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.

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Sunrise from Further at the dock

Annapolis, Maryland, is a neat little city. Its downtown core — home to the U.S. Naval Academy, the state capitol and the city’s waterfront — reminds me a lot of Newburyport, Mass. Both cities share a rich maritime history, both are laid out in red brick and both have great ice cream stores (well, Newburyport used to).

The only difference is that Annapolis is much bigger. That, and the ocean is a two-plus-hour drive from here (many, many hours by boat), unlike Newburyport which is right on the Atlantic. If Naptown (as it’s known) was on the ocean, I’d have moved here a while ago. Why? Well, Annapolis is also the yachting capital of the country. Newport, R.I., sometimes makes that claim due to having hosted the America’s Cup for so many decades, but there is so much more sailing-focused business and activity here in Annapolis that Newport might as well be in a field in Kansas.

The same view that evening

Annapolis is also where my boat, Further, and I are currently located. And it’s my location that is the major quandary perplexing my brain these days.

I purchased Further in mid-November, too late to take her back to New England since all the marinas had already pulled in their docks and packed every square inch of land with boats on stands for the winter. That didn’t bother me too much since it’s just an 7.5-hour drive between Naptown and Plum Island and I could get back and forth relatively easily (although I will say that I am WAY over that drive at this point). I figured I could leave the boat in the water, head back and forth often, and work on the boat AND get my sea legs back. Or I could live aboard in Naptown and maybe get a part-time job locally through the winter. Either way, I’d spend the winter getting my and Further’s acts back together before next spring when we’ll head back to New England.

My view upon waking up

There’s another possibility that is tugging at me a bit, however: I’m thinking I could take the boat down the Intracoastal Waterway to someplace warmer — Florida, perhaps — for the winter. It’s been nippy enough waking up aboard Further the last few mornings that America’s third-world country down south seems quite appealing.

But I’m in an area of Annapolis that is really appealing. Eastport, known as the Maritime Republic of Eastport, is the funky section of town, home to great pubs and restaurants, a lot of boating businesses and a funky crew of locals that have a vivid joie de vivre. And I’m currently living in the funkiest part of Eastport — Stella’s Stern and Keel Marina — which I’m really enjoying. My neighbors have returned following Thanksgiving and they’re all really nice, really interesting people. It’s been great settling into the neighborhood.

Twilight in June’s Cove

That funkiness does come with a price, however. Up here in June’s Cove, the water is thin. When we get a big storm that blows all the water out of Chesapeake Bay (as happened the first weekend I was at Stella’s), Further’s keel sits on the muddy bottom at low tide. It’s not damaging the boat but it does make me wary and it means Further can’t get in or out until the water rises again.

And then there’s the aforementioned distance to the ocean and the chilly nights. Maryland DOES get winter so I’m expecting true cold and even some snow later in the season. It’s still only November.

So I’m really in a fix right now as I wrestle with the possibilities. I will definitely head north next spring, but what to do for the next four to six months? How much sailing/motoring would I really do here over the winter? What if conditions are good but the water level has me stuck at the dock? But am I ready enough to even consider heading down the ICW for Florida at this point? And if I’m not in New England for the winter, what will I do about hockey? (Yes, as trivial as it may sound to you, hockey is a big part of my life so it IS a factor.)

I blame this poster…

Among the things that tipped me over the edge into buying Further was the image I use as my laptop’s wallpaper. It reads: “Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.” Hockey and Plum Island are right in the wheelhouse of my comfort zone, so maybe stepping away from both of them is a good idea, an impetus for growth. To be honest, the hockey this fall has been great but I’ve been stagnating at the island, with nothing really going on other than helping my brother with projects around the house. Even if I’m not doing much down here in Naptown or any farther south, at least I’m making progress with Further and pushing that dream along. So it seems as though prioritizing a life that enables me to work on the boat is the way to go. From there, as detailed above, the questions arise.

Well…stay tuned, I guess.

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Stormy Weather

Sunday night’s wind blew sand off the beach and into the streets of Plum Island

In the fine tradition of big-ass North Atlantic storms around Halloween (see: the so-called “perfect storm” of 1991; hurricane Sandy, 2012), New England got hit by a doozy of a tempest this past Sunday night, Oct. 29. Spawned by the atmospheric marriage of the remains of tropical storm Phillipe and a cold front moving off the mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S., Sunday’s night storm brought ferocious winds and heavy rains to the northeastern part of the country — including my snug-and-cozy domicile on the quaint little sand dune known as Plum Island.

Oh, baby! Did it blow Sunday night! We had a storm back in March — a standard winter nor’easter — that delivered official winds as high as 77 mph and was as impressive as any I’d ever seen at Plum Island, but Sunday night’s storm was different. For starters, in this storm the wind came out of the east-southeast. That may not seem like a big deal but my home is aligned northeast-to-southwest, so the wider side of of the house bore the brunt of Sunday night’s winds. And those winds, while less than March’s winds — highest velocities were in the 60s — were sustained for several hours, prompting me to actually start to wonder if something major was going to happen to the house. I had fears of the solar panels getting yanked off and taking the roof with it, or the decks (which my brother is currently rebuilding) blowing down, or windows caving in, or…

Monday morning broke sunny and beautiful, but the ocean was a little worked up…

In the end, we had it pretty easy. The extent of the damage was limited to leaks on the windward side of the house and a bunch of shingles on the newly repaired roof being torn off. The former occurred in areas my brother and I had earlier this autumn identified as needing replacement so there was no surprise there, while the latter is covered by the manufacturer since they were just installed a month ago. So…no big deal. Hell, our electricity didn’t even blink.

But driving around the following evening (Monday being hockey night, after all), the damage was pretty amazing. Heading into Newburyport, the opposite side of the Merrimack River was eerily dark as Salisbury remained without power. And several other towns in Essex County were not only still dark but trees were down everywhere, several roads remained closed and crews were still at work clearing debris off power lines. Hockey went on as scheduled (whew!) but two days later there remains a lot of work to be done. Apparently, some 300,000 people in Massachusetts were without power for various lengths of time (some remain without power through Wednesday). Up in Maine, many places are also still without power. And there is plenty of damage to both property and forest throughout New England.

And another thought occurred to me as I lay awake Sunday night between 3 and 4 a.m. during the peak winds: our winds, while certainly fierce, were less than half what Barbuda, St. Martin, Dominica, the BVIs and Puerto Rico (and other places) endured during hurricanes Irma and Maria — and those places had those incomprehensible winds for the better part of a day, not just a few hours. (Our storm was moving at 50+ mph when it hit New England so it blew right through; those hurricanes took their damned sweet time as they obliterated those islands.) So while I was feeling humbled as I listened to the wind and felt the house shake, I knew I had it pretty damned easy. (And one other, somewhat related thought occurred to me also: the thought of being at sea in such winds — an uncommon though not rare event — was frightening. But that’s something I’ll have to worry about later.)

This photo was posted to Facebook on Monday. I wonder who that “lone loco surfer” could be? Hmm…

Of course, I did get to enjoy some benefits of the storm. The waves kicked up Sunday night were quite large on Monday — too large to venture into until Monday afternoon, and even then it was 100 percent ludicrous as the winds, now blowing westerly or offshore, were still steady in the high 30s, so the currents were crazy and getting into a wave was damned near impossible. But venture out I did, and I stayed for two whole waves before I pulled the chute. Tuesday saw much smaller but still fun longboard waves, which I enjoyed for a couple of chilly hours. The Atlantic is cooling down…

Just another autumn in New England.

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