...degrees that is. That was the heading I needed to hold to get to the next waypoint roughly 19nm away. First Light was six miles offshore in Georgian Bay heading for an anchorage in the Bustard Islands. We made the decision to go after looking at the weather as soon as we climbed out of the berth this morning. The winds had laid down more than expected. There was nothing on the Radar. We collected the anchor and headed out, noting on NEBO that pretty much everyone we knew was on the move as well. Waiting to see what other people are doing is never a good way to make a decision. But once the decision is made, seeing that a whole bunch of people made the same decision seems to matter. (It really doesn't.)
The inside passage from the anchorage to the Bay was calm and quiet. As we passed the lighthouse heading into more open waters we didn't see any whitecaps out there that would suggest a second thought might be called for. But once through the shoals we were met with rolling waves of 1 to 3 feet, occasionally 4. For the most part they flowed out of the WNW but there was an undertone of confusion with oddball random waves rolling in from just about every point on the compass. There was also a bit of confusion when it came to the wave period. Some were one foot waves with a three second period. Some were three foot waves with a one second period. It was lumped up enough that First Light was, occasionally, tossing water up her foredeck. All this in spite of the fact there was very little wind blowing?
Ahh grasshopper...air settles down a lot faster than water. The wind had been blowing over that water at 10 to 20 for almost four days and nights. The wind faded but the waves? They keep bouncing around reflecting off of shores, rocks, and other waves. But actually laying down to something comfortable takes longer. Maybe even a day or two longer.
I suspect Deb was thinking about suggesting we turn around and try again another day. I know I was. But neither of us said anything so we kept going. And sure enough, the longer we went, the more things did settled down. Still, it was a couple of hours before we reached that 19nm away waypoint and headed back into more protected waters. It seemed longer.
A long time ago, back when we were first learning about boats, I made a statement along the lines of “A sailboat under power handles like a loaf of wet bread.” The same is true of First Light. The autopilot works way too hard when when the boat is rolling and still does a lousy job of holding a heading. When hand steering, the hydraulic system gives no feedback as to the pressure on the rudders, nor is zero rudder a specific place on the wheel. And, not to put it too delicately, First Light wallows like a pig in its favorite mud pit in confused seas. (I suppose all semi-displacement or displacement boats do. But First Light is the only one I have helmed in these kinds of conditions.) Without touching anything, the heading would slew back and forth some 30 degrees. Up ahead was open water to the horizon so there was nothing to aim the bow at to hold a course. The projected route line on the Navionics chart doesn't update often enough to hand steer the heading using it. All that remained to steer by was the whiskey compass, which was doing its own little dance. So the drill became—check the compass then wrestle the helm, check the chart and the compass then wrestle the helm, check the horizon for traffic and the compass then wrestle the helm, check the radar for traffic and the compass then wrestle the helm, and don't forget to keep an eye on the engine gauges...rinse and repeat for nearly three hours.
Nineteen miles...it definitely seemed like more.
Once out of big water and back among the islands, we nosed into the anchorage that was the goal for the day. It was really narrow and already pretty full. We motored about a bit and talked about dropping the hook in a couple of different places but decided it was too narrow and already too crowded. We headed off to our alternate and are really glad we did.
It took a little over an additional hour of travel to get to it to this place called “Bad River”. Twenty seconds after entering the alternate anchorage we were both all smiles. This is another near magical place, just as good as the one we spent the last several nights enjoying. We will spend at least one day just to enjoy the sheer beauty of the place.
The 19nm were worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment