On Eagles Wings, Again

Last year at this time I reported on a one week cruise with Bennett and our two wives aboard his 40' ketch, On Eagles Wings, in the Virgin Islands. Well a whole year has rolled around but this time the wives were not with us.  The rest of our complement, was Allie and Nick, married friends of Bennett with skills: He is a professional bartender and she a professional chef, and their friend Alex, terrifically inventive and handy, was the fifth person. These fellow crew members are in their 20's and strong, willing, fast learners and good workers.

Allie, Nick, Alex and Bennett--the first. morning

We had one lay day at Anegada, but otherwise made multiple stops, twelve in six days. (1) Marina Key for fuel. (2) The Baths for swimming and rock scrambling on the beach (you have to swim in or take a cab - no dinks allowed on the beach anymore) The next three photos show the beach we swam to at the north, rocks we scrambled under and the beach at the southern end of the scramble

(3) Spanishtown for groceries and lunch,

Roger, Nick, Bennett and Allie

where Allie was disappointed in her search for fresh fish but did persuade some big dudes with a cooler to give up one of their lobsters, for free --
our desert after the steaks;

Allie is a happy camper, but the lobster is not.

(4) the anchorage on the Southwest side of Prickly Pear Island, a new spot for me, in North Sound, Virgin Gorda, where we had lots of room between our only two neighbors -- a Dutch boat behind us and a French one in front of us.

(5) The anchorage off the beach, west of Pomato Point on the south west coast of Anegada. It is west of the harbor where I had always gone before and open without a marked channel. Here we rented small motor scooters -- top speed 35 mph.

 We visited an unnamed beach on the north side near Lob Lolly where Lene and I had gone, and next day to Cow Wreck Beach, way to the west, a new favorite. We also had a bonfire on the beach near our boat, and finally did score some almost fresh (locally recently frozen) mahi mahi.

(6) Great Harbor on Jost van Dyke for fuel and water and for a five minute tour of Foxy's. (7) Diamond Key at the far eastern end of Jost, as my third new place: we dined at Foxy's Tabou, a less raucus outpost of the Foxy empire and took a small hike to The Bubble Bath,

Alex and Allie

where breakers send lots of foam into a small pool formed by boulders in a gap in the cliffy face of the island (Picture to be added). (8) White Bay, also on Jost, where we patronized both the very crowded Soggy Dollar Bar and the quieter Ivan's No-Stress Bar, whose tender, Cas, let Nick mix our drinks. Then, after eleven tacks from Jost (via the passage between Great Thatch Key and St. John's) we came to (9) The Bight in Norman Island where we took our first night-mooring since our starting point in Trellis Bay and dined at the lovely, newly constructed (after the fire) restaurant there.

Alex, Roger, Bennett, Allie and Nick

Next day began with snorkeling, first at the two most popular spots in the BVIs: (10)The Caves and then, nearby (11)  The Indians. 

Our final long reaching passage brought us to (12) Village Key Marina, in Roadtown, Tortola, which is On Eagles Wings' home port and from which we departed by ferry the next morning after showers, and sushi at Origins, across from the ferry dock, which was quite good.

     Bennett drove through the passage between Virgin Gorda and Mosquito Island, with a bit of six foot charted depth, which I have never done, and with ILENE's 5' 8" draft, I will be unlikely to do. OEW's draft is only 4'9". But this was a nervous moment though it cut an hour off the trip outside Mosquito Island.
    I did a few boat improvement projects. The first was the repair of the mizzen sail, the smallest and least significant of the three sails of the ketch. It had a tear, about a foot long, parallel and near the seam at the leash (rear side) near the top. Without repair, the tear would have grown larger and larger, especially when sailing close to the wind in strong air. Sail tape alone had been tried and did not hold. I sewed back and forth through the sail tape on both sides ( to hold the two pieces next to each other and the sail itself. For this task I brought my sailors palm, (a leather strap around your hand with the business end of a thimble mounted in the palm. It is needed to apply the brute strength to force the needle through so many plies of tough material. The result does not look pretty (Frankenstein's head?)

and the boat's owners may elect to have the repair redone professionally with a sewing machine and laying flat rather than standing on the rocking deck and working face high through material that is hanging vertically, but it will hold.  I also placed almost 100 whippings at both ends of the many lines that OEW has. It is true that many of the ends were holding together fairly well through the fusion in high heat of the plastic fibers of which the cores of the lines are made, but whipping adds a smart nautical look and is one of the few skills that I have, so I like to use it.

