Deep River CT to Annapolis MD via the C&D Canal -- September 18-21 on Pandora

Last time I sailed Bob's Pandora, another of the Saga 43s, was in 2011, from Norwalk CT to Mystic CT. (See "Local Peripateticms", posted July 3, 2011). That was our boatless summer while ILENE was on the hard in Grenada. This time, it was the start of Bob's trip south where we may meet up with them in Florida, and so the trip was a rehearsal for our making the same passage, early in October, aboard ILENE.

For this trip we were joined by Jim, who has more ocean experience than both of us, and is a very personable guy. Bob's idea was that his wife Brenda, should join him part way to Florida. This put Lene of the same mind: Why can't we do that too? Luckily, Jim has agreed to accompany me for this first leg of ILENE's cruise, next month, so Lene and the kitties will drive down and join me in Annapolis. Jim recently sold his Saber 38 foot and thinks he wants to buy a Saga; wanted to find out how these boats feel in the ocean. He got half of that experience on Pandora -- the motion she has when the wind is aft the beam. Yes, with excellent weather forecasting by Chris Parker, and a willingness to change our departure date twice, we had a perfect weather window, with following winds and seas except for light winds the last seven hours, the second short leg, from the anchorage in Chesapeake City, MD to Annapolis, where Pandora now rests in Jim's slip. ILENE was also offered the use that "free" slip upon our arrival except that the condo has a very strictly enforced rule against pets, including guest's pets and including cats. So we have made reservations at Bert Jabin's Marina, across Back Bay from Jim's place. This is where ILENE was when we bought her, back in November 2005. If we get so lucky with a weather window on ILENE's passage as we were this time, I will simply turn the boat around for a few minutes, so Jim can get the feel of a Saga beating to windward.

We left the dock at about 4 pm on Thursday. I had the helm down the Connecticut River into Long Island Sound passing old favorites that we did not visit this summer: Hamberg Cove, Essex and North Cove of Old Saybrook. We headed  a bit to port to pass through The Race and around Montauk Point, making the rounding at about 11:30 pm. My nighttime off-watch preference was honored -- from 8 to midnight, when I am at my most tired condition. So I awoke after we had rounded and had reefed the main. From Montauk to the buoy off Cape May, NJ, which we rounded at about 11:30 the next night, it was 198 nautical miles. The furthest we got off shore was a point about 35 miles south of Long Island, the same distance east of the Jersey shore and about 45 miles SE of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
 
The scariest part for me was as we were rounding Cape May:  I had just risen from my good sleep and my lack of familiarity with Bob's newer chartplotter, with many more functions, meant I really did not know where we were. Bob stayed with me until we got up to the clearly marked shipping channel up Delaware Bay and I hugged it, just outside its north side, all the way up the Bay, giving the big freighters coming the other way the entire width of the channel.

Thursday night it was quite cold but no so bad that a long sleeve shirt, fleece and foul weather gear were insufficient to be comfortable.  The second night was not so cold.  We all wore life vests with harnesses and were tethered to the boat's strongpoints whenever in the cockpit. Bob figured that we averaged 7.1 knots which is quite impressive. Much of this time, during daylight hours, the winds were strong and we furled the small jib and ran under only the reefed main, at speeds of up to eight knots.
The wind built up the seas, which raced and overtook us from behind. The bigger ones were over my head standing in the cockpit, until they caught us and lifted us up out of their way while whooshing under us. A couple of them entered the cockpit from the rear, over the swim platform, which is only about 16 inches above the water, putting a few gallons on deck, which drained out immediately over the same open stern that admitted them. When my sneakers got wet during the first such wave, I switched to a dry pair of socks and my sea boots so it was no problem.

Here is  sunrise over the west coast of New Jersey, Saturday morning as we were sailing up Delaware Bay with the tide.

Bob's boat is meticulous and fully equipped. He is a self confessed obsessive perfectionist when it comes to his boat and it shows. When we stopped to refuel, Pandora got a washing. The dew was mopped up the next morning. Here is Pandora's new Rocna anchor, rolling on new rollers attached to the shiny new apparatus. It hangs lower but further aft than ILENE's starboard bow anchor.

Jim with a bit of the rum punch.

