Fair Winds and Following Seas, Sailor

Jill, in green, and the crew of Pure Puur in Bermuda in May 2013.

Jill and I were the graveyard watch the first night out of St. Maarten bound for Bermuda in 2013. We were crewing for my two Dutch friends, Boogie and Marlies, aboard the 70-something-foot luxury yacht the two pro sailors were running for a couple of rich Euros. I had first crewed for Boogie and Marlies in May 2010, also leaving from St. Maarten, that time bound for Newport, Rhode Island. And I crewed for them all summer long in 2011 as we three ran charter trips in the far northern Atlantic: northern England, the Shetlands, northern Norway, Iceland, Greenland.

So to say I’d had some experience with how Boogie and Marlies liked their trips run would be an understatement. And I had connected Jill, whom I’d met on a crewing website, with Boogie and Marlies when they were looking for crew for this trip to Bermuda.

True to my form, I puked up dinner the first evening out of St. Maarten. Whenever I haven’t been to sea in a long time, the first evening’s dinner pretty much always comes up. By the time my next watch rolls around I’m back to full pique and good to go for the duration. But maybe that colored some of Jill’s opinion of Luke the sailor during that late-night stretch. After all, she was a big-time racer, having been flown all over the continent aboard a private jet as part of the crew for some big-shot boat owner from Chicago. Key West, San Diego, Annapolis, Newport…Jill had raced in all the big-time regattas and here she was stuck with some so-called sailor who couldn’t keep his dinner down?!

Maybe that’s why Jill looked at me with such disdain when I told her NOT to mess with the sail trim on that late-night watch. I knew from experience that making such a racket might gain us another half-knot or so, but it was definitely going to wake up the skipper. And he had just gone to sleep and did NOT want to be jolted from his slumber. He’d put me and Jill on this first graveyard watch precisely because he knew that I knew how he wanted things to go while he slept.

But Jill’s racer mentality was new to cruising, to delivering a yacht, and she couldn’t help but tinker. Thing is: on a 70-plus-foot luxury yacht, the winches are electric. And electric winches make noise. A lot of noise. A lot of low-pitch, rumbling noise that makes even a 70-plus-foot yacht shudder.

She’d only rumbled through a couple of turns on the winch before Boogie’s head was poking out of the companionway wanting to know what was wrong. Nothing was wrong, Jill told him, just trimming the sails to try to get a bit more speed. He looked at me — after all, I’m the one who’d arranged for her to be on this trip — and all I could do was smile and shrug. It’s a long way to Bermuda, Boogie told us. Let me sleep for a few hours, please. You can trim the sails during the daylight hours.

Boogie went back to sleep and I couldn’t help telling Jill that I’d told her so. I did so with a laugh. And she took it with a laugh. And we had a great trip to Bermuda.

And that was how I connected with Jill. It was the beginning of a mutual ball-busting friendship that was filled with a lot of laughs and a lot of exasperated sighs whenever I’d chastise her about tweaking the sails for another half-knot.

When we got to Bermuda, Jill and Marlies went out and did girlie things. Shoe-shopping, I think. And together the entire crew enjoyed some of the sights of the island. As the other crew members filtered back to their homes in the real world, Jill and I took time to explore the nooks and crannies of Hamilton, Bermuda, and also several of the world-famous beaches on the island. She indulged my marathon walk to the Mid-Ocean Club, a golf course that had been the namesake of a prep-school friend who’d grown up on Bermuda’s Strat-O-Matic Baseball team back in the early 1980s (my team, the Honolulu Tubes, won the inaugural season). We must have taken half a dozen different buses and walked a good 10 or 12 miles in the course of our wanderings, but we saw corners of Bermuda that probably not a lot of tourists see. And we had a blast.

Jill came to visit me in San Diego in 2014, after I had reentered the work force and moved back to Southern California. We had a nice weekend and the next time I saw her was in July 2015 when I was in Chicago for the Grateful Dead’s final three shows at Soldier Field. Jill bicycled to the downtown area to say hi to my friends and I, and then she was off to play tennis, a passion of hers.

That was when I first saw that she was fighting the cancer. Before it had just been an abstract concept she’d explained to me in emails and on Facebook. But there in Chicago, as she wheeled up on her bicycle, she had an American flag dewrag on her head and looked thin, gaunt. Like someone dealing with chemo. But she also looked fierce, like someone you did NOT want to mess with. This chick was tough. It was clear cancer didn’t know what it was getting into when it decided to pick on Jill.

