  On the left are the two showers, hidden behind soap-stained opaque glass.  A quick glance inside the shower revealed missing patches of tile where some fixture used to be, and a water faucet that was slightly corroded.

However, what became more apparent was the lack of any real place to change or hang clothes.  Ater testing the water to make sure it was hot (really the most important thing), we proceded to both strip down in the bathroom area and attempt to strategically hang our clothes (dirty and clean) and towels in safe locations.  There’s nothing quite like getting bare-ass naked with your father in a cramped bathroom.

An additional piece of logistics that we had to overcome was the fact that there was only one set of soaps.  One of us always forgets to bring shampoo and soap, usually it’s me but this time it was my dad.  Before leaving I had apportioned my soaps into two two-ounce bottles.  We decided that we would each take one into the shower and then pass them between the two showers when we were done.  It was a little awkward, and we had to pass the bottles back and forth twice.  No mater though, the hot water felt great, and my head no longer felt like it had picked up all the grease from an auto-shop floor.

Dressing prove more difficult than undressing.  Standing on top of my wet flip-flops, trying to get into a pair of sweat pants while not letting them touch anything is really difficult.  It would be a shame to get all nice and clean only to get your sleeping clothes filthy and wet from the public shower floor.

We made it back to the boat (remembering to step around the diesel puddle) without incident.  Larry who had left before us to shower was not back yet – more than a little odd.  Nobody knew where he’d run off to.  Our concerns were quickly alleviated however.  Archie returned to tell us a tale that sounded a lot like Gerry, a previous shipmate that some readers might remember from another sailing log.

Apparently Larry had initially intended on showering, but upon arriving at the main office building saw the beaconing glow of a mexican restaurant in the distance.  Earlier, he had mentioned that he had quite a headache ever since his ride in the V-berth “anto-gravity chamber” the other rough weather night.  He seemed to think, quite rightly so, that a good alcohol soaking would fix the problem.

He ventured into the restaurant and found that they had Yuengling on tap, the World Series on one TV, and soccer on another.  He stayed for a couple of tall boys and then left to go back to the shower.

When Larry returned to the boat a short time later he popped open another Yuengling from the ship fridge.  We were all ready for bed, certainly myself as I was deep into my sleeping bag.  This was an odd time where someone was ready to party is seemed and I wasn’t.  It was too late for me, fatigue had claimed me again and the combination of sweatpants, and a fleece sleeping bag proved too appetizing to deny.  I was asleep minutes after the lights went out.  I slept straight through to 5:45 the next morning.

October 31, 2010 – 5:45 AM

I awake and I’m back at the base of Mount Washington.  I’m cold and this little fleece blanket isn’t nearly enough to keep me warm.  How could I be so foolish?  My head clears a bit and I realize that I’m not back on the mountain, but in a boat.  What I didn’t realize was that the window hatch above my bunk was open all night, letting the warm air of the inner cabin out into the night, and letting the cold air replacing it fall directly down onto me.

It’s 5:45 AM, but I don’t know that because it’s pitch black, I’ll find that out later when the 0600 alarms start going off.  For now I’m cold and need to figure out a solution.  I finally came up with something.  If I curl up into as tight a fetal position as I can I find that I only use half the fleece sleeping bag, now I can take the bottom half and wrap it up over myself.  I must look like an idiot, but I immediately feel warmth building in my body.  Ahhhh, heat restored.  I drift off for another fifteen minutes of sleep.

Another Awesome Breakfast

At 06:00 the alarms go off and we all start to gather.  Larry makes coffee and begins breakfast while Archie, Pete, Dad and myself go topside to get the Betty Ann out of her overnight berth.  After we slip the lines we pass out through Atlantic Yacht Basin’s back entrance, and take a right back onto the ICW.

In a few short minutes we find ourselves at the first of many 65 foot bridges.  That’s pretty tall, but so is Archie’s mast which sits at 63 feet, plus has a 3 foot antenna at the top.  As we pass under this bridge, all eyes skyward and as slow as possible, the antenna  hits every girder as we pass.  The slight springy sound of the antenna slapping into steel girders would become a common sound as we pass through other bridges on the ICW, most of which are marked as 65 footers.

Another point of interest was when we were coming up to on of the moving bridges of the waterway.  We heard a boat behind us radio the bridge (there was no one in front of us, so the boat had to be behind us).  They said that they were a sailboat, looking to make the next opening, and that they were behind “another small sailboat in front of them.”

We couldn’t believe our ears!  What?  Small!  Did you see our mast nearly strike the bridge behind us?  If we were any larger we wouldn’t be able to make it down the ICW.  Ha.  Must be an amateur, or some other self-absorbed type.  Clearly his eyes need an adjustment.  This same boat, after passing through the bridge requested to pass us because “their cruising speed is seven-point-five knots, while our own was only seven.”  Fair enough, go on by.  Ahhh though, why then, after an hour are you only ten boat lengths in front of us?  Not quite seven-five eh?

Later on the ICW opens up a little bit and we were able to set sail.  Now, I say it opens up, but this is just the scenery.  There appears to be more water, but in reality there is just a lot of water on either side of you begging to get you stuck.  I was at the helm for this piece and we were able to set a sail as the next few miles all has the wind either off our starboard bow, or abeam to starboard after a turn.  We began to catch the “big boat” as we now joking called it until they too set a sail and we again evened out.  I timed our distance apart by counting how long it took us to get to a mark they had passed, and to me we still seemed very even.

After another turn to the right the wind was back to just off our starboard bow, and the channel takes you through a piece of marsh and an island.  It gets really tight and uncomfortable, but I saw something up ahead that was going to make it a lot more interesting, a tug pushing a rather large barge.  You could tell by the closure rate that we were going to pass right at the narrowest spot by the island.

Pete began a conversation on the radio with the tug.  After a couple false starts, which I think was caused by the faulty microphone in our cockpit (something we would diagnose later), the tug informed us that the water on the green side of the channel was really shallow, and that we would do well to stay clear to the right (island side of the channel) over by the red buoy.  We radioed that we understood, and that we would stay near the red, and pass port to port.  I edged the Betty Ann over to the right as far as I dared, the water depth now read six feet.  The transducer is mounted on the hull somewhere, so we really had around eight or nine feet of water, but there was also the keel to keep in mind which projects anther three feet or so past the transducer.  This means that the “magic number” is somewhere around 3.  If you see that number on the depth gauge prepare to come to a rather sudden stop.

As we closed on the red marker the depth steadily decreased a tenth at a time, and the tug and barge relentlessly marched toward us, growing larger with every second.  Glancing up, I could now clearly see the various scrapes running along the barge’s length…were these war wounds from other boat victims?

“You’re in 5 now.”  Archie says.

I glance back over to the depth gauge and see the depth has indeed decreased to under six, somewhere around five and a half.  Well, the bottom is pretty soft here, I say to myself, I guess that’s something. I’m driving straight at the island and the red pole-mounted marker, there’s not a whole lot more I can do.  To my left there is only barge, I cannot even see open water ahead of me.  We are completely committed now.

The barge passed to our left.  As I looked out the port-side isinglass all I could see was a vertical rust wall moving past.  If I wasn’t at the helm I could have reached out and touched it.  In a few seconds the barge passed and then it was the tug out the left-hand side.  A few more seconds and it’s past as well.  I turn the wheel left and scoot back behind the tug to get back into the middle of the channel.

“That’ll get your pulse up a bit.” I say to Pete.

It’s now getting a little later, and our stomachs are beginning to pine for some food.  Both Pete and I had been thinking about wings at Coinjock since we were offshore.  We’d had them before on a previous trip, and we were both looking forward to them again.  Pete called the restaurant on his cell phone and put in a to-go order for three one-dozen orders of wings.

“She never asked you what flavor?” I ask.

Pete looks at me, then back at his phone.  He dialed the number again and amended the order to two dozen wings, one hot, one mild.

A few minutes later we landed at Coinjock and after tying up Betty Ann the crew rushed onto land for our mini shore leave.  Wallets came out and we traded some cash for t-shirts, hats and more beer as our shipboard supply of beer was running dangerously low.  We filled up on fuel, grabbed our wings from the restaurant and were back on the ICW in about twenty minutes.  We ate our wings and lapped up potato soup that Larry had made. It was actually a really good combo.

A little later dad was at the helm and we were reminded of how narrow the ICW can get, even if there are hundreds of feet of water on either side of you. We were motoring along at our usual 7 knots when the depth gauge suddenly started dropping fast.  This wasn’t too alarming as very often the depth with go from 12 feet, down to 7, then back to 9.  This was different though, it became truly alarming when it dropped past 5 feet and continued.  We all looked around and right next to us was the red marker, about five feet off our starboard side, exactly where it should be.  What was going on?  Are we really going to run aground in the middle of the channel?  No way!  That’s not fair!

The depth continued to drop until it read 2.8.  This is bad.   I’m not sure if we were sticking in the mud, but we must have been because my dad added more throttle and waited.   We all breathed a sigh of relief as the boat accelerated and the depth started to rise again.  Apparently the mud had shifted and now in what was supposed to be the channel there was a large mound of mud.  We thanked the water/ocean Gods for letting us through and continued our journey south.

Awesome sunset treat.

Later in the day we were treated to one of the greater sunsets that I’ve ever seen.  The sky went from a deep blue above us to a brilliant orange that faded to red, and I think it wrapped around about 180 degrees from our bow to our stern.  Just gigantic.

I took a bunch of pictures, and I think I captured the moment, which is one of the main goals of the photographer.  After looking at the pictures I think I found one of the reasons why sunsets at sea are so much better.  The reflections!  In the picture at left you can see how the sunset appears so much larger because it reflects off the water and doubles its size.

A short while later we were anchored up just outside “the cut” with the aromas of Larry’s dinner wafting up from the galley.  And what a dinner it was!  Laid out for our dining pleasure was:

• Fillet Mignon (for me)
• Swordfish with lemon butter (for everyone else)
• Homefries
• Asparagus
• Salad

Sammy, Carrib, and "Ethnically Confused"

There was another treat we had in store for us.  One other purchase that had been made back in Coinjock was ice which we now added to our glasses of rum with much pleasure.  Ahh the luxury!

After we had consumed a couple glasses of of The Captain my dad brought out three wigs that he had brought with him and kept smuggled in his bag.  Time for a Halloween party boys!  My dad, Pete and I put on the wigs and became “Caribbean Guy”, “Sammy Hagar”, and “Ethnically Confused Guy”

The original plan was to go out on the town with our costumes, but since we were anchored out in what was essentially a swamp, we had our own party with more of the rum and a few Yuenglings each.  Only the frogs and birds were entertained by our antics as we partied into the wee hours of the night, which for us I think meant somewhere around 9:00 PM.

November 1, 6:00 AM

I woke up again before the sun, that’s 3 in a row!  I spent a few minutes on deck with Pete and Archie discussing the possible location of  a lighthouse light that we were seeing off our starboard quarter.  Once the dawn had lightened enough for Archie to be able to see, we hauled anchor and began motoring out of our anchorage.  We were the last ones in the previous night, and by all accounts we were the first ones out this morning.  We’re hardcore!

A few short minutes later we were making our turn into “the ditch” which is a series of long straight cuts through the jungle-cypress-swamp on either side. We were on alert for cows, which someone had read were to be seen pasturing on either sode.  We never saw a single one.

Are we in the Serengeti?