It held very well in the mud of Chesapeake City.  We stayed there from about noon on Saturday until our 07:00 departure on Sunday morning. We toured the tiny quaint old town, partook of some free food and wine at a wine and food festival, ate ice cream, tried to visit the museum (but it is closed on weekends), took naps, enjoyed some rum punch and had dinner ashore.

Bob with same.

One always learns from sailing with others on their boats. I also learned and have downloaded to our I-pad, a much better weather app called "Pocket GRIB".





We were very well fed throughout, (Thanks Bob!) including delicious boat baked dropped biscuits and honey with our morning coffee.

The only thing that could have been better for me was visibility.  Bob likes to keep the dodger front closed, and connected to the bimini with side flaps down when sailing. Despite excellent new clear plastic, this impeded visibility due to my older eyes. It required me to poke my head out the sides to check for approaching vessels. Also with the RIB inflatable dinghy inverted, mounted under the boom, partially deflated and lashed down securely there, while safety was improved (no chance for one of those big waves to fill the dinghy with a ton of water hanging off the back of the boat), forward visibility was further impeded.

The captain/owners decision is always right, but my personal voyage would have been even more enjoyable with better visibility.

I know that Ilene will want one of these customized non skid floor mats. It is not a rectangle but wider at the foot than at the top, to match the area covered. The only potential problem with this is that the cats will like it too -- as a scratching pad! Now back to myriad activities to get ILENE ready for her cruise.

August 25 to September 10 - Getting Ready to Cruise

Well the Labor Day weekend was spent in the Berkshires, welcoming Lianne's new puppy, Finn,  who I call "two pounds of cute fluff"

and visiting her new grandson, Jude.

Ilene climbed with me to the top of Monument Mountain, just north of Great Barrington so we know that her recovery from the removal of the tumor from her lung is making great progress. And I spent at least a day trying to get her medical insurance restored after a foul up of monumental proportions. But this is a sailing blog so let's get to it.

Well actually I did more working on the boat than sailing during this period: 24 hours of work spread over five days, two of them with helpers: Peter, who sailed with me from Virginia to Tortola in November 2010, at the outset of this blog, and our nephew Mendy, who washed the black streaks from the freeboard with salt water while

standing in the dink, and got a sunburn  (and my gratitude and a steak dinner) for his efforts. This working time compared to only 11 hours underway on four days. Such a sailing ratio, once per four days, is below average, but an unfortunate necessity when preparing to go cruising

We got the dink fully inflated after obtaining its parts and accessories from several places, and got it hoisted and secured to its davit bar after Mendy's work. I did a lot more sanding and varnishing of the teak cockpit table, the 13 new brass switch plates and the 21 old brass trim rings for the overhead lights after the green corrosion was sanded off. The single biggest task involved the handles used to protect against accidental turning on of the cabin sole lights by brushing against that switch at the companionway, for which new holes had to be drilled.

Another major project was the installation of a "T" valve to be able to divert fresh water from the water maker to the starboard water tank. Peter helped me on this which required removal of the cabin sole to run the pencil thin low pressure black hose from port to starboard, tie it to larger hoses with wire wraps, figure out how the valve worked and attach it to a much bigger and more solid hose so it won't bounce around, and removal of  the aluminum viewing port from the top of the starboard water tank, drilling holes in it, and using blue liquid gasket material to seal the fitting to it and it back onto the tank. Peter also winched me to the top of the mast to inspect and adjust the genoa halyard and this time I got in a photo op of the Club from about 62 feet above sea level, but at low tide.
I also refilled the propane tank and re-installed it in its newly waterproofed locker and took the life raft off the boat to Westmarine to be sent to the repacking company which should be done every three years -- but we have "used" it for four. And while in such a mindset I checked out the inflatable life vests. Ive learned his should be done annually but had never done this before! A decade! The CO2 cartridges are corroded beyond repair and one needs to be replaced. But even worse, the other vest, when inflated by blowing through the tube, failed to hold air -- it was down to 1/3 of its air after an hour. So a new one has been ordered plus a two million candlepower flashlight for finding one's mooring at night.

Getting the dink hung aft and the propane filled really reminded me that cruising is right around the corner.