As part of her battle, Jill went to Boston on a regular basis as part of a medical trial at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She was also part of a trial at, I believe, Northwestern in Chicago. She was NOT going gently into that good night, and the next time I saw her, in Newburyport where she came up with her boyfriend from Salem to have lunch, she seemed as fit as a fiddle. That must have been in 2016 or 2017. And in 2018, after I’d bought a sailboat of my own in Annapolis, Maryland, I asked Jill if she wanted to help me take the boat back to New England. She said she definitely wanted to go, we just had to coordinate the trip with her schedule in the trials.

The crew of Further after arriving in Newburyport, Mass., from Annapolis, Md. (from right): Jill, Captain Ed and yours truly.

Which we did, and Jill, along with another friend, Captain Ed, helped me bring Further back to Massachusetts in July 2018. It was a fun trip, filled with a bit too much motoring, a bunch of really fun sailing, some scary weather off the coast of New Jersey, and good times in Block Island and Newburyport. While chugging along offshore she explained the various trials, which in the way she described them just seemed to me like her new normal and something she’d deal with for a long time to come. She was also vociferous in her disdain for the hypocrites at organizations like Susan G. Komen who were more interested in fundraisers than in actually curing cancer.

After the three of us got to Plum Island, we took Further out for a daysail off Plum Island and gave her a proper sail, complete with hoisting the asymmetrical spinnaker and ripping along at a great clip. Jill was in her happy place trimming the chute, constantly making micro-adjustments to keep the sail in proper trim and Further rockin’ along at full speed. We had a blast and it ended up being one of the best sails of the season.

By all accounts, Jill was winning her fight. She looked fit and healthy, and we had a lot of laughs both at sea and at the house on Plum Island. Then she went back to Chicago and in the fall I returned to Annapolis with only Captain Ed’s help. And Jill and I went back to staying in touch via electronic means again.

It was in a text message in late winter this year that she said she’d entered hospice care. I didn’t know much but I knew that wasn’t good. Jill didn’t elaborate and we didn’t really talk very often after that. I sent her a happy birthday text in early June and got a reply that said only, “thanks.”

And then today I learned that she passed away on June 30. Marlies sent a text message to which I could only reply, “Oh shit.” I went to Jill’s Facebook page and there it was: a string of birthday wishes in early June and then nothing until a post a couple of weeks ago by a friend saying she’d passed a couple of weeks before that. And with that, another funk settled over my world.

I realize I’m like the old man raging at the clouds when I say that I am getting SO fucking tired of having friends die. So be it: fuck you, clouds. And fuck you, death. Jill was a good one, with a great soul and kind heart and a captivating sense of fun and humor. She was also tough and strong. She fought bravely but apparently it wasn’t enough. Does anyone have enough? If Jill didn’t, I kinda doubt it.

Fair winds and following seas, sailor.

Navel Gazing, Ocean Fun, Personal

I Bit. Now It’s Time to Chew

Here we are, a third of the way through the month of June, and I’m still in Annapolis. Not that that’s a bad thing — Annapolis is a great town and I enjoy being here. But the plan has always been to take Further and head back home to Plum Island for the summer, and to sail on the Atlantic as opposed to the Chesapeake. So why am I still here?

Well, a couple of reasons. And in the spirit of open honesty, I’m here to admit that those reasons are procrastination and fear.

I’m still checking off items on Further’s to-do list, and a lot of those things I really should have — and certainly could have — taken care of over the winter. But some of that procrastination was based on misguided faith in the boat and systems that I purchased.

For instance: I was under the impression that the dinghy that came with Further was in decent shape and just needed a few patches. But I couldn’t make those fixes during the cold weather of the winter so I waited until spring, at which point I realized I was not having success fixing the dinghy. I took it to the folks at Annapolis Inflatables who let me know that no, the dinghy was in sad shape. So finding a decent used dinghy took a while (and thanks to Jesse at Fawcett Marine who hooked me up with an Apex inflatable in great shape).

Similar situations arose with many other to-do items, and compounding my procrastination was the island-time mentality in the sailing community here in Naptown. Seriously, if you want to get that “mañana” or “soon come, mon” vibe without going to the tropics, just come to Annapolis and get involved with the boating industry. “I’ll be able to look at it this week” means they’ll get to it in two-plus weeks. And even the seemingly honest accounts — “We won’t get to it for three weeks” — means you have to chase them down after three-plus weeks so they’ll look at it. A lot of this is due to the fact that the marine-related companies around here are swamped with work, but some of it is definitely due to a laid-back attitude that surprised even laid-back me.