     A word about our food: OEW's galley stove is an electric range, powered by her electric generator. The generator had gone bad and the owners were contemplating replacing this system with a propane stove. I suggested a much more simple solution, given the infrequency that meals are cooked aboard, consistent with the classic nature of the boat -- a modern low pressure two burner alcohol stove. In the meantime, we made coffee using the electric percolator,

Alex and Bennett making coffee

which the main engine could power.



Allie cooked  our eggs, french toast, toast, fish, veggies and steaks on the small barbecue mounted on the stern, powered by small canisters of propane used by campers. Cooking in that condition in the dark was quite a challenge to which Allie rose. Her stove in daylight:

Wow; No posts Since Feb. 4! It's Catch Up Time. AND the amazing Sonya Baumstein.

Well time off from boating for a pleasurable trip to Atlanta and another in Portland, Oregon, both with family, plus a LOT of cold weather this winter has slowed progress. When the daily high temperature does not reach 40, I do not do boat work. At the end of this post is Sonya Baumstein, well worth waiting for.

The fourth day of the removing of old anti-barnacle paint from the bottom (3.25 hours is a day's work according to my by then achy muscles) has gotten the aft 1/3 of the boat scraped off. Now the sander comes into play to really clean and give a "tooth" to the bottom before a couple coats of ridiculously expensive "barrier" coat paint and then equally expensive bottom paint. Only the aft 1/3, you ask? Yes, alas, Rome was not built in a day; the complete bottom job will be spread out over at least three seasons. And because we will go south next winter, the next two winters out of the water for this will be 2015-16 and 2016-17. The parts not done "right" this winter will be spotted out (sanding at the bare spots and then painted over, before the entire boat gets its last coat.

Also, I have spent more time working inside the pumping mechanisms of the two marine heads. And I've obtained all the replacement parts I need. Now all I have to do is call the friendly helpful techie at Groco to get a couple of hints on how to put humpty dumpty back together again. Here is more than you ever wanted to know about the inside of a Groco head, with its white porcelain bowl removed. The extreme left black piece at the bottom of the photo is the rubber Joker valve and its round flange fits between the two parts of large white hose to the left and forms the gasket sealing them and creating the passage for sewage to leave the head, for either the holding tank or for overboard discharge, out at sea.

The large black disk at the bottom is the rubber gasket between the unit you see and the bowl. The most extreme right round looking piece is the piston for the pump with two white plastic rings that seal it, and just to its left is a valve, currently upside down that sits above the piston and lets water from the bowl to the pump's chamber. Have you had enough yet? I thought so. Too much? Sorry about that.

Other work has involved snow and ice removal. While in Atlanta, a thick crust of ice had formed atop the blue canvas winter cover-- a lot of weight up so high. And I surely could not get at it from the top because it is too far off the ground. So I crawled into the airspace between the deck and the bottom of the cover and pushed up and out to shake the snow and ice off the cover. And I threw out my back a bit in the process. Also, despite the cover, water enters the boat through its top and collects in the bilge and freezes. This had to be chopped up with the ice pick and then access to the water beneath the ice was available for the manual pump into the bucket. All in a day's work.

In Oregon we visited the Historical Society Museum which has a full room devoted to the history of the Battleship Oregon, nicknamed the "Bulldog of the Sea." She served our nation from before the Spanish American War through and after WWI and was much beloved by her home state (though she was built in California). Battleships were the largest and proudest of the navy, though they became relatively obsolete with the advent of air power projected from aircraft carriers. The most amazing thing about the Oregon, to me, was her size -- 346 feet! This is tiny by today's standards. Big compared to ILENE's 43 feet, but the USS Hammerberg, DE-1015 was 306 feet long. A tiny thin hulled Destroyer Escort almost as big as a heavily armor-plated mighty Battleship!

