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, , , ,

Why Further?

The rites have been performed, the gods appeased. The ceremony is complete. The boat is now mine. And her name is Further.

I actually declared her name when I announced my purchase back in November. But the cold weather prevented the local graphics folks here in Annapolis from doing the work until just this past Tuesday. And once they applied the actual vinyl, protocol demanded keeping the name under wraps until a proper renaming ceremony could be performed. That meant as soon as possible because I couldn’t take the boat out (and it has been warm enough lately that the cove and creek leading to Chesapeake Bay have finally thawed) until the old name was exorcised and the new one christened. That the weather forecast for today, four days later, was nice — sunny and high 50s — sealed the deal.

Then I posted a photo of the covered-over transom on Facebook in an announcement of the impending renaming and friends started speculating about what the new name might (or should) be. Some suggested silly names that had been internet memes (Boaty McBoatface…really?!) while many suggested something referencing my late dog, Spooner. One friend remembered my earlier declaration and asked about the name; the showman in me quickly deleted his comment to keep the speculation going.

But Further it is. And Further it shall be. Why?

Well, for starters, I’ve had the name in mind ever since I started daydreaming as a kid about my future boat. When I thought about what I might call her, I kept coming back to what I wanted my boat to do: transport me — physically, spiritually, intellectually — to new adventures, new worlds, new lives. I realized Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters had the same goal in mind when they named their psychedelically painted school bus “Further” and made that the bus’ destination sign.

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead (house band for the Merry Pranksters’ Acid Test parties) sings:
“The bus come by and I got on, that’s when it all began
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to Never Ever Land.”
The song refers to Neal Cassady, legendary inspiration for Jack Kerouac and the Beats, now leading Bobby, the Dead and the Pranksters as they sought the next level of human consciousness. And they sought it on board Further. Well now I’ve found my bus and with her I hope to seek out MY next level, through the grace of Mother Ocean rather than any man-made drugs. (I can assure you: music will be a big part of the journey on Further, and a lot of that music will be Grateful Dead.)

As the Pranksters hoped LSD and their bus would do for them in the ‘60s, so I hope my Further will take me to faraway realms and bring me back safe and sound in the 21st century. And I hope you, my friends, will join me in the coming years in exploring this watery planet. I WILL need crew; I WILL need help. I can’t do it alone. Stay tuned for more details as they shake out, but stage one on the journey is to finish sorting out Further and get my sailing legs back while here on the Chesapeake. In May, we’ll return home to New England: I’ve reserved a mooring on the Merrimack River in Newburyport. I’ll go back to living at home on Plum Island and do a lot of daysails and short cruises in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine (maybe even Nova Scotia). And then, next fall, well, you’ll just have to tune in and see. Or better yet, come along on the ride to Never Ever Land.

Note: Special thanks to Chris and the folks at Accent Graphics in Annapolis. I showed Chris a photo of the bus, Further, with its destination plate and he created the font for the graphic used on the boat, Further.

New England, Ocean Fun, Travel, , , , , , , , , , ,