There was plenty of nature to be seen though, including a bald eagle!  Unfortunately not only did I not have my camera on deck, but it had the wrong lens on (not the zoom).  I ran to get it anyway and ended up with a picture of a lot of trees with what you can almost tell is a bald eagle.  Oh well…

Another theme of the day were all these boats behind us that were worried about their masts hitting the bridges.  We went under one and had “full tickle” (where the antenna on the top of our mast hits every girder on the bridge) so we radioed out this fact, and that the bridge was reading 64.5 to 65 feet of clearance.  We never got a reply so we were starting to believe (as opposed to suspect) that there was something wrong with our radio (perhaps from too many full tickles).  The radio continued to chatter all day with these boats talking back and forth about bridge heights.  Along with the constant radio traffic of power boats asking to pass sailboats, it get’s a little tiring.

I spent a lot of time on deck basking in the sun, taking nature shots and basking in the sun some more.  There were a lof of logs and stumps lining the river whose reflections made for some interesting pictures.

Bird and Sky

Later on we found ourselves in a larger opening of water just before Belhaven and there were tons of birds flying around.  I was in full photographer mode and spent another half-hour or so trying to get a full-frame shot of one of them.  I never got the exact picture I wanted, but I got a couple that I was satisfied with.

A little later we arrived outside of Belhaven with the wind off our starboard side.  We needed to make a left-hand turn to Goose Creek, but doing so would force us to jibe, and we were all feeling lazy.  Dad, who was at the helm, instead decided on a 270 degree tack, the lazy jibe.  The maneuver worked out fine though and we were soon sailing our way through the Bay River passing through Kenyon Bay, Sparrows Gut, and Great Gut Bay.

There was an additional moment of excitement when a power boat raced past us on our right.  I was at the helm at the time and looked on my chart to see where the boat was going.  I realized that he was headed straight for a very shallow part that was clearly marked with a buoy.  He was well inside of where he should have been, and he should have been well aware of it as well.  I pointed out the impending tragedy that was about to happen to my crew mates and we watched as he  blindly drove right over the shallows.  We completely expected his engines to come ripping off his stern, but they did not.  He got very lucky and his boat was spared from complete destruction.

Later we were passed by a much saner and respectable boat called the Viking Fjord.  We had been listening to the captain on the radio as he passed other sailboats behind us and decided that he would be a good candidate to use as a test for our radio.  Earlier we had noticed that the wires going to the handset on the cockpit were frayed, and that this was very likely the reason many of our transmissions were going unheard.  It turned out that this was the case because he could hear us much better when we used the handset in the navigation station down below.

We crossed the Neusse River in a quick two miles, and had lunch on the way.  Burgers!  These things were great, lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup (just a touch) and relish (and mushrooms for everyone else).  Something about the simple ingredient list made these some really great burgers.  Plus, I mean common, it’s a burger.

Larry Spotting Buoys

We followed another sailboat into the Goose River (I think that’s what it was called) which was narrow at first, but proved easy.  We passed a Coast Guard inflatable with two Coasties that looked like they were having too much fun bombing around in their boat.  Later on the channel closed up again and the chart showed zeros on either side of us…not comfortable.  I was still at the helm nervously poking my way forward.  The unease was magnified when we came around a corner to see a sailboat aground.  The captain was prepared though, he used his inflatable dinghy as a sort of tug and pushed his boat’s bow back over into the channel while his wife advanced the throttle to get back into deeper water.  For a while it looked like she was going to drive right over to the shore on the opposite side and jump ship.  We figured maybe she had finally had enough of this sailing adventure and wanted off.  She didn’t though, and the man in the dinghy was finally able to catch up and re-board his ship.

We made it through the scary-shallows, followed a Canadian boat out into Pamlico sound, and watched with pleasure as the depths increased to very comfortable numbers.  Since we had a good wind going we set our sails and shut down the engine for a fuel filter change.  Even with just our sails up the strong breeze was pushing us along at 6 or so knots.  We looked over our shoulders and noticed with pleasure that the sailboat behind us who was still motoring was not making ground on us.

After changing the filter we fired up the diesel again and motor-sailed.  After a while we came to a right-hand turn that put the wind right on our stern.  I did all right for a while trying to keep the wind from getting behind the sail and jibing us.  It didn’t last long though, a few minutes later an especially large roller got under our stern and I didn’t keep up with it fast enough.  Frantically turning the wheel to right was not enough the prevent the wind from getting under the port side of our main sail.  There’s not many things on a sailboat that sound worse than an accidental jibe.  When fifteen knots of wind gets behind three-hundred square feet of sail, it creates a lot of force, and a lot of noise when it comes to rest on the other side.

We decided against further attempts to motor sail downwind.  I turned into the wind and we brought the sails back into their furlers.

November 1, 2010 – 3:45 PM

Pete takes over for me at the helm – I had been there since 11:30 so I was definitely ready for a break.  I went down below to attempt a nap but had no success, so I went back up on deck to join the conversation which was currently deciding whether or not to sail through the night.  We listened to the weather radio which was reporting winds 15 to 20 out of the North East and waves at 7 and building.  I know we were all thinking the same thing, a night at anchor is starting to sound pretty good.

Around 6PM at the entrance to Adam’s Creek we made the decision to anchor there and continue on in the morning.  The weather should be better tomorrow, there are still a lot of miles to go before we hit open water, and none of us really wanted to do those at night.

Larry Cookin' up a Storm

After anchoring we sat down to another slammin’ dinner of salad, pork chops, dirty rice with beans, baked beans, bread and Yuengling (of course).  That’s a lot of beans.  After finishing up dinner we headed up on deck to watch the sunset (how do I not have a picture!) and enjoy more beer.

As the sun settled and the night arrived, we watched as a couple tugs passed behind us, always marveling at the sheer skill it takes to bring a 300 foot barge through the same places that we were so carefully navigating our boat.  And this was at night no less!  In addition, you can feel the power from the “however many horsepower” engines chugging away inside the rounded hulls.

Later, when the full darkness of night had settled upon the quiet anchorage, my dad and I were still on deck when two speedboats zipped by, wide open, with no lights on.

“Those guys are crazy.” we both said.

Later on we noticed a boat come out of a nearby harbor with a search light scanning the shoreline, and we heard a helicopter in the distance.  There were only 2 possible options we could think of, either the boats were part of a drug run, or they had crashed and there was now an active search going on.  We checked the radio, but there was no Coast Guard announcement of “missing boats” or anything, so we were convinced that however unlikely it was, maybe it really was a drug run.

Pete and Larry shower, so we run the engine to heat up the water, and then we’re all in bed by about 9:30.

November 2, 6:15 AM

Wow, 6:15?  We slept in today!  After seeing 4 sunrises in a row my body is in tune with the solar rhythm now.  Kind of like hiking I’ve become synchronized to the sun.

The Black Boat

As we were readying to pull anchor I saw two boats come around the corner from the south.   Finally the mystery from last night is revealed.  It was neither of our guesses and was actually a Naval exercise.  As the boats got closer we could see that this was some sort of elite squad – seals?  They were all blacked out, and there was some sort of machine gun on each boat’s bow.

I happened to have my camera on deck and took a couple shots as they raced by.  In one of the pictures you can clearly see the driver of the lead boat looking right at me.  He almost seems to be thinking, “Hmmmm…should I take him out?  Nah…I’ll let him live.”

With all our questions from last night answered, we pulled anchor and headed towards Beaufort North Carolina which was the terminating point of last year’s trip (not by design).  We won’t be stopping this year, and after Beaufort I will be in waters that I have never sailed before.  Ahead of me lies the last piece of water that I need to have sailed all the waters between Point Judith, Rhode Island and Tampa, Florida.

There’s a sense of trepidation on the boat as we all start to consider what could be a very nasty Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday night, Wednesday, and Wednesday night.  There’s going to be big following seas the whole way, and the wind hasn’t let up at all.  It’s pretty much going to be going back into the same water-based rock tumbler that we were in before.

Larry cooks us up a nice breakfast of oatmeal with rasins, pancakes, ham, coffee and orange wedges.  After breakfast I go down to write in my journal for a while.  At this point I’ve stopped writing prose and am just writing down bullet points of things I want to talk about.

The Rest of The Journey

Back in Open Water

Dolpheeeen off the bow!

I never entered anything for the next two days in my journal, so I don’t have specifics.  It did suck for a while, but not nearly as much as the northern section, and I still took a bunch of pictures.

The predicted high seas did not disappoint and we spent two days rolling around in them.  It’s very difficult to get a picture of waves that really describes their true size, and how they make you feel.  I did get a couple though that come close.

I also got my best dolphin picture yet.  In the past when dolphin have been around I’ve tried to get the “dolphin all the way out of the water” shot and never ever came close.  You always get te nose, or the tail, but never all of it.  I’ve taken 60 or 70 shots before and never gotten anything.

This time I wasn’t really into it so I was just holding my camera outside the canopy above my head, sort of nonchalantly waiting for a dolphin to appear off our bow.  I saw one jump out of the corner of my eye and depressed the shutter release button.  When I looked at the preview I could not believe my eyes.  There was the beast in full profile, and the composition of the photo wasn’t bad either.  Ok, sweet!  I guess I can cross that one off the list and start working on the “dolphin that takes up an entire frame” shot.  Maybe before I die  might actually get that one!

Big Roller off the Bow

I don’t remember too many other specifics of the final leg to Charlestown except that we made exceptional time due to the generous tailwind we were enjoying. By virtue of this we made it to Charlestown on Wednesday morning and were able to have a night of crew leave.  We ended up at the same rib place that we had been to before but by accident, then on the way back we stopped by the bar at the marina.  In true sailor fashion I stayed there a little too long, bought my brother a shirt (but didn’t remember I had the next morning) and stumbled back to my bunk.

Sailing Maina - Pointing Well Up To Concarneau

Sailing Log of Maïna

What follows is the log of our trip to France sailing on Maïna, a Beneteau Oceanis 411. The convention is pretty easy to follow, sections starting with “(A)” were log entries written by Andrew, sections beginning with “(D)” were written by Dad (Jim). Truly an awesome experience!

Also, you will see reference to “bets” between dad and I.  This is an idea we stole from a book “My Old Man and The Sea” where the son and father use large, fake bets to make the trip more interesting. (The book is a good read and I recommend it to anyone who likes reading this kind if stuff, which, if you’re reading this (and like it), you probably do.)

Anyway…on with the show!

21 August 2003 – 1230 – The Adventure Begins

(A) Sitting in the Westerly train station waiting for the train. Hmmm I guess that’s what you do at a train station.

“Where you guys headed?” ”Nowhere, just hanging at the station.”

Yeah right haha…

I guess the train’s running a little late. Dad and I entertained thoughts of going over to the bar next door for a couple of “eye openers” but thought better of it. Maybe not such a bad idea though since it’s 6:30 pm where we’re going. What better way to adjust to the new time zone? I wonder if all train stations have bars next to them. That would make a kind of neat book (and a lot of fun to write too). Take a long train trip and ….accela just went by…..man would it hurt to get hit by that. Of course TGV can blow that thing away.  Anyway, back to the topic of the train-bar-hopping trip. That would be a pretty neat I think.

22-August – Paris to the Marina

(A) We’re here!  Boy, I need a shower. Ooh, I almost forgot.  What would a trans-continental flight be without a baby crying for the ENTIRE trip? Granted, sometimes it wasn’t crying as much as at other times, but it was always there.  And a baby crying most of the time might as well be crying all the time.   Then the guy sitting behind us, he had a case of the plague or something, he kept blowing his nose and stuff…that’s nice.   But as usual the Air France crew was very nice and the food was good – supper and breakfast.

While waiting at the Mount Parnesse train station a couple of interesting things happened. While Dad was getting the tickets, a nice looking, well-dressed lady came up to me and started speaking in French. “Je ne parles pas Françoise” I replied. So she repeated whatever she has said so I repeated what I had said. This time she realized what I was saying so she tried a third time except this time she just held out her hand and said “Money …. my child”, while pointing to the child strapped into the carriage in front of her. After awhile I managed to convince her I wasn’t going to give her anything.

