Uncle!

This morning's weather check suggested that today, tonight, and tomorrow would be an ugly ride on the wall. The wind is forecast to blow out of the west at 15 to 25, pushing the surge directly up the channel. With the broken cleat in mind, that was enough to convince the crews of the three boats on the wall that staying on the wall might not be the best idea. All three took advantage of a lull in the wind this morning, bailing out and are now in adjacent slips in the marina a few hundred yards up the river. It is amazing how different the ride can be between two places that close together. But we are now tucked around a corner, facing nearly ninety degrees off of where we were, tied up between pilings, and with a line of boats between us and any surge that makes it this far.

The three crews plus the lifetime mariner who bailed off the wall a couple of days ago (and had suggested we do the same) helped get the boats safely away from the concrete and in the slips. It was a painless exercise orchestrated by a life long expert sailor. I am a bit embarrassed that I let my wallet override his opinion a couple of days ago. He is way too much the professional to have rubbed it in, but I think I caught a bit of a wry smile when he heard of our plans this morning and offered his help. He also invited us aboard and out of the cold wind while we waited for the gaggle of sailboats to head out for the second day of their planned race. For them, 20 knots worth of wind is magic, five foot waves are kind of fun.

It would be a pretty good bet that I am one of the happiest boat drivers on the planet right now. Two days with little sleep and food can put a damper on one's opinion of life. Throw in a broken boat and (yet another) near miss on this trip? I'm nothing but smiles right now. The boat is doing its normal slow nodding and swinging when in a slip. It is not trying to climb over or bounce off anything with fenders and lines moaning and grinding in protest.

As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20. I'm not sure that staying on the wall trying to save some hard earned $$ was a bad idea on its face. We just didn't know what we didn't know. At least we should be pretty secure until we can start making some more miles.

The next time the forecasts have the wind at less than 20 knots is Tuesday. In the meantime we will catch up on sleep and food, relax for the first time in days, maybe change the wash down pump with a new one Deb found not too far away in a West Marine, and see what it will take to replace the broken cleat. That is "relaxing" in boat speak.