The other factor delaying my trip north is the challenge in finding experienced crew able to make the journey. And that has actually raised some very ominous specters for my longer-term dreams.

I have every belief that I could take Further north by myself, but for a first journey offshore in several years (for both boat and me), going solo is not especially smart. Simply keeping watch for the entirety of the trip — much of which is spent crossing the shipping lanes going into and out of New York City — would be an exercise in ultramarathon endurance. And it would be a hell of a lot smarter and safer to have others aboard to help with sail trim, steering, navigating, anchoring/mooring and so forth.

I’ve sent out a couple of group emails to friends who are experienced sailors but no one’s schedule permits them to make the run. And I have some fear — or rather, a nervousness — about making the journey home on my own. I’m nervous about the seasickness I always feel on my first evening at sea after a long time ashore. I’m nervous about crossing all those shipping lanes. I’m nervous about dealing with the tidal currents in the Delaware Bay and the Cape Cod Canal. I’m nervous about dealing with the mouth of the Merrimack River and the currents upstream in Newburyport where Further’s summer mooring awaits. I’m nervous about dealing with all of the systems on board Further when (not if) issues arise. And I’m especially nervous about dealing with all of them alone. Sure, plenty of people sail around the world solo in all sorts of contraptions. Sure, I know what I’m doing and Further is strong, solid boat that can cross oceans without batting an eye. But I’m still nervous. I’d like to have some help along the way.

There. I said it: I’m scared/nervous/fearful.

And going forward from a few-day trip back to Massachusetts, I’m nervous that I’m SO close to my dream but won’t be able to realize it because I can’t (or don’t want to) do all of this on my own. I’m wondering now if maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with regard to the whole cruising dream. Is Further too much boat? Can I really go and chase those adventures I’ve dreamed about since I was a teenager? I always figured I might have to go solo for stretches, but I was optimistic friends would want to join up for some of the fun parts; indeed, that’s one of the reasons I wanted a boat with two separate cabins. I also figured I’d meet similarly minded people along the way (and I may yet) but now I’m not so sure. And I’m now grappling with the fact that as much as this has been my dream, and as much as I’ve wanted to do this — even solo — for so long, now I’m thinking that maybe doing it solo isn’t really what I want. That maybe even this curmudgeonly old loner might prefer a little more people time than he likes to admit.

I’m confident that I just need this one trip under my belt and everything will fall into place: my sea legs will come back, I’ll rediscover that joy I feel when I’m offshore, my adventure-lust will come back full force and my deal-with-it attitude will enable me to address anything that might arise on board in the future.

It turns out the procrastination was the easy part; that just meant a delay. No big deal. But the fear, well, that’s created a big obstacle to a short trip and a lifelong journey. I’m dealing with that every single day right now. Stay tuned.

(Note: This post also appears over at my site dedicated to Further and my adventures in boat ownership.)

Navel Gazing, Ocean Fun, Personal, , ,

What a Difference…

…a few inches makes. I can see women everywhere nod knowingly.

Okay, vulgarities aside, it’s true: just a few inches of water lifted me from being a resigned and nervous to happy and calm, all in the space of just a few minutes.

It started with Saturday’s mondo nor’easter. It blew through the Mid-Atlantic with not a whole lot of precipitation but a whole lot of wind. Storm-force winds: steady in the 30s and 40s, with gusts into the 60s out of the north. Knots, not miles per hour. It wasn’t too bad up in the cove where Further is tied up, but out on Chesapeake Bay it was blowing right down the bay. That meant the wind was pushing the water right out of the bay and into the ocean. Which meant that the water level dropped — even up in my little cove. And with a wind that fierce, the water level dropped a lot.

Tilting sideways Friday night. Made for an uneasy evening.

I knew based on the forecast on Thursday that Further would end up sitting in the mud. It happened before during the winter several times and is, according to the locals, a winter phenomenon. As I say: it happened earlier this winter, so when Further’s keel touched in early afternoon on Friday I wasn’t too worried. Earlier in the winter I wound up high-and-dry enough that my propellor was actually sticking out of the water, but Further drooped forward, toward her bow, and it was simply an inconvenience getting on and off the boat.

My fear Friday night was that my mast would tangle with my neighbor’s mast. That would have been bad.

On Friday, the water raced out of the cove. I went from floating to touching the keel to most of the rudder out of the water in just a couple of hours. And for whatever reason, Further not only sagged forward she sagged sideways, toward her port side.