After that we got a bite to eat and then sat by the “Big Board” waiting to see which track the “St Nazair” train left from. I had to take a leak so I struck off to find a bathroom.

TOILETTE

Ahhh, I read the sign and walked to the right.

Confused….hmmm, I suppose that that’s men’s bathroom. I entered the door not quite sure which way to go. I finally saw a sign for “Hommes” and went that way. There was a set of turnstiles there like you see in a subway (should have been my first clue, but I was tired and being a stupid American).  A voice behind me started yelling so I turned my travel-weary body in the direction of the voice to see what’s up. The guy said something in French and, seeing I had no idea what he was saying, switched to English.

“Do you not see the countere? You must pay. You do not know you must pay?”

“No…I mean…Non, Je’n sais pas”.

I think he lectured me for a bit longer, I really don’t remember. I just wanted to go to the bathroom. I eventually gave the lady at the counter a ½ e piece and she handed me back 10 centimes and a token. I turned and went back to the turnstile, put in my token and pushed on the stile to the right. No go!

“Outré – outré!” the voice behind me called.

Ahhh, the other one of course, man do I feel like an idiot (imbécile, crétin), and yes it worked. Anyway, I went in, did my business and got lost on the way out too. This is not going well!  I better just go back and sit down.

Back on the bench…

We saw a dog crap on the floor too (we’ll see another dog do this later). Then me and the old French lady beside me waited eagerly to see who would step in it first.  No words were exchanged, but I’m sure we both understood the game we were both playing.

Travel does strange things to people.

(D) Words from Pop.

We’re floating through the French countryside on a bright sunny day. Ahhh, the TGV; a world apart from the flight with a record breaking 6 hour crying baby. Lunch was jambon and buerre on a crusty petite baguette – and a Lipitor to address all the buerre.

Armed with the knowledge that a cab ride from Charles De Gaulle to Mt. Parnesse was 40 euro we weren’t too alarmed at the seemingly circuitous route the driver took through Paris. But we arrived at 38 euro and had an early morning glimpse of the city without crowded streets. It’s a pleasure to see a population absent the fat families of home.  So, I’m wishing the train good speed as I will be “up $1000” on my bets with Andrew if we arrive within four minutes of schedule.

Oh yeah, another thought from a tired mind. We honestly declared the three CO2 cartridges in our luggage for our life vests and had them promptly confiscated. Two hours later as we watched the safety video showing how 300 passengers could each inflate the lifejackets under their seats by pulling the CO2 inflator, we realized we’d been had!  I hope they sell the right size replacements at the marina or we’re screwed. Two strikes with Frederique – no boots et non flotation.

At 4:16 pm the train stops at Le Croisic, “Sweet” another $1000 in the betting bank but moderated by -$200 because Eric and Catherine were alone to greet us. We make a quick stop at Batz to shower, meet Francois, Lawrence, Eve and Jean; drink a bier and then pile into two cars bound for La Trinity–sur-Mer where we will be introduced to Maïna, our home for the next week. And what a home! She’s nearly new with only three prior trips and she’s well fitted out for cruising.

Francois takes charge of stowing a huge pile of provisions and I wonder if we will be able to take everything. Included, just to highlight but two items, are 12 bottles of wine Uncle Bernard has chosen and 12 dozen eggs which Eric will use to introduce the American breakfast egg sandwich to the French at each port-of-call. Then we’re off to a wonderful dinner of mussels and frites (steak Pouivre for Andrew). At about midnight we return to Maïna, bid farewell to Jean and Francois and begin to plan our first leg. Andrew and I crawl into the port quarter berth. I am tired but unable to sleep.

Oh yeah – Flip, should you read this, we’ll sail with the companionway slats OUT and put the transom seat in the DOWN position in port – there’s actually a slot in the seat section which fits in the rails just for this purpose!

23 August 0700 – We’re on a boat, and it’s Freakin Awesome!

(D) The smell of coffee and creaking of the companionway stairs announces the start of the day. Frederique and I lay out the course to Belle Isle separately and find we agree –nearly exactly.  So Andrew puts the waypoints into the GPS via latitude/longitude and finds that two are fifty miles from the intended location…boy, tough getting used to writing longitudes that begin with 003 degrees instead of 071.

A quick trip to town produces a single pair of sea boots (size 41) which Andrew and I will have to share and hopefully we’ll fool Frederique by taking separate watches if we need to appear properly fitted out. No CO2 cartridges for me but Andrew scores. 1145 and the voyage and excitement begins.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Charter representative who spoke fluent English (ha-ha) who checked us out. He got our checklist and couldn’t figure out why I kept asking where the fuel/water separator was located. Catherine translates “It’s a new boat so you won’t need one. Just call us if you have a problem and I’ll come out and fix it for you.” C’est-la-vie.

Back to 1145. Fred gives the order to get underway and I back $250,000 worth of fiberglass into the channel – and to the sudden discovery of French sailing psyche. “Gentlemen raise your sails and race to Belle Isle”. Never mind the green crew, reversed buoys, unfamiliar boat (yes, the sail cover does need to be opened and the reef lines eased out).  But we make it to the mouth of the channel in a fresh breeze, with pounding hearts and big smiles. Tensions ebb and flow as we encounter a regatta, lose the wind, gain a current and are startled by a VHF radio which periodically sounds a repeating alarm (we’ll figure out that soon).

Ahh, but the reward is sweet! At a mooring outside Sauzon Harbor we have perfect weather and a good swim – uninhibited people. Maïna has delivered us to a cruiser’s paradise in 3 hours 45 minutes.  What may become the routine of the cruise sets in. Sail, moor, swim, aperitif, “annex” into town dock (annex = dingy), shop for souvenirs and bread, annex back to Maina, wine, dinner, plan for tomorrow, check the Meteo (weather) and to bed. No matter that it is 2400 – 0100!

24 August – Port Tudy, Sauzon – A Dog Craps

(D) Quick entry as it is ten past midnight and we must arise at 0300 for trip to Le Glennan.

First night – windy at the mooring, early departure and good sail in force 4 wind till noon. Then anchor and break for lunch. Then Frederique wants to practice raising the spinnaker (la spi) in light winds and heat. Then to Isle de Groix (just look at Eric’s pictures to see what a cool place this is). To town and an ancient style shithouse (see sketch) which prevents Eric from dumping. But a dog does crap on someone’s annex.  Beer at a great bar – party boat in annex singing great songs while we eat huitres, Country chicken and red and white wines. Plot course on paper and GPS, abed for three hours sleep. “Don’t forget the tale of “The Jesus People”!

Port Tudy - Beverages

(A) I have to expand on the whole dog crap thing.  This was absolutely one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  We’re just sitting at a table outside the bar, enjoying our frosty beverages, when we see this wharf dog appear and begin to trot around.  This dog actually backs himself up to an overturned dinghy and proceeds to lay a deuce right on top of it!  I wish we had a video of it, because I’m sure no one will believe that it actually happened…but it did!

25 August – The Overnight (sort of)

(D)  At 0300 the neighboring boat has a person standing by for our departure but no plan. A great and rapid exchange in French with Fred has us underway and them adrift at the bow end.

“Too bad for them” says Fred.

We put into a stiff breeze and slight swell and the man overboard light keeps falling and flashing. Andrew at the helm, me Eric and Fred on the winches. Hoist the main, unfurl the Genoa and fall off into an exhilarating 7-8 knot sail. All in PFD’s, harnesses and lanyards.

Our charted course and GPS coincide and we begin to relax. Fishing boats abound and we see a possible submarine appear astern with flashing amber light.  Sunrise approaches as we race to Isle de Glennan for Eric’s planned sunrise photos.  We are to turn toward Glennan at first light and tension regains its hold. Andrew is still at the helm but goes to “triboard” instead of “baboard” saying “There’s combers breaking over there!”

Across the top we practice coming about “Paree a virer” “Envoyez”

Fred describes the entry point and we tack towards “Pei” and the anchorage beyond. Eric gets his photos but confusion on maneuvers results in Andrew coming about much to Fred’s dismay. This was her sailing school and she wanted to enter under sail in grand fashion. But we had lowered sails and motored in.

Perhaps this was a result of language confusion but I think Fred misjudged where we were. We had agreed on an approach but ended up in a blind cove filled with boats. Andrew was cool and we got back to open water.

Couse Into Glenans

(A) Ok, a little more on the excitement upon entry.  I drew an example of the course we took on the way into Les Glenans (click the image at left to see a larger version, I traced it from the Google Map Satellite View).  The top of the image indicates where we came in from, that’s all nice, safe, deep water (we even did a loop while trying to figure out exactly where the entrance is.  One thing we did not want to do was run aground in our nice shiny new boat.

Upon entering we saw a lot of masts so we headed that direction (where the red line juts downward.  The only problem was that we didn’t realize there were two harbors, one that we were entering and one behind that tiny strip of sand which just so happens to be awash at high tide.  This second harbor, the one behind a beach, was our intended destination.  At the helm, I realized what was about to happen (we were sailing full-bore, both sails up and engine off, into a dead end packed with boats).  We were literally forty seconds from either going aground or having it get very exciting as we try tack and jibe our way through a full mooring field back to safety.

I turned hard to starboard, yelled “Tacking!” and pulled a 180.  I remember someone asking me “Where are you going?!”.  “Back the way we came in!” was my reply.  Much to Fred’s dismay, the crew decides to drop sail and continue on power (she was hoping to come in under sail alone like she learned at sailing school, and really who could blame her?  But after a near-grounding, safety was more prominent on our minds).  It all turned out well though.  We found our way around to the other side and found a spot to moor.

(D) First an omelet, then a nap for all. Eric stays aboard for another nap and our shore party departs for a swim and to visit a café for our aperitif (see sketch).

Fred recounts how, when here at sailing school, they could only get to the café for a beer when the tide was low enough to cross the bar. The islands have become a tourist attraction and, like Block Island, several ferries disgorge crowds of people who go to the beach, have something to eat and drink and then return on the afternoon boats leaving things peaceful once again.

{picture off Eric’s preacher dive}

{sketch of Glennan beach}

Most of us, well perhaps not Bernard, feel we have pushed hard enough and would like to chill out here and then head back but Fred has in mind to see Point Raz and Isle de Seine as she puts it “for Eric’s pictures”. We defer decision.

Dog story #2. A family coming back from the beach has a cool dog and also an ankle biter. The incoming tide is rushing across the bar so the guy is carrying the little dog like a kitten by the scruff of its neck. I think he heard Andrew and me commenting, but for whatever reason he drops the dog into the water saying “Je fatigue”.

(A) …cool dog?

26 August – Up The River Without A Paddle!

(D) It rained last night but the dawn breaks clear and breezy as we slip the mooring under sail alone. We tack through the narrow rocky channel and into the open water while others leave under power. Frederique’s reputation is restored at la Glennan Cole Antique!

Our spirits are soon moderated as the wind clocks around and drops to force 1. On with le meteor for an eight hour leg down the coast.  Dolphins and picturesque lighthouses offer moments of fascination as we work our way toward St. Eves and Audienne. As we approach the final set of cardinal buoys (we’re really getting to like these aids) Fred offers up another surprise.

“We go up the river to town to buy fresh fish and baguettes”.

Andrew’s attempt to negotiate a mooring with “We can get everything we need at the marina” bears no fruit. So with me at the helm we proceed up an unknown river with a quick look at the guidebook. The picturesque town is worth the stress but we have only 1 ½ hours as the tide is falling.

(A) In other words…we’re afraid of running aground in the middle of a river!

(D) We shop for supplies and go to the post office. Then Catherine and Fred go to market, Eric for film and Bernard and I to la poissonire for the fresh fish. He doesn’t know what to buy so he lets me order while he coaches me with the language as needed.

The triumphant hunter-gatherer returns from his expedition with a baggette in hand.

Andrew and I get back to Maïna first. A Swedish boat is rafted alongside which could delay us past our required departure time. We’re worried that we can’t communicate our dilemma but we are greeted in English by the woman aboard who says she saw our (American) flag flying.

Time to depart and an old tactic proves successful to communicate my level of stress.

“Fred, you will take the boat off the dock and out while I tend lines”

“I’ve never sailed a boat with a wheel helm.” her nervous reply.

So I back her out and conciliations are offered as we maneuver to a mooring.

Only Eric’s pictures will be able to convey the beauty of this coastline and the natural and man-made features upon it.

Bernard and I forgo the annex trip to the marina for douches and aperitifs in the now cool and breezy evening. I fillet the turbot while he prepares the potatoes for the chowder Catherine plans to prepare. Three Coronas later we are jesting our way across the language barrier. Our annex arrives. Andrew will have to cover that trip and relate the tale of the hot chicks.  Now it approaches 9:30 pm and all is in complete French order. Aperitifs, dejunier and wine late into the night.

(A)  Too tired to write very much. Good food has been constant. I’m not sure which was better, the country chicken, or the chicken pasta meal. I had two big helpings of both of them.. I think the country chicken may take the prize just because the night was good overall. This was when we were in Port Trudy. One that’s pretty cool in that boats tie up to big moorings front to stern, and then others raft up till there’s no more room.

(Editorial note: Apparently I didn’t write down the “Hot Chicks” story, and now, 7 years later,  it has faded from memory)

(attempt at map)

27 August – “The Muntiny on the Maïna” and Onward To Concarneau

(A) This place is cool. It’s just the kind of port we needed after a long and sometimes stressful sail. The day started with kind of rough weather and a mutiny of sorts. We were sailing towards some island to the north and had a couple of “almost broaches” with the spinnaker and accidental jibes.  I was on the mast and spent one terrifying moment hanging on to it, looking at the water racing by below me as the boat heeled over fifty degrees.  After that we decided to force the idea of turning around and heading towards Concarneau as it was > 20 miles away and getting further all the time.  Our captain was not happy about this, but the crew was quite insistent.

Sunset on A Glassy Sea

We ended up having a great upwind sail and actually putting reefs in the main and jib when the wind approached 20 knots. Of course after we put in the reefs the wind dropped to 14 knots, mother nature is always messing with you.

We arrived outside Concarneau just before sunset.  The wind had dropped and the reflection of the sunset upon a mottled sea made for an amazing visual.  The sea looked surreal (perhaps the fatigue was setting in too.)  However, we were treated with this fantastic sunset on the same day we had also witnessed an amazing sunrise.  Perfection!

Anyway, when we finally reached Concarneau and made it ashore I was amazed. This place looks like Disney World I said.  Well, actually Epcot Center Dad added which was actually a better description. I think the thing that makes it seem so surreal at first are these blue neon lights that run along the edge of the wall. They were there I assume to prevent drunk sailors returning from the bar from walking off the edge into the water.

At the end of the wall is the entrance to an old castle whose wall still extends around the harbor and is lit at night. Inside is a street of shops, ice cream stands and restaurants. We stopped for dinner and my steak came very red in the middle (how I ordered it I think) but it tasted so good. It came with fries too which I had been craving for awhile.

Is This a Dream?

Anyway, I really like this town and wish we had a couple of days to explore before we must depart tomorrow, probably for the same harbor we stayed at our first night which is fine by me because they had nice big, easy-to-catch mooring balls. Docking a 41’ boat that you’ve only docked a couple of times before can be very stressful. We’ve had no time to see how the boat reacts in slow maneuvering. Anyway, until next time.

(D) Well Andrew covered the “mutiny” and that part so I’ll comment about the dangers of fatigue. We’re having a great time so it seems strange to realize how tired we’ve become – more mentally than physically but certainly both. Good thing we’ve become a team because we’ve been able to cover mistakes as they’ve come up –plotting errors, winch mistakes, missing cardinals, going the wrong side of a red buoy (not the Americans). I got to the point at the end of yesterday where I was nearly in a trance. We’ve all gotten to feel comfortable in Maina – she’s a fine boat and once we give the Grand-Voile blocks some of the same olive oil we gave the rudder post she’ll stop making so many annoying noises. We spent some time putting things back in order – the boat really got pretty well trashed the last two days.

28 August – Back to the Future

At the helm during a rolling sea.

(A) We had a cool sail…. I mean motor…from Concarneau to Sauzon, a 30 – 40 mile steam.  There were a couple of cool things. One was an abundance of dolphins with one big pod and a number of other small ones. One of the smaller ones hung out for awhile at our bow. I’m not sure if I got a good picture or not – we’ll see. (Editorial Note:  The answer is no.)

There were also huge rollers out in open where we were today, probably 12-15 feet I guess. The peaks were above my head while I was standing at the helm which is a few feet off the water already.  Anyway, these were the largest waves I’ve been in yet (in a boat that’s not a ferry or something) and it was cool.  Any time you’re in a boat looking up at the water you know there are some major forces at work.  You can’t help but gain a little more respect for the ocean and its power.

There’s a hard decision that you have to make while living on a boat. Would you rather have a cool, fresh, damp cabin or a hot, drier, smelly cabin? We aired out all our sleeping bags and pillows today in a vain attempt to dry them, but something still smells funny in the boat. So I would like to open some windows and air out the smell but I don’t want more wet salt air and dew to get in. I guess the approaching thunderstorm may decide for me.

After taking 3 hot showers each, the crew spotted this sign in the distance....

(D) Back to Sauzon and all realize the end is near. We eat dinner at a local café rather than aboard. It was OK but since this was our last night I think the close camaraderie in Maïna’s salon would have been more fitting – besides, we still have 5 bottles of Bernard’s wine!!

Fred slept most of the trip back since we put up the “iron jib” when becalmed outside Audienne. Fred draws no energy from anything but true sailing. So the motor, plus the offshore route offered nothing of interest.  Big swells and pods of dolphin were nice but nothing to see since we were well offshore until approaching Grois where Eric started taking pictures of big breakers with his telephoto lens.

Fred wants “to learn the motor” so we give her the helm once in the lee of Sauzon Harbor. Full astern for 30 seconds – full ahead – full astern. “OK enough.”

29 August – The Final Sail

(D) Late sleep today (0700) as we have only a short sail back. Café, toast with butter and jam and we’re off. Perfect sailing conditions and Fred is at the helm enjoying every moment.  Andrew’s GPS course adjustments take us safely through the narrows and we’re blowing past everything, including a catamaran that should be whipping us. We sail into La Trinite channel under full main and Genoa.

“It is more impressive that way”, says Fred.

Future Sailors Enjoying the Day

Closer, closer, closer and finally down with the sails. On the way in we pass six classes of sailing school flotillas with kids from age 8-9 through teenagers racing annexes, sloops and catamarans. No wonder the concern about image. As Fred maneuvers in the marina however, things are different and Catherine’s call for us to help gets our attention.

Finally, tied up at “M” dock. Bernard produces the bottle he has been saving for a celebration – red Bordeaux, ‘89 I believe. Many a toast to Maina, then beers followed by rum punch. None of us want to leave emotionally (but a shower and a dry bed would be fine). We spend three hours putting Maïna in Bristol condition and unload just in time to meet Jean, Francois, Anne and Eves.

Eve’s first reaction when coming aboard is “It’s a Parisian boat – electronics, electric winches, auto helm and GPS.” But now Fred took issue with that. Like the rest of us she doesn’t want to leave her.

“Tired?” No matter – aperitifs at local café, then a walk to dinner. Andrew and Eric have convinced most of us – Six steak poivre and frites!

During the hour plus drive back to Batz, Fred and I talk about her experiences at La Glennan School.  It immediately becomes clear why she feels and behaves as she does. All the sailing at the school is done under sail alone – no moteur! She’s sailed in and around Glenan in all weather, day and night and up the coast to the Channel Islands, Ireland and England all in a 27’ boat with a crew of 6-7. Their only concerns weather, wind and current. So they sail when they need to no matter the hour and adjust as they go. Whatever it took to beat the weather, wind, currents and the other boats.

(A) We head back to La Trinite to return the boat. Kind of mixed emotions about that. I’m half ready to get off and half wanting to keep sailing. But I know that I’m ready to get off because my navigating is starting to suffer. I think a day or two off with out 12 – 14 hours of sailing would solve that. If there is another trip I’d like to stay longer in port. I bet there’s a lot of cool places to go exploring. Oh, one more thing, we finally found the CD player!!

Unscrew the retaining ring (I think it only needs about a quarter turn), pull out the bulb and detach it from the wiring harness, replace with the new bulb, re-insert it back into the housing, and secure it in place with the retaining ring. Now you have to wiggle the light housing’s threaded rods (there are three) back into those tabs that you released to get it out. The threaded rods can be moved around to make this easier. When the housing is back in place, you’ll be able to see these little plastic things sticking out of the tabs, push back down on the tabs to lock the housing into place. Make sure that the housing it secure and doesn’t move around, if it does it means you didn’t get it back into place well enough. Replace the plastic plate on top and you’re done. The procedure for both headlights is essentially the same.

At first I was thinking to myself “This is so stupid and typical of newer cars.” But after I figured it out, it’s pretty easy to do. The second headlight only took me about 5 minutes.

Introduction

This is the journal from my experience on the Betty Ann sailboat during a delivery from Annapolis, Maryland to Point Judith, Rhode Island.  This would be my first of many trips aboard this fine vessel.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did living (and writing) it!

After reading (or during, whatever your preference), make sure to view the pictures of this trip over at photo.killfly.com!  There are also some pictures of a more recent southbound delivery, which are even geotagged, a new feature I was trying out.

Eventually, I’ll get my pictures of yet another northbound delivery, this one from Tampa, Florida to Charlestown, South Carolina.  We had a stopover in Key West, which was, obviously, one of the highlights of the trip.

So grab a glass of your favorite beverage, light a fire if it’s cold out, and prepare to go on an adventure with me and the crew of the Betty Ann…

Sunday, May 20th : 8:38 PM

Whew man, long day. Today started at 5:30am in Quonny, RI. I cautiously opened my eyes to reveal a day starting much darker than I’m used to. “What is this daylight savings?”, no, just dawn AM, or the butt crack of morning, whatever you want to call it. No one cares about this part of the trip so I’ll just get right to the point so we can get to the good stuff:

• Drive to George’s house
• Park dad’s truck and Gerry’s car at some logger’s log storage area (what else would be in a logger’s storage area?)
• All pile into George’s car with his wife Maime.
• Get to KPVD, and unload the bags. The frozen Italian Country Chicken dinner made it through the x-ray scanner ok. This was slightly surprising, we expected to be asked at least a couple questions about it.
• Dad got the full security scan because of his steel hip parts. “I’m sorry sir, but you’re going to have to leave your hip here, I can’t let it on the plane.”
• Land at BWI, and all pile in Eric’s explorer and head for the marina where the Betty Ann is waiting for us.
• We sat down for some breakfast and Archie joined us. His breakfast turned out to be the best, the Crème Brulee comes highly recommended.
• Say goodbye to Eric who looked like he really wanted to come with us.
• Shove off into the Chesapeake.

Ok, now we’re getting to some boat talk, after all that’s why you’re reading this right? Let’s back up a little bit to breakfast. We all watched in detached pleasure (pleasure because it wasn’t us) as a sailboat attempted to depart its slip only to realize that the turn was too tight, and they weren’t ready for the wind that was going to blow them down towards the pier wall. I bet the wish they had a bow thruster (we do, ha ha ha). After watching the mini-drama unfold we took our first crew-vote on what to do today. There were two options:

1. Leave tomorrow morning, and go visit the surrounding area.
2. Leave right now.

We all chose option 2, let’s go sail!