Oh yeah, some sailing days were fun too.
First with Lene, Cynthia, who sailed with us earlier this summer and has moved to Israel, and Rhonda,

a friend of Lene's since third grade, shown here at dinner at the Black Whale after sailing. The three ladies chatted the entire time, moving gracefully out of my way from time to time as needed for my sail handling. In modest winds we hit a tide assisted 8.1 knots under main and small jib enroute to the far side of Manhasset Bay.
Next, Lene came with me and Peter, who later spent a day working with me and Debbie,

our Rabbi, during which we got to Matinecock and back, with Peter at the helm most of the way.










The excitement on this trip was a "hat overboard" drill during which we successfully retrieved Peter's expensive Tilley hat. This picture was taken before it went swimming.

The ever lovely Lene on the leeward
side, with Debbie and Peter

I also sailed for a couple of hours aboard Bennett's Beneteau, to Great Neck on the east side of Stepping Stones, and back, in about four knots of wind. Upon returning I joined Morty and Clara, Mike and Sandy and Richie and his friend Charley, a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor, for refreshments aboard "Easy Living." The Wednesday afternoon ritual.
Finally, on one of the work days, after completion of the chores, Rhoda came out and we had the best sailing, due to stronger winds from just a bit east of south. After close reaching it out of Eastchester Bay on port tack, we got on starboard and made it to green can "1", NE of Stepping Stones before returning via Hart Island Sound.

Sailing Alone Around The World

No, not me! Definitely not on the bucket list! We are content to have sailed between Eastport, Maine and Grenada, West Indies -- only about 6,000 miles, round trip, less than a fourth of the distance of the equator and one must also put in a lot of northing and southing to circumnavigate. Europe still glimmers in my mind but is improbable. There are many ports in the areas we have sailed that we have not entered.  And the "alone" part has no appeal to me either. I believe that I could handle the boat but I'm far too social an animal. Without Ilene it would be no fun. And in certain longitudes one encounters pirates. No thanks.

No, the sailor in question is Captain Joshua Slocum.  A New England Yankee retired merchant sea captain:  both square riggers and steamships. Slocum set off for his 38 month adventure when he was in his fifties during 1895-98. His was the first such long cruise for pleasure.

I read his account, a classic, at the suggestion of my friend Jim. It is quite interesting and well written with footnotes explaining some of his few archaic sailing terms and references to the personalities and current events of the day (meeting Stanley of Stanley and Livingston in South Africa; avoiding mines when entering Newport RI during the Spanish American War). He also included 65 illustrations (no photos) among the book's 265 pages. These include his boat's sail plan, lines, and other views and views of some of the more exciting incidents. His writing is better than mine but shares a common characteristic: an unemotional recounting of the facts which speak for themselves; he does not need to characterize them. He was opposed to witchcraft and I believe organized religion, and liberal in his political outlook except as to race and colonialism, in which he was of his times. He includes in the narrative as to each stop along the way, his dates of arrival and departure; from this someone could calculate the number of stops and the percentage of sailing days as compared to lay days, as I do in this blog at the end of each of ILENE's long cruises.

"Spray" his wooden gaff rigged sloop (reconfigured as a yawl half way round), was only 37 feet long on deck, compared to ILENE's 42 feet (but with a long bowsprit and aft extension for the sheet of the jigger, Spray was quite a bit longer than ILENE's 45 feet overall). She was 14 feet wide compared to ILENE's 12, with less draft, concrete ballast instead of lead and double the weight. And he had rebuilt her himself using hand tools on the hulk of an old fishing boat. And Spray had no engine or fuel tanks, no refrigeration, no GPS, no EPIRB, no chart plotter and no radio -- he was rather alone out there, taking pleasure in frequently referring to himself as "the crew of the Spray."

My interest in this book was enhanced when I toured a modern-day, fiberglass, larger-scaled replica of Spray at the dock of Marina Cay in Tortola in November of 2010, before Ilene and the kitties joined me there for our trip down to Grenada. The replica had modern amenities and was home to a family with several small children.