And we had the pleasure of a visit to the Harlem YC by Sonya Baumstein. Who is Sonya Baumstein, you might ask? Well she ROWED, with three men who she recruited as her crew, across the Atlantic from the Azores to the West Indies in a 23 foot rowboat.

This 57 day adventure was choped into two hour shifts: two for rowing and two for eating, cleaning, repairing and sleeping -- continuously, for 57 days. That's twelve hours of rowing per day! Sonya had dinner with us and then presented her slide show.  I don't know how old she is but her poise and intelligence made her an absolute pleasure to be around.  Her ease in presenting her story and her self deprecation while speaking was endearing because it was a display of natural humility...and this coming from a young woman who goes so far beyond what any of us in the room has ever done!  I think I speak for all who attended when I say she was a big hit!

Since her Atlantic adventure she paddled a stand up paddle board, across the frigid waters of the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska in eleven hours, this time wearing a drysuit and accompanied by a small fishing boat.  She also bicycled from San Diego to Seattle and paddled a kayak from there to northern Alaska. Many exciting, scary and funny incidents on each adventure.
Her next adventure, planned for April 2015 -- is a solo row in a newer, better designed boat from Japan to the US, scheduled to take from four to six months. And she does a lot of marine biology research along the way. For more info, google sonyabaumstein.com. As she told her story, including her graduation from College and Graduate school and her recovery from being hit by an automobile which took three years of multiple surgeries to recover from, before these adventures began, we could see how much she has learned about the seas, currents and winds since she set off from the Azores. I predict greater success for her next crossing.A portion of the enthralled Harlemites:

It's Already February -- And So Much Left To Do

Remember the rusty steel that held up the Harlem Yacht Club's dock discussed in a recent post?
Well below is the new steel, in place, ready for the planking, side rails, water and electrical to be reattached. Yes, that is ice in Eastchester Bay, lots of heavy ice; it's been cold here. But progress is being made at the Club house.
Meanwhile I put in four work days in January, about four hours each, and I'm dismayed at how much is left to be done. So far I have:
-- inventoried our zincs (ILENE uses four pieces of carefully shaped and placed sacrificial zinc, to be eroded by the seawater and electrolysis, thereby saving the propellor, shaft, weed cutter and inside of the refrigerator's condenser from being corroded away. And now we have several years supply of zincs.
-- obtained and assembled the connectors between the three elements of the bottom sanding contraption. This consists of (1) the new Fein 636 six inch random orbital sander, (2) the Dust Deputy which traps most of the ground up paint dust conveyed through it by a hose, and (3) our existing (since St. Martin) mini shop vac. So two hoses connect the three elements and each end of each of the hoses has to be fitted with connection pieces that I got at Home Depot. The shop vac sucks air through the eight holes in the bottom of the sanding pad which have to be lined up with the eight holes in the sandpaper that attaches to it by "hook and loop (velcro-like) technology, through the dust deputy that collects the dust and the remaining air is sucked through the shop vac. Also needed was an electrical splitter so I could connect both the sander and the shop vac to the one electrical line that reaches the boat. And they only sell the sandpaper disks in packages of 50!  Future tasks involve selecting, buying, paying for and applying the barrier coat paint and the bottom paint to complete this job, but this a long way off as seen below.
-- spent one day with the sanding contraption which works in collecting most of the dust, but I'm now figuring I will need another nine such dirty days to finish taking off the bottom paint. I could have worked longer on this first sanding day, it was warm enough, except my arms said NO!
-- and took apart the two heads to replace some parts and clean others. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with a techie at Groco, who made the heads. He was quite helpful but I may have to call him back when it is time to put the parts back together again. I certainly have a deeper understanding of how our marine heads work.
I also created a list of the projects to be done professionally by Precision Marine and met with them to discuss which of the projects actually need to be done. They will be back from Florida and start work early in March on engine, electrical, electronic, and plumbing jobs.
But not all of the winter is dirty drudgery and expensive. We actually had some fun days associated with boating too.
For two of them I baked my Almond Pear cakes with pear coulis (recipe available on request). The first such cake went to northern Westchester, to the home of Bruce and Linda who, with their son, Dr. Jason, and his parrot, made for a lovely evening. I started sailing with Bruce in 1991, my goodness, that's 23 years ago, long before I met Ilene! We raced on Wednesday nights on his boat and he taught me a lot.  More recently he went over to the dark side, left the Harlem and drives a Grand Banks trawler, J-ERICA. And the arrival of Whity and Alphie in our lives made it harder for us to get together with them in our home or our boat because Linda is seriously allergic to cat dander. But whenever we do get together, we still all have a great time.
The other cake went to the Harlem for International Night. This is perhaps my favorite party of the year -- in January, after the membership meeting, when the kitchen is closed. We open the bar, each bring a dish, have a pot luck dinner and raise a few bucks for the Club. We are a family but do not get to see each other too much in the winter.
Finally, we went to an Open House at the Club and (1) attended the first meeting to plan the 2014 Club Cruise, and (2) met a lovely couple, Phil and Sheri, who, I believe will become members. Phil has a business using a drone with a camera to take pictures of sailboats under way with sails drawing. I sure would like such a photo of ILENE, and this is a lot cheaper than hiring a pilot and airplane. Sherri is an attorney. They sail a 32 foot Catalina and keep it in a marina. I gave them a tour and tried to show how the Harlem will expand their pleasure of boating. But I think the key to their joining will be the bond that seemed spontaneously and immediately to spring to life between Lene and Sherri.
Now back to work.