Our departure was decidedly better than the one we had witnessed just minutes ago. We had the wind in our favor and a bow thruster to help our bow across, but I still think we looked pretty sharp, especially for a crew that had just come together.  Gerry, who was tasked with getting our lines off the pier, almost didn’t make it back on the boat, but one quick leap from the edge of the finger pier landed him square on the boat’s deck. I think every landing/departure has to have at least a little drama associated with it.

We motor-sailed through the day, up the Chesapeake all the way to the beginning of the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal (CD Canal). The first thing you notice on the Chesapeake is the water; brown. I made a silent mental note to keep track of the water color and watch it turn from brown to blue, which is the color salt water should be in my opinion. The second thing you notice about the Chesapeake is how big it is. I’m sure this is the same feeling that sailors get the first time they venture out onto any of the Great Lakes.

Eric had told me weeks before that the average depth of the Chesapeake is four or five feet, or something like that. When you’re in a sailboat you can’t help but think about the keel underneath you, slicing through the water just waiting to hit something. However, after getting out into the larger part of the Chesapeake, most of those fears melted away; we had plenty of water. The fear-melting was accelerated by the pinpoint accuracy and information-laden GPS chart plotter we had on board (more about that later).

I was able to take a nice spate at the helm, and used that time to get the main functions of the GPS unit under my belt. I can now pretty quickly plot a new course, and get the autopilot to track towards it for me. Autopilot is cool, but I still prefer keeping my hand on the wheel. I think there’s no better way to learn, and remind you that you are in control of, the boat.

Because this waterway is trafficked by commercial vessels, it is heavily populated by one of my favorite navigational aids, the range light. I think there is absolutely no better way to stay on a straight line course then to keep two range lights on top of each other. For those who don’t know, a range light is two lights that you use to keep your vessel in a channel. One of the two lights is set in front of, and below the other. Using this simple setup you can see if you are drifting off course. Assuming that you’re driving towards the light, if the bottom light begins to move to the right you know that you are drifting left of the channel and need to adjust to the right.

We had planned on a stop at the Chesapeake marina, which is just inside the canal on the Chesapeake side. Archie called them on the radio and we were informed that they did indeed have space for our boat, but not until 9:00 that night. “Well, we’ll be by you by then.” said Archie, and we continued on deeper into the canal.

The canal itself isn’t all that exciting, you really feel like you’re just driving through a long breechway, which I guess you are in a way. After motoring around another few bends, we found another marina in the cruising guide that appeared to have depth enough for us. There was some brief confusion on the radio and in the cockpit about where exactly we should bring our boat in, I’ll try to recreate as much as I can remember here:

“Midway marina, Midway marina, this is the Betty Ann.” Archie said into the microphone.

“Betty Ann, this is the Midway Marina, go ahead.” the Marina replied.

“Yes, we’re fifty feet long. Fifteen and a half foot beam. We draw five and a half. Do you have anything available for us tonight?” Archie said.

“Roger captain we can accommodate you. Continue into the marina, you’ll see docks on your right, and some finger piers on your left. You can pull into the first finger pier you see.” the marina replied.

Meanwhile we are about a minute from the first set of docks, and the depth gauge is steadily dropping from the canal’s sixty feet towards our draw of five and a half.

“Did any of you understand what he said?” Archie asked the crew. In text the conversation on the radio is perfectly clear, but in real life it is often much more difficult due to static, other background conversations, and various other communication-inhibiting events.

“Hello, Midway Marina, can you repeat please?” Archie asked. The marina replied with essentially that same information, but worded slightly different.

“The first pier on the left?” Archie replied.”

“Yes sir captain, that is correct.” the marina replied.

This is where the main confusion aboard the ship commenced. A quick discussion between George and Archie went back and forth between whether we should pull into one of the slips at the entrance to the marina, or continue further up into the harbor.

The first slips were now just beginning to glide by on our port side, and the depth was very close to our keel (remember what I said about always thinking about the keel under the boat?). There were some red markers along the channel, but even with those on our starboard side we began to feel the muddy bottom tugging at the Betty Ann. Our speed slowed a knot or two, and Archie added some RPM to compensate.

“See those docks on the right up there? He wants us to take a slip across from those.” George said.

“No, I think he might want us to take a slip right here.” Archie replied, looking off to port at the empty slips sliding by. Another tug an the keel. More RPM. I can imagine his nervousness, his 48 foot Island Packet is slowly coming to a halt in the middle of the channel as the keel digs itself into mud. I’m sure the thought in his head was “What’s wrong with the slips right here?”

“Try coming left a little, towards the docks, I think the water’s deeper over there.” George said. Archie spun the wheel a little to the left, the depth improved slightly and the bottom released its grasp on the keel. We accelerated up the channel.

With our newfound depth we continued up the channel towards the transient docks. There were some good sized boats on both sides, so we knew that we should have enough water. It was low tide however, and a quick glance to the starboard side revealed a muddy beach reaching well out into the water towards the channel. We reached the transient docks and pulled left into the first pier next to them. With lines ready we prepared ourselves as Archie judiciously used spurts of bow thruster and rudder to spin the boat and back her into the slip. The deceleration sensation reappeared; the mud was again reaching up at us. However with some hard backing, tugs on lines, and some courage, we were able to get the Betty Ann into her slip. Success!

The slip itself was in fairly poor condition. They still had the winter water agitators lying around (these devices keep water in motion during the winter, helping to prevent freezeover), and the small-diameter blue nylon line to support the agitators was heavily coiled around many of the cleats that we now needed. It’s a funny irony that the mud actually helped us in this case. I needed at least thirty extra seconds to unwrap the pile of line on my cleat before I had enough to get my line around it. Had the slip been deep water, and the wind high, the landing could have had an entirely different outcome. In addition, one of the cleats on the dock which we were using for our stern line was barely attached to the dock!

Archie jumped off to go talk to the marina, pay for the night, and inquire about the location of showers. Perhaps the most important piece of information to the crew, apart from the location of beer, is the whereabouts of the closest shower. You never know when your next one might come.

The marina itself was pretty unique. It’s a long rectangular-shaped piece of water, with a small line of land to shelter it from the canal traffic, and a steep hill on the other side. Crawling up the hill is a series of long switchback ramps that Archie was now climbing to get to the office. We busied ourselves organizing lines and equipment while we waited for his return. A short amount of time later, he did return.

“Man, you had to climb those stairs all the way to the office?” Someone asked.

“Well, yes and no. I went up the stairs, and asked where the office is. They said the office is down. So I came back down.”

Quickly the important information of shower location was relayed and George and Gerry ventured off to go clean up. Dad and I prepared our shower equipment and waited for them to return with intelligence on the showers (I think it’s always a good strategy to go to the showers second, this way you can learn about any showers that you might not want to use…think cold water, dirty, no pressure, etc).

When George and Gerry returned they told us the exact location of the showers (up the switchback and look for the only lights up there). Gerry mentioned that their condition was “OK”. Dad and I disembarked and headed out towards the hill. At night, which it now was, the marina looked a lot better, there were lights lining the docks to guide you to and from your boat, and at night you couldn’t see the piles of blue nylon line everywhere. We continued up the lighted path and began our accent up the switchbacks towards the showers. I was wearing my flip-flops, and immediately remembered why I hate them. There’s something about that rope-type thing pressing into the webbing in between your toes that just drives me nuts. Plus they’re always threatening to fall off (usually because I’m trying to keep the rope-thing from pressing into my toe webbing). I just don’t like them at all. Not one bit.

Upon our arrival at the showers we realized that we had only brought one set of shower supplies. We quickly devised a plan, I received a single-use portion of shampoo in the cap of the shampoo bottle, and we would cut the bar of soap in half, Solomon style. It turns out that breaking a bar of soap in half without any tools is more difficult than it sounds. Dad tried slamming it into the edge of the deck, and the door, and only managed to put a dent into the bar. This was enough of a wound to the soap that we were able to tear it in half. I never would have guessed it, but soap is actually pretty strong stuff.

We finished out showers, called mom on the cellphone to check in, and walked back to the boat. Before getting on the boat I gave her a push to see if she had come free of the mud below. To my surprise the boat began to rock back and forth slightly. I was about to relay the good news to the rest of the crew when I realized that it was not the boat rocking, but the dock under my feet.

We made plans to leave early the next morning hoping that the tide would be high enough for us to leave.

Monday, May 21st – 5:00 AM
We awoke early in the morning to plenty of water under keel. We hastily readied the Betty Ann and shoved off towards the mouth of the harbor, and eventually the Delaware river. Rounding the corner into the canal I noticed a neat sign. Much like a highway amber-alert sign this had a pair of yellow lights and text that read “Lights flash when commercial traffic nearby” Thankfully it was not flashing when we came around to the east and back into the canal. Since it was still early morning, the lights along the canal were lit. Both dad and I had wanted to see these lights. We were both expecting something like the lights on a highway, or maybe even a ski trail. However these lights were more reminiscent of the lights lining a driveway. They would still let you see a vessel coming at you from the other side I suppose, but they were not what I was expecting at all. It didn’t matter anyway, we were heading into the sunrise, and the view of the rising run behind some of the bridges over the canal made for some beautiful pictures.

We tracked our progress down the canal against the charts, counting down the bridges and power lines remaining until we hit the Delaware river. Looking at the chart, the Delaware appears more treacherous than the Chesapeake. If you turn downriver too soon out of the canal you will run right into water that is only two to four feet deep. We motored well out into the river, found the range light upriver, and began cruising down.

As we went further downriver our speed continually increased until our speed over ground read 10.3 knots. The tide and river current were sweeping us downriver much faster than we had planned for. At this speed we would reach the river mouth just after noon. Along the way we had a few container ships pass us going up river. These ships are hundreds of feet long, and take a long time to stop and turn. Obviously we made sure to give them a wide berth as we passed.

There also had recently been a lot of rain in the area, so this translated into tons of wood, logs and various other floating objects in the river. At the helm I was constantly changing course to avoid running into these, the last thing I wanted was to hit something and take the chance of destroying our prop, rudder, or worse.

Further down the river, where it opens up and looks more like a large bay, Gerry popped up out of his seat and began taking great interest in one of the ships anchored in the area.

“I think that’s the Integrity.” he said. He related a story about the ship, and his daughter who used to be first mate on the ship. He switched the radio to channel 13, a common frequency on commercial vessels, and tried to hail the Integrity. He was eventually able to make contact with whatever radio operator was on watch. He relayed a short version of the story he told us to the Integrity. I couldn’t understand a lot of the conversation that occurred back and forth, but apparently the radio operator assured Gerry that the would relay his greeting to the ship’s captain. Afterwards, I took a few pictures of the ship and of Gerry with the ship behind him.

Since we had made such good time down the river, we now had another crew vote to make:

1. Stop at cape May for the night
2. Continue overnight and make New York harbor in the morning.

Again we all chose option 2. Sail! I like this crew.

Archie drew up the watch schedule for the night which looked like this:

I come on at 10 PM and take the wheel from Archie, Archie then moves to the lookout seat to help spot traffic and buoys. At midnight dad comes up to take the wheel from me, I move to the lookout seat, and Archie goes to bed. You keep rotating like this until the sun comes up, or in the case of an extended cruise, until you get to where you’re going. We were only going for tonight so this would suffice.