Slocum was a self educated man about writing as well as about the sea. I could not help but compare his chapters to posts of this blog. Of course my own adventures and accomplishments pale by comparison to his, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, but both of us are sailors who write. Generally, when I read, I find the stories interesting substantially to the extent that I can identify with and compare myself to the characters. There are a lot of things in this book to which I could identify.  He wrote comparing himself to the early explorers, who did not have accurate clocks or charts and found himself wanting; and I am not a fraction of the sailor he was.

Yet there are many episodes that resonated for me. He wrote that following a big storm he took out his palm and sewed a new sail to replace the torn one, calling it "serviceable if not beautiful". I recalled my adventure aboard On Eagles Wings this past winter during which I used such a palm to repair a sail.

He was given a set of books by the widow of Robert Louis Stevenson during a visit to her island in the South Pacific off South America. This put me in mind of the generosity to me of Eve, the widow of Selwyn, a great sailor of our club and a great mentor to me.

Nearing home Slocum encountered the USS Oregon, which I learned about in the Oregon History Museum. She signaled "CBT" -- i.e., "Are there any men of war about?", referring to Spanish warships, to which Slocum flew the negative flag.

An interesting unresolved question that this book raised involves usage. When I hail another ship, my usage, which I believe is the common one today, is "Ahoy [name of vessel]". The "Ahoy" serves to capture the attention of the listener to listen for the name of his or her boat. Slocum, if he greeted us would reverse this: "ILENE Ahoy!" There is a lot of "ahoying" in the book and it struck me as wrong each time. I wonder when and why the custom changed.

He described an incident in which he mistook the light of a lighthouse flashing on wave crests as a reef, way to close, and the scare it gave him, This reminded me a moment of horror of my own off the Maine coast one dark and stormy night in 1992 -- the moon peaked out from behind the clouds, low, near the water and I thought it was a strong light on a large ship crossing our bow.

Slocum's description of the joy of a landfall at the end of a long voyage will resonate with every cruiser and his description of ports in my home waters --from New York to Maine -- were very rewarding.

He did not keep cats like ILENE and humorously described a short passage with a goat which had been given to him as a gift. He used rope instead of chain to tie the goat to the mast and after eating through the rope the goat ate Slocum's hat and his chart of the Caribbean

He had a few groundings and was hit by another boat while at anchor; all things that have happened to me and are going to happen to you if you are out there enough.

He tried to tow a much larger boat that had grounded but the captain refused his offer and the ship was later lost. On my first boat, "Just Cause;" I went out from the safety of Three Mile Harbor (the back door of Easthampton, Long Island) to tow in a much larger sailboat, and during another Club cruise was the beneficiary of a tow from a power boat when both my engine and the wind failed (Thanks again, Stu).

News of Slocum's voyage had spread and he was greeted as a celebrity in most ports, large and small, and fees were waived while he was feted by the local dignitaries. This has not been my experience.

He also traded in merchandise that he picked up along the way in Port A for sale in Port B; you couldn't take the merchantman out of him. And later in the voyage he was given the use of lecture halls to earn money by telling his sea stories.

The most exciting portion of the trip was his circumnavigation of the western half of Tierra del Fuego, which lies between the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. This was also where he encountered natives who were pirates. He had not intended to circumnavigate these islands, but upon exiting the Strait into the Pacific,   he was hit by a storm that simply blew him back south and east of the Horn. The book contains several charts of his path, and a separate one for the tip of South America where all of this action occurred.

Having transited a good part of the Pacific from an island 340 miles west of Chile in 43 days, he passed just south of the Marquesas without stopping there and continued for another 29 days nonstop to Samoa -- 72 days at sea. He read a lot underway and reported on what he read.

He also had many pertinent observations on the winds tides, currents mileage made good, sun sites, and such matters as crossing the Equator and crossing his own track.

One amazing feature of his boat and his own skills was that he could trim his sails so well that he could lash his wheel in place and let the boat steer itself for days at a time. Only once, in a storm, did he tend the wheel by hand for 30 hours. Many people doubted the veracity of this self steering assertion and he repeats it several times with an illustration of how he lashed the wheel but with the caveat that he could not vouch that boats with large overhangs, fore and aft, could perform this way.

This will be the last nautical book review in this blog -- for 2014. I plan to help a friend bring his boat from Essex CT to Annapolis at mid month.