Sitting in the mud isn’t a big deal. The keel and hull are strong and the mud in my cove is quite soft. What was nerve-wracking was that as Further sagged to port, her mast got closer and closer to the mast of the sailboat tied up beside me. I doubled up my lines on the starboard side hoping they, and a piling that stood between the two boats, would keep me vertical enough if the water continued to drop. And given the forecast — the winds were supposed to peak Friday night but continue blowing out of the north until Monday — I had every expectation that most of the water was leaving of the cove.

My neighbor helped me with my lines and thought I’d be fine. I wish I’d had her confidence. Our masts weren’t lined up as Further tilted more and more, so that gave me a little bit of room. There wasn’t much more I could do late on Friday I climbed into my bunk and went to sleep.

And when I say “climbed” I mean “climbed.” Further was heeled over probably 30 degrees to port so I slept more on the side of the hull than on the mattress. But I was warm and cozy, and I’m blessed that when I’m tired I can sleep damn near anywhere. I actually zonked out from midnight until 5 a.m., and then again from 5:30 till 7.

Saturday morning and Further was where she’d been when I went to sleep the night before.

I woke on Saturday to find the boat in basically the same position as it had been in when I went to sleep: tilting forward a bit and steeply to port. Another climb up and out of my berth, through the cabin, and then a long stretch and jump to get to the dock revealed that no, the boat hadn’t sunk any deeper. But I had. Assuming the forecast meant that, at best, Further would be in her predicament until at least Monday, I wondered from coffee shop to coffee shop in Annapolis, unable to bear looking at her as she sat like a beached whale. I worried about everything: how long the lines could hold up under the strain, if the piling could really bear Further’s weight, when the electrical work that was scheduled for the coming week could actually happen since there was no way the guy was going to be able to get his tools across the gap from dock to deck. And it was doubly a shame to sink into such a funk because Saturday had dawned gorgeous: brilliant blue sky; warm sunshine; yes, still breezy but not as bad. And I couldn’t enjoy it. All I could see was my foundering vessel as dark thoughts raced through my mind, most along the lines of: what the hell had I gotten myself into? Seriously. I was THAT bad.

And then something almost miraculous happened, and it happened at the most unexpected time.

All’s well that ends well.

I was sitting at the picnic table on shore near Further as the midday low tide approached. Jumping on board (I’m serious: literally JUMPING from the dock) to once again check the lines, I looked to a piling in the middle of the cove, the one with the depth gauge nailed to it. Friday night, as Further reached her nadir, the water was about an inch away from the base of that piling. But now, as the tide was bottoming out, the water was touching the wood where it entered the mud. The water was about an inch, maybe two, higher than it had been the night before. But the tide was still going out AND the wind was still blowing from the north. What the…?!

A short while later, right at dead low tide, and the water had surrounded the base. A little more time and it was now an inch on the OTHER side of the piling. The water was coming back into the cove.

By mid-afternoon enough water had come back into the cove that Further was no longer resting on that piling. I placed a second fender on the boat’s rail, just in case, and tightened up her lines. A short while later, I had to tighten her lines again. A bit later, while tightening the lines again, my neighbor walked into the marina and exclaimed that our masts were almost parallel once again.

Saturday afternoon and the masts are parallel again.

Further wasn’t floating yet, but wow! What a transition. And still the water came flowing into the cove. I could savor the sunshine pouring down out of the blue sky and welcome the ducks that swam around my bow. I returned everything in the cabin that had fallen from its place the night before and enjoyed being able to sit on a horizontal seat.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose. I removed the secondary lines this morning (Sunday) and reset all the primary lines such that Further is a tiny bit farther out into the cove and a tiny bit closer to the starboard side of her slip. And in hindsight, I can be happy about a few things.

For one, the boat was comfortable when heeled over. That’s important because that’s how she’ll be when we’re out at sea. Yes, I’ve lived life at an angle before and it’s fine. But it’s a drag when you’re doing it at the dock. Second, some friends (both in Annapolis and farther flung) were very helpful throughout the stressful parts of this event. Third, this was a record low water level (eclipsing the record set earlier in the winter) and spring is fast returning so a repeat episode seems unlikely, knock on wood. (If I see a similar forecast in the coming weeks, I’m motoring out of my marina and staying at some other marina with deeper slips for a couple of nights.) Combined with another recent hair-raising episode (I’ll recap that one later) that let me know my bilge pumps and alarm systems work properly, and the takeaways are that Further, despite all her scrapes and bruises and other signs of age, is a well-found vessel. I look forward to getting her out into bluewater where she can let down her hair a bit and be in her element. That day is coming…

Ocean Fun, Uncategorized, , , ,