USS Intrepid Sea Are and Space Musuem

     Here are Lene and Marcia, a fellow member of the Harlem Yacht Club off to the port side of a fighter jet on the hanger deck of the USS Intrepid, during the third winter exploration I have led for the Harlem. Each tour was a pleasure for me and created an opportunity for us to commingle, learn and nosh afterwards in the cold of winter when our Clubhouse is closed and our boats are put away. (Sorry that my other photos did not come out but the only thing worse than no photos is bad, fuzzy, illegible ones.) 

     In 2009 we visited a terrific exhibition in the NY Public Library about 400 years of charting of New York Harbor and environs, including Long Island Sound which was mounted to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage here on the Half Moon. Last year we went only a few blocks from our club house to the City Island Historical Maritime Museum.

     For this trip, a month or so ago, I spent four hours here on an exploratory mission, to be able to describe for the others what they would see, and then negotiated our group rates, selected our restaurant, set the menu and figured out parking. Four hours was not enough for me (because I'm a notorious slowpoke in museums), but I timed it for the group at two to three hours, with folks arriving during the first hour at their convenience. We did the touring of the exhibit on our own, in small groups, so everyone could spend as much time with each part of the exhibit as he or she liked.

     Some would want to spend more time on the bridge decks with their high views of the neighborhood. We had some engineers amongst us who helped the Space Shuttle program and would want to spend more time in the large hanger built atop the aft end of the flight deck to house the Space Shuttle Enterprise and lots of explanatory materials about it. Others toured the USS Growler a submarine that was capable of coming to the surface, preparing and launching nuclear headed cruise missiles. It went obsolete when the Navy learned to launch without even coming to the surface. One of my favorite places in the Intrepid was the space near the bow from which the anchors are deployed, each anchor stayed by three mammoth pelican hooked stoppers and with each link in the chains weighing 130 pounds! A large display of retired military aircraft on the flight deck was less popular this time because it was rather cold outside. 

     They have a good multi-media show with lots of emotional content reenacting about how the Intrepid  (but not 69 of its officers and men)survived during and after a notable kamikaze hit. It was very moving. I think I was right to not try to keep us 25 people together during the viewing hours. Some of the spots such as in the submarine, are simply not conducive to such a large group.