My first watch was at 12PM which was when were were just getting ready to make our turn to the north, around Cape May, and up the Delaware / New Jersey / New York coast. Both dad and I had been practicing sailing without the aid of autopilot. In this case it was actually better for sailing because we were sailing downwind, and our course was right on the edge of the jib’s ability to stay on the starboard side. Having a human brain making decisions about the boat’s direction helps out in this case. Even so, we ended up intentionally jibing the jib so we could sail a few degrees more to the north. In the end we ended up making our turn to the north a little sooner than we planned because we were tired of the jib constantly being a pain, and it would save us some time. We sailed towards an outer marker for a while until we had cleared the point off our port side, and then turned north to 060 degrees from 110 degrees, this would be our course until our next waypoint somewhere off New Jersey.

I sailed through my watch without much action. I continued to practice sailing without the autopilot, getting used to the boat and how she reacts to different conditions. For a while, I even tried steering based upon feeling and not sight. Once you get into the rhythm of the waves on your current course, you can do this fairly well. It’s good practice for when you might be distracted later on and need to instinctively know when to bring the wheel around to keep the boat on course. At 2PM dad came up and I moved to the watch seat. At 4PM I went down into my cabin to attempt a few hours of sleep before the night arrived, I wanted to be alert for my overnight watch.

The night at the marina in the canal I didn’t sleep very well. The air conditioning was turned on, and my cabin quickly became very cold. Since I only had a little blanket to use, I also quickly became very cold. Anyone who has read the Appalachian trail journal will be reminded of the same thing I was, my night at the base of Mount Washington with a blanket not large enough for the job. My night in the canal was very similar, and I woke up countless times throughout the night. Now at 4PM the next day, I laid down in my bunk and got a couple hours of half-sleep. The same kind you get on a beach where you still hear things going on around you, but you dream a little bit too.

I think it was around 6:30 PM when I came back up on deck. It was close to dinner time so dad and I broke out the Italian Country Chicken dinner that was now thawed out enough to make it out of the container it had traveled in. For those who don’t know, Italian Country Chicken is made from:

Chicken (obviously) – small pieces cooked in a frying pan with a little oil, and pepper.
Onions
Garlic
Artichoke Hearts
Italian roasted peppers
Your favorite pasta (I recommend ziti)

It’s a simple recipe, but tastes really good when you get it all together. This would be the first time we had tried freezing it though.

Cooking on a sailboat underway is always interesting. Archie helped us find a couple pans for the chicken-sauce and for the pasta water. Stoves on sailboats are on gimbles, so that when the boat heals over under sail, the stove stays level. It takes a lot of faith in the system though when you’re facing a pot of boiling water on a stove that from your perspective appears to be angled at fifteen degrees. We somehow managed to cook the ziti, and heat the chicken sauce so that it all came out at the same time. We passed the plates up to the cockpit and then sat down to eat. By this time we were directly off of Atlantic City, and the sun was beginning to set. We investigated the city with the binoculars and chowed down on chicken and bread. We saw a number of wind turbines, as well at the Taj Majal and other Atlantic City buildings. The Betty Ann quietly slipped past the city, and continued her journey northward.

After cleaning up in the galley I went up in the cockpit to get used to the night sky, and keep track of our position.  Gerry was going down below and asked if I wanted anything to drink.

“I’ll have a Coke if you can find one.” I replied.

After a while rummaging around in the fridge Gerry returned, “The only carbonated beverage we have is Sprite.”

I was really looking for caffeine in anticipation of my upcoming watch, but a Sprite would be good too.  Gerry passed the drink up and then sat on the other side of the cockpit next to me. I opened the Sprite and heard the plastic seal crack, but there was no hiss of escaping carbon dioxide gas. My first sip confirmed my suspicion; apparently we didn’t have any carbonated beverages on board. I didn’t have the heart to mention in, and it didn’t taste all that bad, so I just drank it the way it was.

At 10 I took the wheel, and Jerry went below to catch some sleep, he would have to be back up at 4AM for his next watch. The GPS display was still in daytime mode, and annoyingly bright. Archie had just been leaving the cover on, but I wanted to play with it a bit. I asked Archie how to dim the display (answer: multi button, then up/down), then began to play with one of the more advanced features of our GPS unit, something called MARPA. I’m not sure what MARPA stands for, but I think it’s probably something like Magnificently Awesome Ridiculously Powerful Astonishing feature.

MARPA allows you to set markers on radar targets so that you can track them, its origins in military technology are obvious. Essentially you move the display’s cursor on top of the target’s radar echo and select ‘Acquire Target’ from the menu. This begins the unit’s tracking of your target, which now has a box around it on the screen. A quick press of another button labeled ‘Show MARPA Info’ brings up additional information about your target:

Range
Bearing
Target Speed
Target Course
Closest Point of Approach
Time of Closest Point of Approach

I couldn’t help but repeat the Top Gun quote to myself: “I’ve got good tone! I’ve got good tone! I’m firing!” Unfortunately I couldn’t find the “Fire” button on our GPS.

To our starboard side was a tug pulling a barge that had been on the same course as us since we turned up from Cape May. I “put a MARPA on him” so that I could easily keep track of where he was. I referred to this many times throughout my watch to quickly see where he was in relation to us. I could then quickly turn my head in that direction to get visual confirmation of his position.

At 12 AM dad came up to relieve me at the wheel, and Archie went below to go to sleep. I mentioned our course (018 degrees), the current configuration of the GPS unit, and our current position to dad as he came over to relieve me. After he was up to speed I unhooked my life vest’s snap ring from the boat, and moved out of the way so he could attach himself.

The moon was out, and there were bright lights on shore, so I showed dad how to brighten the GPS unit’s display with the Multi button (we never did find out what other purposes the ‘multi’ button had). Later after I had gone to bed it would again become dark and he would forget how to dim the display. “I was sure it was the ‘display’ button”, he would relate to me, “I tried it twice I was so sure.”

Dad wanted something crunchy so I went below to find something to munch on. I found a box of Wheat Thins and brought those back up. Even though Archie had earlier brought me an apple and some chocolate, the Wheat Thins proved too appetizing and we were soon both digging handfuls of them out of the box. For me at least, it helped to drive away tiredness. I guess if you’re sitting there chewing on a crunchy chip, your brain needs to stay awake.

Somewhere off the Jersey coast we noticed two bright lights up ahead. They appeared to be on a reciprocal course to our own (opposite to ours, 198 degrees). At night it is even more important to take action early, so on dad’s request I grabbed the glasses (binoculars) and inspected the lights up ahead. What I saw was like no other ship I had ever seen. It looked like some overgrown white spider, floating around the ocean. I also thought I saw them pick something up over the side.

Dad asked what they were, “Well, it’s either some sort of wacky fishing boat, or an alien spacecraft over there”, I said pointing to the white object up ahead. Spacecraft or not, we would need to get out of its way, so we adjusted our course to the east a bit so that we would miss the closest of the two vessels. Another peculiar thing about the ships is that they weren’t showing any lights to indicate that they were fishing (squid was our guess because of the bright white lights surrounding the entire ship).

In order to pass the time, dad told me about a dream he had been having right before he came up on watch. In his dream I asked him “How do you see the logs in the water at night?”. Of course, there is no way to do this without an absurdly bright light on the top of your mast. I’m sure this dream was in response to my concern earlier that day about the wood and logs in the Delaware river.

At 2AM George came up to take the wheel. It was finally time for me to go to bed. I had been counting down the minutes until this time. I hadn’t had much sleep lately and desperately needed some. I left instructions to be awoken at 4AM, which was our expected arrival time at the entrance to NY harbor.

Tuesday, May 22nd – 4 AM
I awoke to the sound of dad’s voice, “Hey, sunrise over NY harbor?”

“Mmmmnnnm blababbhbab.” I mumbled.

“Well here’s the ‘bug blanket’” The bug blanket was a blanket intended for use to keep bugs out of the boat when off New Jersey. We didn’t hit them this trip, but both George and Archie told of times where, somewhere off New Jersey, the boat would suddenly be covered in flies. Sometimes little black flies, sometimes house flies.

I grabbed the blanket, a nice soft fleece thing and replied “I guess I could sleep a bit longah.”

Even after having only a few hours sleep I was still good for an improvised Monty Python joke. I drifted of to sleep again, the last thing I heard was dad joking about trying unsuccessfully to get another ‘sun to rise’.

I slept for another hour until 5 when the smell of brewing coffee stirred me. I wanted to sleep more, but I told myself that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I wanted to join the ranks of few who sailed into New York harbor with the sun rising at their back, and gaze at Lady Liberty as we glide by.

I poured myself a cup of joe, black, and went up on deck. Maybe it was the excitement of coming into port after a long sail, but I felt surprisingly awake for the amount of sleep I’d had in the past 48 hours. There was some joke that I had missed from the early morning hours, because Archie grabbed the empty Wheat Thins box and called out to George “Hey George, give Gerry his empty Wheat Thin box! Ha ha ha ha.”

We motored up the river, laughing at the poor commuters on their way into work. It’s times like this that you start to think to yourself, “Boy, wouldn’t it be sweet if this was my job? Sailing around on a boat?” Conversation dropped to a trickle as we all admired the beauty of the city’s skyline on our way in. Under the bridge and around the corner the Statue of Liberty appeared. I ran down to get my camera (I did this run a lot on this trip). It’s one of those pictures that you know has been taken millions of times already, but you just can’t help yourself. On Gerry’s request, I snapped on picture as one of the orange NY Transit ferrys passed between us and the Statue.

“See if you can make her a passenger on the ferry Andrew.” said Gerry.

I set up and snapped a shot as the ferry went by. Thanks to the miracle of digital photography I was able to review the picture right away. There she was, standing on the front deck of the ferry. Thanks Gerry, that’s a pretty cool shot, and one that I’m sure hasn’t been taken millions of times.

We made our way up the Hudson, posing for pictures in front of the Manhattan skyline until we turned left into the Liberty marina on the New Jersey side. A brief discussion with the marina revealed our final berth on pier E. We motored down, turned left, and backed her into her new stall without incident.

Shore leave!

We didn’t even bother with showers, we all wanted to go see New York, the 9-11 memorial, and drink beer.  Gerry secured some info on the water taxis that run between the New Jersey side and New York side every thirty minutes. For five bucks you can get a ride to one of three locations, what a deal! You’d pay that much in tolls, never mind the amount of time it would take to drive.

George, Gerry, dad and I walked over to the taxi loading dock. There was a water taxi there, almost ready to leave.  Gerry wanted to take that boat, but George and I needed to use the head (bathroom) on the lightship next to the taxi loading dock. I had been holding this particular need at bay since I woke up. One of the rules on a boat is you don’t use the on board head for #2 if you don’t have to. There are two versions of this story from here.  Gerry maintains that we didn’t want to ride on the ferry with him out of fear that we would get beat up for associating with someone wearing a Red Sox hat (Gerry). We maintain that he just really wanted to get to the other side and didn’t want to wait. We settled on the plan that we would take the next ferry, and meet him on the other side. I think we were all pretty sure that we would not be able to find him among the millions of people in New York.

George and I ran to the lightship (an old ship that used to be stationed at the entrance to the harbor and acted as a floating lighthouse) and occupied the two stalls inside. When I went to wash my hands I made the mistake of looking into the mirror. Wow, what a scrubby looking dude! Even though I had a short buzzcut, my hair was still all messed up and greasy. This look might work on Block Island, but I was pretty sure the chicks in New York wouldn’t go for it. I decided that a quick wash with water and soap from the sink would fix the problem. One of the advantages to a short buzz cut is you can do things like this. After wetting down my head with a few handfuls of water, I reached over to the soap dispenser only to find that there was none. “Oh well, at least I got it wet, it’ll have to do” I said to myself. Of course there were no paper towels either, so I squeegeed out as much water as I could with my hands, used my jeans to dry my hands, and went back outside. It was a sunny and bright day, so I wasn’t worried about being a little wet.

