Giving Thanks From Surprise
The thing about this new cruising life is the immediate need for daily decisions, made, then remade and often revised once again before the day’s end. But one MUST adjust to the variable elements. This is the all-engrossing aspect of life.
So, it’s tough to stick to a plan. For October the elements were easy and fun… Finally our dream had come true: We were real cruisers, living aboard a vessel we love…with each other only….on our way to the Annapolis Boat Show. We proudly sailed from NY to MD and anchored in the middle of all the action. With the youth sailig clubs. sails were always up in Annapolis! Right off our anchor, humming, whipping, roll tacking, jibing, reaching, racing…all within a few feet of Surprise!! Further out the Middies were always on patrol in their 105’ PY training vessels blasting their horns and executing tight maneuvers (5 blasts means BACKING).
We were anchored off the seawall in front of the US Naval Academy with many other boats that had sailed in for the Boat Show. It’s a perfect stop on the fall migration south. Javelin, an Atlantic 55 cat, was on a hook next door and is the new hot boat owned by our boat’s designer and now friend, Chris White. For VIP night he and his wife Katie came on board for dinner.
Then Ron and Sylvia from SC stayed five nights while they worked the show for Ocean Navigator Magazine.
The event was a blur of lectures to attend, equipment to see and study, safety issues researched, needs to be considered, all 4 days long. Then evenings full of merriment and laughter with Ron and Sylvia on board. Not a care in the world. We also attended our second Seven Seas Cruising Association’s GAM and proudly bought our first burgee! One of the presenters was a psychologist named Trish who spoke about episodes at sea when miscommunication and yelling happens between cruising couples. She said we all have fears about our abilities and the unknown; we need to be sensitive to each other. She called these fears the “dragons” that need to be addressed.
NO problem, Mon…Corky and I groove together, as we squeezed each other’s hand. But remember….. it’s still early October. This sailing life has only just begun.
We gave ourselves the nickname Molasses as we grew brown bottom beard, and the Sailboat show ended and then the Powerboat show ended and still we hadn’t budged. But it was so perfect to have all the experts there to help us with just a few more projects.
We got Marshall from J Gordon & Co to trick us into installing our own new watermaker. A fantastic learning experience and then Marshall offered Cork a job (and now he’s a friend for life)! Plus there was the generator we ordered, missing in transit for days…so October marched on and so did the fall/winter weather. Change of season means change of temp with uneven heating patterns causing pockets of warm and cold air to jostle each other. The summer Azores High was now moving off south…lightning bolts, storms, big winds coming….my dragons!
That’s DRAG… as in dragging the anchor!!!!
When the first low cell was predicted to hit, we left the Academy’s seawall (hard to believe) and went 3 miles away to Ridout Creek (pronounced ride out, as in storm). Deep up a trib, one of the many Chesapeake Bay small rivers. Snug up a dead end hole, surrounded by hills and deciduous woods in crimson.
Perfectly safe… NOT.
At 11 PM, we watched the storm come over us, like meteorologically star struck teenagers staring at our new GPS screen. Talk about being in the moment! In an instant the storm hit and we were dragged in a whipping whirl of wind and left frozen as we watched ourselves come down on the boat anchored astern VERY FAST. The concerned owner, leaning forward off his bow and seeing our quick approach kept yelling “What’s your plan, Captain? What’s your plan, Captain???”
Fire those F’n Turbo engines! Yanmar to the rescue; move out of danger; reset the hook; storm goes away; go to bed. We learned a lot that night, like leaf litter and twigs are not good holding.
Now, it is late October and we are in Spa Creek, again a dead end trib, but with a thick mud bottom for this next storm. We thought the anchor set and we were secure…slept soundly until 5 AM on that dark, cold, rainy, windy dawn. When, again in an instant the tempest arrives and all hell breaks loose! In no other sport must you leap from a warm berth, tug on clothes and jump into action…finding yourself, 3 minutes later, touching noses, almost kissing a stranger, as you hold his pointed bow pulpit off your starboard rear-end. He has great stubble, beautiful blue eyes and a calm disposition, since it is only OUR hiney in danger. Meanwhile, Captain Cork (my real hero) attempts to do a dingy tow-job and pull our rudder off Windrift’s two bow anchor rodes…AND succeeds! Serenity returns and from here on we do a Bahamian Moor job (that’s two anchors down)…
Thank goodness we knew how…for when the Thanksgiving Gale arrived we were serenely dug deep into beautiful Silver Lake, just as close as you can get to the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ (aka “Devil’s Elbow”) in Ocracoke, NC on the Outer Banks…home of the famous pirate, Blackbeard, who met his end here. For proof of his demise, his detached head sailed away mounted under the bowsprit of a Royal Navy Frigate in 1718. For our holiday the friendly local hunters gave us Brant Goose, Sea Trout and King Mackeral. As Cork was they taste like?” “Well,” he replied, “they ain’t no tenderloin. Them jus sea duck.” ‘’ a feast indeed after the feathers cleared, which we shared with a Canadian couple cruising down from Lake Ontario on their way to the Bahamas.
But before leaving Chesapeake Bay we had visited Jamestown, VA. Seemed only fitting on its 400th Anniversary and after the Queen had stopped by earlier this summer (her last visit on the 350th, 1957). We left Norfork, VA, impressive site of the US Navy’s East Coast base. Had last come through Norfolk in the spring and had spied the USS Cole afloat and refitted after her fateful encounter in Yemen 2005 with the extremists.
So we sailed 30 miles up the James, and had we been our four hundred year predecessors, we would have arrived off a low, sandy, buggy island poorly drained and with no fresh water, beset by tides. And so we asked why the three small ships carrying 104 unsuspecting souls picked here? The answer - to be so far inland that the Spaniards wouldn’t find them.
The English hadn’t yet figured out – nor have we - what had happened to their brethren from the Lost Colony 20 years prior. And we thought all they had to care about were Indians and starvation!
No starvation here, just waking up each morning wondering what the plan is! This permanent vacation stuff is demanding. It’s hard to think about moving on, except we’re now cold and north winds can take us south fast. Our record speed so far is 15.2 knots in 25 knots of wind on the Chesapeake…perhaps the roaring breath of a dragon who lives just over the horizon could be warm and sweet! Translation means: STUDY the 500 millibar pressure report and understand the winds in the mid-troposphere and THEN plan as best you can…
for there are the Holidays to celebrate in Florida with grandsons. Some Fun...
Joyous Season to all our friends! Sue & Corky