     Parts of the ship still have that ineffable, distinctive, not-unpleasant "navy ship" smell; how do they do that 71 years after the boat was commissioned?

      I was talking with one of our members, Tim, a 20 year Marine officer, soon to graduate from law school. We were discussing our respective wars: his in Iraq and mine in Viet Nam, (though unlike Tim, I was not actually deployed there). In both cases US fighting forces did their best to perform their missions as defined by their governments and many died. Both wars were in Asia (at opposite ends), unneeded and harmed the people of the nations in which the fighting took place. In Viet Nam we left and now are again leaving without accomplishing our objective. The harm was not just to those native military and civilian populations who were maimed or killed, but we left the nations for which we fought worse off than when we found them, poorer, with no more freedom and lots less stability. We have to learn to curb our instinct for war. It is a simplistic but blunt instrument for foreign policy to be used only after we have proved that all else has failed. Our planners universally (well except for the Spanish American War) underestimate the cost and duration and get us in without a plan to get us back out.

     I have recently completed a book by George Orwell called Homage to Catalonia, a memoir with political commentary about his six months fighting as a volunteer for the "good guys" on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) against the Fascist forces of Generalisimo Franco. He described the feeling of pride, which he knew were mistaken, but which welled up in him anyway, upon seeing the military might of the forces headed out to the front, where he had been injured. Military training and life can play tricks with one's mind. The Intrepid is a mighty machine indeed. But enough such morbid musings.

     We 25 Harlemites and friends mustered in the warmth of the hanger deck at the scheduled end of the viewing time and strolled together to McQuaid's Restaurant and Bar, at the corner of 44th St and 11th Avenue, only three short blocks from the pier. The food was healthy, wholesome, tasty, inexpensive and the desert was excellent! - warm home-baked strawberry-rhubarb pie ala mode. The agreed menu had said "cake" and this was a welcome surprise ending for our little adventure together.

New York Boat Show 2014

     Well, its not a very good boat show, what with its overwhelming power boat orientation, but it is the only big show in the New York Metro area and many sailors attend to visit the booths of the various boating related vendors and service providers.

     This year I took two five hour shifts -- manning the Harlem's Booth. Yes we recruit new members to replace those who have the unfortunate habit of moving to Florida, getting sick, dying, or, in today's economy, being compelled to give up boating for financial reasons.

     This year we cut back the number of members who cover each shift at the show because in the past when we had five or six members present, we sort of got in each other's way. Two or three are enough and we provide relief for each other to get food, and visit other vendors for a while. My first shift was Friday, 4 to 9 pm, and the show was almost snowed out with very few people in attendance. Saturday, from ten to three, we were thronged.

      If you had come by, you would heard my little talk: Swinging out between the table and the chair, in a friendly, cheerful, non-interrogatory voice I ask: "Where do you keep your boat?" And if they keep it at Cape May, NJ or near Montauk, New York, and answer my next question that they live near there too, I would wish them to enjoy the show; "But if you ever sail into Long Island Sound, you won't find a better place to take a guest mooring and enjoy our launch service and restaurant, etc. than the Harlem!"

     But for boaters who live in New York City, northern New Jersey, Westchester or Rockland Counties, "unless they have the firm feeling that you "need" a dock, the Harlem could be the place for you. Why drive so far out on Long Island or Connecticut in rush hour traffic to get to your boat? You can only use it on weekends. But if you leave work just a bit early, you can also sail weekday evenings from the Harlem."

      Some say "I don't have a boat so I'm looking". "Well, when you get her you will need a place to keep her."

      "Can't afford one yet", you say. "We have a great new program for you: You join at a low level of cost and after we teach you and check your skills out you can use one of the four boat that the Club owns for the use of its members, to improve your sailing skills until you save up enough to buy your own boat. Plus enjoy all of our social activities."