We stepped off the ferry-taxi, or whatever you want to call it, and looked for Gerry. He wasn’t anywhere nearby so we headed off to look for something he described as ‘a big green atrium’ thing that you could see the 9-11 site from. We couldn’t see anything from where we were (I later noticed that we would have been able to see it from the water-taxi), so George went to ask an information booth where the 9-11 memorial was. Armed with a destination we headed off in that direction, which was sadly away from the ‘big green atrium thing’ where Gerry was waiting for us.

We walked around the 9-11 site, which for the most part now really resembles a construction site, just a really massive one. The fence along most of the route isn’t really conducive to viewing, there’s chain link fence, with another green mesh nylon fabric that prevents any really good views, and certainly any good camera shots. It didn’t matter anyway, I had left my camera on the boat. I was anticipating a barhop and didn’t want to drag that around, or risk losing it.

At the back side of the site (back side from the water) the actual memorial sits with pictures from the day, and a long list of names.

We continued on around the site, and ended up back near our original location, and consequently standing right in front of the ‘big green atrium thing’. We took a walk around inside, but were unable to find Gerry; by this time he was off on an adventure of his own. There was an ATM inside the atrium, so I loaded up on cash (I was still expecting a barhop), then went back outside and continued our search for Gerry. There was an outside restaurant, which I remarked to my dad and George was serving beer, and which my dad remarked might be a good place to sit and wait for Gerry. We passed it by however, and ended up back in the water-taxi en route to Liberty marina and the Betty Ann. There would be no bar for me tonight.

Back on the boat we cracked a few beers, threw in the sailing CD I had brought with me, and lounged in the sun. We occasionally looked up towards the gate at the top of the gangway to see if Gerry might be there, needing to be let in (the gates are locked my magnetic keycard). It was still too early though, we didn’t expect him back until much closer to the time of the last water taxi.

Dinnertime came around and dad, Archie and I went off to the restaurant nearby to get some dinner. I had eaten a sandwich a few hours ago, but the lure of a restaurant meal was too strong to overcome. Upon entering I realized that I was way under dressed for the the atmosphere. This place expected casual to formal, I was in a hoodie sweatshirt and running pants. As we sat down I heard someone remark behind us, “Well, that’s sailors for you.” Yeah, you’re right, we are sailors and proud of it.

One of the specials on the menu was a ribeye steak. We all ordered that, and just that. No salad please, just three steaks, all medium rare, two gin and tonics, and a corona. The steaks came, and were really good. Then the bill came, and we remembered that good steak is usually followed by a large bill. After tip I think it came to around $175. We settled up, content with our full bellies of beef, and walked back to the boat.

Somewhere around 8:00 we were surprised to see Gerry walking down the dock towards us. He was smiling. We’re not sure how he got in, I suppose he must have met someone coming out of the gate by chance. He related to us the quick version of his adventure. A few martinis, a walk around Battery park, a few martinis, talking his way into a “Running with the Bulls” road race tee shirt, and meeting someone in a bar (whose wife was running in the race). This new acquaintance said he’d be able to take a picture of our boat from the 59th Street bridge the next morning. We all shared a round of rum and cokes, and watched as the setting sun painted the New York skyline various shades of blue, yellow and red. A while after sunset we all began to get ready for bed.

I retreated to my bunk, planning to write in my journal for a while. However, Archie had a legal story about a couple named Bobo and Vivian that he wanted Gerry to read. To Archie’s surprise, Gerry began to read the story aloud, and soon was laughing nearly too much to continue reading. Additionally, at the end of every paragraph Gerry would call over to George who was in his sleeping bag trying to get to sleep.

“George? Are you with me?” Gerry would ask.

“Mmmmm” would come the faint reply from the sleeping bag.

“Ok, we don’t want you going to sleep on us now.”

Another paragraph read.

“George, are you still with me?”

“Mmmmmm.”

This continued for at least a half an hour, and soon became much to entertaining to ignore. I put down my journal and listened to the story of Bobo, Vivian, and the stolen motor home unfold.

Wednesday, May 23rd
The tides in and around the Hudson and East river are notoriously tricky. We slept in a little today because we knew that we couldn’t leave until around 10:00 anyway, and we could all use a little catch-up sleep after the overnight sail the day before. We had to time our departure so that we would hit Hell’s Gate at the right time. Hell’s Gate is a spot where the East and Harlem rivers come together. Taken together with a strong tide, the currents at this location can be tricky at best, and dangerous at worst. Add in the presence of barges and other commercial traffic in the river with you, and this spot can become exciting very quick.

Around 10:00AM we pulled in our lines and made our way out towards the Hudson river. We were greeted by a police boat telling us to turn around. We initially figured that they must be looking for Gerry, some untold portion of his story from the night before. Thankfully it was something much more benign, there was a Naval parade coming up the river, and we were not to cross in front of it.

“Everybody knew about it.” the police officer yelled. Well, I’m not too sure about that. Apparently neither the marina, or anyone who we talked to about our departure, knew anything about a parade. Archie spun the Betty Ann around and pointed her back to slip we had left just minutes before. We pulled out all the lines we had just stowed, and set them up to ready ourselves.

I was on the stern line, and as Archie rotated the boat in front of the slip I jumped off to the dock to get the stern line back to the cleat in the rear of the slip. As the boat was backing in George called out for me to fend off. I looked to my right and saw that the beam of the boat was going to hit the corner of the dock. I leaned into the boat to try to keep her off the dock but was unable to overcome the inertia of the heavy boat. I called out “A little help!” to no one in particular, just anyone who would listen. The beam ended up hitting the dock and rubbing for a bit. It’s one of those communication breakdowns that happens in the blink of an eye, but that you kick yourself for later. You always want every landing to be perfect, and letting the boat hit the dock on the way in is not the way to do it.

After we secured the lines, we ran off to the end of the nearby park to watch the naval parade. It was pretty neat and included an AGEIS cruiser, helicopter aircraft carrier, some other type of cruiser, as well as a couple fire boats and flybys by an AWACS, C-130, and fighters that I think were F-16s. I took a bunch of pictures, wishing I had brought my zoom lens. While the parade was neat, I think we were all thinking more about Hell’s Gate and the tides more than anything else. After the last ship had gone by upriver, we made our way back to the Betty Ann.

The parade was a two part affair. The ships would go up the river, turn around, and then come back. This meant there was a window where we might be able to get across the river, if given permission. Dad got on the radio and attempted to hail the police boat at the mouth of Liberty Marina.

“Police boat at the entrance to Liberty Marina, this is the Betty Ann, over.” No reply.

“Police boat at the entrance to Liberty Marina, this is the Betty Ann, over.” Again no reply from the police boat.

“Betty Ann, this is the Coast Guard cutter Chinook.” The cutter replied, trumping the State police boat who hadn’t responded.

“Yes, we’re wondering if we have time to make it across to the East river, we’re currently docked at Liberty Marina.” Dad sent across to the cutter.

“Betty Ann, what is your maximum speed ?” The Coast Guard voice responded.

“Seven knots.” I suggested for an answer, this is pretty close to our cruising speed. Dad relayed this to the Coast Guard cutter and awaited a response.

“Betty Ann, sorry but your speed is not sufficient, there is a Naval escort underway in the Hudson river.” The cutter replied.

“Shoulda said faster.” Archie said.

By one o’clock the parade was over, and were were able to head back out into the Hudson, and begin up the East river.

The tide was still with us, and we pushed 9+ knots the whole way up. Archie took the helm the whole way through, and dad and George followed along with the chart, keeping track of our position and calling out the buoys as they passed. It’s a strange sensation motoring a sailboat through a city. We had Manhattan on our port, and Brooklyn on our right. We soon made a turn and Rikers was on our right, as well as a big blue barge on our left. George said that he thought this was a prison barge, to handle the overflow from Rikers I suppose. We also passed a replica of the Niña, which was closer to 30 feet instead of the original 70.

We continued to pick our way through the buoys until we made it into the beginning of Long Island Sound. It was around this time that the wind started to pick up. We brought out the jib and main and were soon sailing along at around 8 knots, with the aid of the engine. Dad and I were up on deck at the time, and everyone else was down below. We had both been eying the third staysail that had remained furled the entire trip. Dad asked Archie if we could bring it out and Archie agreed. The staysail operates a little differently from the main jib. There is an outhaul and an inhaul that are both operated from the same winch, and a sheet that looks more like a downhaul. We wrapped the outhaul around the port side small winch and began to crank. The staysail came out easy, and we were soon flying three sails, something I had never done before. The wind had built to sufficient strength that Archie killed the engine and we sailed at seven knots with sail power alone.

Throughout the day the wind continued to build, and we made good time towards Port Jefferson. We each took turns at the wheel and soon a competition emerged as to who could get the highest speed at the helm.  Gerry was the first to hit 9 knots, and George bested him by getting 9.1 knots at his next turn on the wheel. I took the wheel for the last four miles to Port Jefferson and I’m proud to say that I was able to reach 9.4 knots on a set of particularly strong wind gusts to around 19 knots. The only problem was that the boat was getting an enormous amount of weather helm (when the boat wants to turn into the wind), and at times I had the wheel hard over just to keep her on course. A sail adjustment helped some, and I think if we had eased the main and jib some more the problem would have been eliminated. Our only other option was to reef the sails, but neither of us wanted to do that just yet.

Around 7:30 PM we dropped our sails and motored into Port Jefferson harbor. We wanted to go int the town and have a look around so Archie called the launch service on the radio.

“Port Jefferson launch service. Port Jefferson launch service. This is the Betty Ann, over.” Archie called into the microphone.

“Betty Ann, this is the Port Jefferson launch service, go ahead.” The reply came back.

“Yes, ahm, what time is the last launch?” Archie asked.

“We run until eight o’clock.”

A few seconds of silence ensued while Archie looked at the clock which now read close to 8:00.

“Is there another launch service?” Archie asked. Again my Monty Python and The Holy Grail script popped into my head, I couldn’t help but think of King Arthur asking ‘is there somebody else up there that we can talk to?’.

Denied our shore leave, we resigned to a night on a mooring. For the last hour there had been a lasagna that Archie had put into the oven cooking away and sending up tantalizing odors that sent my stomach rumbling. We were all hungry so after securing the boat we quickly set up in the cockpit for a fabulous dinner of lasagna and toasted garlic bread. I was so hungry that I went for seconds, had three pieces of toast, then ate the morsels leftover in the lasagna pan. For desert Archie brought out fresh cut melon and chocolate. I ate quite a few of these, and washed it all down with the remains of my Yuengling beer. For this display of self-gorging, I was given the appropriate nickname of “Dispose-All” by Gerry. Of course anyone who knows me knows that in normal life I tend to eat small portions, but in normal life I’m not living on a boat. I don’t know what it is, but being on a boat always gives me an appetite.

Soon after sunset we all went to bed. I wrote as much as I could in my journal, and then drifted off to dreams of that day’s sail. It’s days like this one that irreversibly addict you to sailing and its way of life. It’s the ultimate freedom, and an equalizer between you and the Earth. It gives you such a great respect for nature, and for the good fortune of being there to enjoy it.

Thursday, May 24th – 5:00 AM
We rose early again today to catch the tides down Long Island Sound in an attempt to get through Race Rock in New London before the outgoing tide changed to incoming. We cast off the mooring lines and headed out of Port Jefferson at twilight. There was very little wind, so we motored most of the way down the Sound. With the benefit of the tide we were again moving along at around 9 knots.

Today would be our last day on the water, and the first day that we would be in home water. It’s always a nice feeling when you get to your home waters. You know where you are, you can put away the charts for the most part, and you can relax in your knowledge of the area and take in the sights. I took the opportunity to savor the feeling of being on a boat, moving through the water towards a destination. One of my favorite parts about boating, and sailing in particular, has always been the journey.