     "But all you should do today is give us your email address and name and we will send you an email to invite you to come to one of the open houses we are having this winter to actually see the club, drink some of our wine, talk to more people and we think the club will sell itself to you."

      Hopefully we will get a crop of new members this year!

Club Activities in Early Winter

Yes, life goes on.
The dock leading out from the seawall to the lower floating dock where the launch

takes us to our boats has been quietly rusting away for several decades. (Photo at low tide.) The top surface of 2 x 8s is fine, but they are mounted on steel I-beams. A few years ago. to preserve the dock's useful life we sistered new steel plates to the verticals of the original I-beams.

But before anyone gets hurt in a collapse, the I-beams are to be replaced this winter.  So yesterday, the warmest day for the next few weeks, about twelve of us gathered to take off all except the planks, in anticipation of the contractor removing the remainder and installing the new steel and planks. This involved the aluminum side rails, the water pipe, the electrical wire, the side benches mounted under the former cupola and the steps and ramp by which one gains access at the land end. Twelve guys, two hours and the dock is bare, ready for further removal by the contractor and with a saw horse at the land end to try to keep trespassers from getting themselves killed and then trying to sue us.
I have also become sort of the  self appointed Club organizer of winter activities and have two planned so far this winter. On January 18 we will visit the USS Intrepid -- Sea, Air and Space Museum at the pier at 46th Street at the Hudson river followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant.
And on March 12, Sonya Baumstein will visit with us and talk about her explorations, such as rowing across the Atlantic and paddling a stand up board across the Bering Strait from Russia to the Alaska.  Her next venture will be a two woman row from Japan to the US.
Any readers of this blog who are in the NY area and might want to join us for either or both of these events, just contact me.

Friends and Culture

This past week I spent about four hours at The Frick, a collection of priceless largely European art masterpieces collected by (and located in the former urban mansion of) robber baron Henry Frick at Fifth Avenue and 70th Street. What made my day was that Greg, an artist and teacher of art who belongs to my book club, accompanied me. Our last art crawl was at the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, with our wives, in the spring. All of the art takes on new meaning with greater insight into subject, composition, style and brushwork when Greg talks about it. I learned quite a bit from Greg about Christianity, which was the subject of several paintings of saints and bible scenes: St. Jerome, The Stigmata, etc.

The highlight of this show, however, was Vermeer's "The Girl With The Pearl Earing," on loan with about 20 other paintings by Vermeer and his contemporaries from a museum in Amsterdam.  I was surprised at how small "The Girl" is, only about 14" by 20", and they showed it alone in a room with walls for 20 paintings, and showed photographs of how it had looked before it was restored. Quite an improvement. The girl is looking back over her left shoulder with her mouth half open as if saying "What?" and the light streaming from over that shoulder too, in an exotic headdress and in a very naturalistic style. Yes, the Dutch Masters were, well, masters.

And I was pleased that I was able to help Greg to a greater understanding of a few of the paintings, those by the great English painter of landscapes (and windscapes) featuring sailboats, Joseph Mallord William Turner. At the website you can see and enlarge five of his works in this collection, three in European harbors and two out at sea, approaching harbors.  I taught Greg about points of sail. The Tate Gallery in London, where I first made Turner's acquaintance,  has many more of his paintings. Turner captured the power of storms at sea, and he did it without a camera to record the image photographically. He worked in the first half of the 19th Century.

And the next day we had a visit from Bob and Brenda of "Pandora", also a Saga 43, see www.sailpandora.com, currently at a dock in Florida while they deal with some issues and the holidays up here in the frozen north. Their son, Chris, who earlier in the day had passed the final orals for his PhD in physics at Columbia joined us for a great dinner. Last time we broke bread with them was in their home in Essex CT, in June. Good food (if I do say so myself) and good conversation with good friends. Does life get any better?  Well, on a boat -- but not with the temperature in the 20's! Bob and Brenda slept over in our not very luxurious guest accommodations, but they are used to sleeping on a boat so they were fine -- even with the feline alarm clocks! After breakfast we saw them off -- headed for The Frick.