Our GPS showed the tide changing at Race Rock at 11:20, we made it through by around 11:40 but I think we still had tide with us. It certainly felt like we were being pulled through, and the difference between the boat’s course over ground, and our compass course was enough to prove it. Shortly after lunch Gerry asked me if I wanted an English Muffin – Fig Newton sandwich. I replied that there were certain things that even Dispose-All wouldn’t eat.

By 2:00 we were inside Point Judith, and coming in to the fuel dock. There were two young girls waiting to take our lines. I passed our bow line to one of the waiting girls who used it to slow the boat down. Satisfied that she knew what she was doing I went about getting the fenders placed to keep us off the dock. She tied the line to the cleat on the dock about midship. The bow began to drift away from the dock so I ran up to pass one of the fuel dock’s lines to dad. I threw the first one I saw which it turned out was way too short. He was able to get it to the cleat, but it wasn’t ever going to make it around the cleat. I found a second line that was much longer and threw it over his shoulder. He was able to get it tied off and the bow stabilized. After we tied up she remarked that this was actually her first day on the job. That must be a little stressful, first day and your tying up 40 to 50 foot boats.

We filled up with 101 gallons of fuel, pumped out what was in our holding tanks, and then brought the Betty Ann back over to her home slip.

“Am I clear?” Archie asked.

“No, you’re not clear. More to port.” I replied, motioning with my arm which way we needed to move. Archie rotated the boat more and aligned the stern with the waiting slip. As we backed in I jumped off and observed our final movement into the slip.

“Watch the beam.” We backed her up slowly. “How far back?”

“So you can jump off onto the dock” Archie replied.

We gave the Betty Ann a good wash down, and unloaded all our bags and gear. This is always a tough part of a cruise like this. You’re glad to be home, but you don’t want to leave what has been your home for the past week. And not only has it been a place to live, it has carried you across seas, winds, currents and open ocean. In the end you have to leave the boat behind, and wait to sail another day.

• Whole Milk – Enough to cover bottom of pan.
• Butter – Around 3 Tbsp
• Cream Cheese – a couple good knife-fulls
• Pecorino Romano and Asiago Cheese (this is just what I had, but you definitely want at least one of these cheeses. Go by what you like in terms of the strength of flavour).
• Ground Cayenne Pepper – a dusting. Again, season to taste. I like the pepper to be just in the background, not so heavy that you notice it too much.
• Black Pepper – A grind or two.

Assemble your ingredients

Here’s all the main ingredients for the sauce. Not pictured is the pepper grinder, wups. Also notice that I don’t add any salt, the cheese has enough already.

Add enough milk to a saucepan to cover the bottom, set to low heat and add the butter to get it melting. You should get your pasta water heating up too.

While that’s melting and heating up, grate a bunch of cheese. Keep an eye on the milk so it doesn’t get too hot and boil. Give it a stir every once in a while.

And then add your grated cheese and cream cheese to the pan. You should probably add your pasta to the now-boiling pasta water around this time.

After the cheese has melted, you can add some spices. I actually added too much cayenne here. It wasn’t bad, just too “up front” in the flavor for this particular meal (another pasta meal I make I really load up on it). Probably half as much as is pictured would have been perfect.

If your sauce is getting too thick you can add milk to thin it back out again. Conversely if it’s too thin you can just cook it a little longer until it thickens up. When it cools from boiling it will thicken a little too, so keep that in mind.

Right before your pasta is done, add whatever else you want to the sauce. In this case I have chosen tomatoes and chicken (the chicken was previously slow-boiled in bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, black pepper, and garlic cloves).

I like my pasta hot, so I always have (or try to have) everything ready to go before the pasta is finished cooking. Below is the final plated meal.

This is a really easy meal, it’s quick, and it’s easy to clean up. Best of all, it tastes really good too! Even my mom said it was “awesome”.

You can see all the pictures from this post (and a lot of other cool pictures) in one place.

I was starting to feel bad for the guys I was playing against until we played Halo later on in the night (around 1:00am).  They took their bowling frustrations out on me by completly kicking my ass.  Even with major handicaps on their part I was still only getting 8 kills out of 20 or whatever.

Programming

I’ve still got my homework list of programming chores for home.  With the nice weather it’s hard to motivate myself to do any programming at home, but the current list is:

• Fix some of the problems with ADAL
• Start work on MASS (Multi Author Story System)
• Start work on Mage (.NET port of coppermine…sort of)
• Start work on the AGI Application Gateway Interface
• Maye install an open source CMS on the killfly root (http://www.killfly.com).
• Delete this shitty Linux OS from my laptop and put XP back on.

The first is the time I wanted to see how fast I could run. I ran alongside a car while the driver kept pace with me tracking my speed. I started slow but quickly built speed until my legs were a blur of supernatural running power. Somewhere around thirty-five miles per hour on the car’s speedometer (I’m pretty sure I remember that speed correctly), I disappeared from the driver’s view.

“You were right there…and then you were gone.” said the driver, “I looked into the rearview mirror and saw you behind the car.”

What the driver saw is what I wish I had a picture of; my body rolling and bouncing down the road. I had attempted to slow down and ended up locking my knee by accident which caused me to “spin out of control”. I landed on the pavement hard, rolled a few times, and eventually came to a sliding stop, which is where most of the damage to my skin came from. Don’t worry, nothing permanent.

Why do I wish there was a picture? Because that must have been one of the funniest things in the world to see…and i didn’t get to see it. I can only hope that someone saw it from their house and now has an awesome story to tell about the “day they saw this dumbass roll down the road.” I know we tell that story at least once a month in my house because it’s always good for a laugh, but if we had pictures it would be so much better.

What’s the second time I wish I had a camera? I’m not going to tell you because it doesn’t sound nearly as funny as the story I just told. I’m going to ammend my answer, I can think of only one time I wish I had a camera, but I’m sure there’s more.

—————————————————————————————
“So Andrew, what about you?” John asked.

“I guess I would have to say agnostic.” Andrew replied.
—————————————————————————————

Discussions on religion, like politics, are ones I tend to do my best to stay out of, partly because of their ability to so quickly divide a group. I realize that submitting a typed document on the subject is directly opposed to that behavior, but my answer has been bothering me and I think it needs clarification. Since I tend to write better than I speak, this seems like a good way to submit that clarification.

As I spoke aloud my original answer to John’s question, I felt like I lost standing in John’s eyes, and possibly Jane’s as well. This is certainly what bothers me about my response most, enough so that I had to get up out of bed and work out this explanation. I definitely feel like the answer I gave was incomplete, and that I need to fill in the gaps.

A better, but still incomplete answer to John’s question would have been to reply that I’m a non-practicing Congregationalist (Protestant). This is how someone else at the table responded to the question, although for a different faith. Basically, Congregationalism has as a defining characteristic no select Priesthood; the Ministers and Deacons are “leaders in a community of equals” ¹. This is the religion I was taught and baptized as a child; I just haven’t been to the church in a while except for the occasional wedding or funeral, thankfully more of the former than the latter. In fact, as is obvious from the footnote above, I had to do some research just to make sure I had the correct definition of Congregationalist.

In order to begin my search for more information, I first need to see exactly what it is I said in my original answer to John’s question. My first stop was a few Google searches, the first of which led me to a page defining agnostic as:

An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time. ²

I agree with those two sentences. Actually, after reading that entire page it turns out that I agree with a lot of what is said. However, that’s just one person’s view on agnostic beliefs.

I suppose that’s what bothered me a little about my original answer, the fact that I was compelled to place beliefs after agnostic in that last sentence. Also, agnostic seems to carry with it a negative connotation, which is why I felt like I had lost some standing in both John and Jane’s eyes. Being labeled agnostic by my own answer to a question, I begin to feel constrained already by the limits of a definition.

One day I took one of those “See what religion you should be” tests. One of the religions that came to the top of the list was Buddhism. Another Google search led me to the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order web site where they offer a definition of Buddhism as:

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of life. Buddhist practices such as meditation are means of changing oneself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom. ³

Another definition I can agree with. Who can deny that awareness, kindness and wisdom are things that we should strive for? However, I again run into the same problem of feeling constrained by the boundaries of one particular system. Why should we have to force ourselves into one definition when most religions contain things we believe anyway? I have a feeling I could probably continue this exercise of investigating different religions and find that I agree with a lot of what is said, but there may always be a few things here and there that make me take pause.

I suppose the conclusion I’m starting to arrive at is that I have no answer for the question “What is your religion?” because I shy away from anything labeled as such. I definitely have a personal set of beliefs and principles that I try to follow to the best of my ability, but I cannot say that they all belong to one religion. So the real answer to John’s question is that I have no answer, and yes, I realize that that’s a lousy answer.

Footnotes:
1)
http://www.haverfordwest.freeserve.co.uk/cfwales/beliefs.html

2)
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/agnostic.htm

3)
http://www.fwbo.org/buddhism.html

Earlier….
When I was coming back from work I stopped by the boat club to see if anyone was down there. Nobody was, but I did see my dad moored off Bill’s Island. I also noticed that the inflatable raft was still in with the dinghies but in need of air……a plan was born.

I drove back to the house. Threw a 12-pack and a bunch of ice into a cooler. Grabbed the air pump for the inflatable and launched the canoe with my supplies. I paddled out in the canoe to meet my dad who was moored on the “saff-tee” mooring off Bills Island. The plan was to be a hero and arrive with a 12-pack of ice-cold beer and hang out there for a while. However, when I rounded the point I realized he had already left the mooring to go back to the boat club. Since I was already out there I figured I would paddle over to the club (long paddle into the wind). This would have to substitute for my excercise, no running today.

Getting closer to the club I realized that he was getting ready to leave.

“You THIRSTY?” I yelled. Of course he was. I tied up my canoe to the boat club dock next to Tresta, cracked two beers and handed one to him. Now properly equiped with a cold beer I began pumping up the inflatable which I would be using for the return trip. When it was drum-tight we slid it into the water and I side-paddled it over to the waiting canoe. We tied the canoe the inflatable hip-tow style (side-by-side), I started the engine on the inflatable and I was off.

I couldn’t turn! We had tied the canoe too far to the front of the inflatable and even with the engine turned 90-degrees to the side I couldn’t turn one degree. After re-adjusting the lines I regained control of the two and was able to motor out of the morring field and made my slow downwind journy across the pond back home.

Here’s a backed-up post from earlyer in the month. I had set up another blog but deleted it in favor of this one. Anyway, here’s theold posts:

Friday – Saturday – Sunday: River Rafting
This was an awesome trip. I drove up to Millinocket Maine and spent the night at a campground. In the morning we headed over to the rafting place to gather our synthetic jackets, life preservers and paddles.
The day starts off with a 13 foot waterfall. The waterfall empties into a large area so the consequences for falling out are pretty low. That’s why I think the company uses this spot to get almost every boat to flip at least once. You might as well see what it’s like now.

The rafting itself is strange. The rapids are unavoidable, you know you’re going through it and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The horizon line gets closer and the noise from the rushing water gets louder. Then (for me anyway) something strange happens. You go into super concentration mode and before you realize it the rapid is behind you and you can’t remember exactly what it looked like. At least this is what it is like from the perspective of a couple days. Of course the one highlight that will stay fresh in everyone’s minds for a while is Exterminator.

Almost everyone in our raft fell off in the Exterminator Class 5 rapid. Not exactly the goal in a huge boiling cauldren of bron water. Everyone except for one person made it back into the raft, he was forced to navigate the majority of the rapid using only his life jacket. He said later that he thought to himself, “There’s a pretty good chance I could die.” This was absolutely true.

Monday (today): Vacation Day (Victory Day)
Helped install some speakers on Mike’s boat.
RROL practice at Indy – Wrecked out.