Dock Visitors

It's been a busy week for Team First Light. On Friday, Tim's brother drove down from Pittsburgh, PA to visit for the weekend and stayed on the boat with us. Roo, our newest crew member, graciously gave up his cabin for Uncle Paul to stay in (Age before beauty rules.) The following day Team St. Louis arrived in the form of my youngest daughter, her significant other, my granddaughter and her cousin. They had reserved a room at the Oriental Inn and Marina just a couple blocks away. The weather was going to deteriorate the end of the weekend, so we loaded everyone up early Saturday morning and headed off the dock for a 2-hour tour of the Neuse River. It was absolutely perfect weather, seas were calm and the sun was shining. Everyone was happy to have the chance to be on the water, maybe no one more than the Captain.

The rest of the weekend was spent sharing food and laughter and enjoying the wildlife by the dock. It was a great time spent with family and we were really happy to share just a bit of why we like this lifestyle.

Some photos from my youngest daughter's collection:

Roo taking his uncle on a dinghy ride in Smith Creek.

And a different kind of dock visitor this morning...

Special Peeps

I always talk about the "Peeps", the people we meet while we're out here cruising on the boat. Occasionally we run across some really special Peeps worth mentioning. Martijn Dijkstra is one of those.

We first met Martijn in 2013 when we were stuck in Oriental for some engine trouble on Kintala. We spent a month on the dock then, and had a chance to spend some quality time with him. Martijn is from Holland and has sailed extensively on both his first boat, Rotop, and his current boat, Prinses Mia, named after his daughter. Prinses Mia is a prime example of everything that makes a long distance cruising boat a worthy life. Everything is painted in splashes of brilliant color, from the freeboard, deck and wheelhouse to the interior woodwork to the sails and sail cover. It's filled with an eclectic combination of the modern useful and the historical classic. In every corner you look there are touches of his engineering genius and of his resourcefulness. Bits and pieces of salvaged boats are placed about—ship models that belong in a museum, a wooden wheel from a sunken tugboat, a ship's engine order telegraph, a huge iron coffee grinder, backsplash tiles handcrafted in Holland, a hanging oil lamp, a wood-burning stove, and polished bronze and wood everywhere—most of it acquired from the dumps in various harbors he's visited, other things traded and bartered for, a good bit of it handcrafted by Martijn himself. Martijn has an amazing talent of being in the right place at the right time.

A while back Drake Paragon did a 3-part miniseries about Martijn on his first boat. It's well worth the watch.

Martijn is the rare individual that's at home with both the sea and his fellow humans, and you feel immediately comfortable lounging among the collection of parts he's amassed into this floating home, listening to the tales of his travels interspersed with laughter. If you're lucky enough to run into him, you'll step off the boat and go on your way with a smile. And leaving your fellow humans with a smile is a bit of a lost art these days, so I'll take it. 

Just Poking Along...

Time has slowed to a bit of a crawl as I recover. I feel pretty good all things considered, but there is still a dull but persistent ache around the implant, and the wound has yet to heal over completely. Normally being this inactive would result in a serious case of boredom driving both of us crazy. But I am kind of enjoying not having much to do. Deb and I take long walks and indulge in an occasional treat at The Bean. Much of my time is spent making music with the various Ukes we brought along. Deb puts her guitar (and the baritone Uke) to regular use as well. The electric table top drum kit and pan drum have remained silent as I am not convinced my left side can take a drum pounding.  I also spend a lot of time just watching the world go by from the fly bridge or aft deck. Dolphins, otters, fish, and a squad of different birds spend the day ruffling the waters around our slip. Though I don't really understand why, I am encouraged by the knowledge that they would be doing what they do regardless of me being around to watch, or not. All of human kind will disappear at some point in a cosmic second, with our entire history forgotten, and the universe will not even notice. Knowing that, one would think we would treat each other better than we do. Evidence, perhaps, that we are not nearly as intelligent as we think we are.

Though dogging along at the moment, we are slowly getting back to the routine of getting ready to go. A day or so ago the good folks from the engine shop dropped off the revived Dink motor. Not only did they deliver it, but they mounted it on the Dink and fired it up. It takes a bit of a pull to get it started but Deb handled it without problem. It will be a while before I am yanking on the thing. After they left we took the Dink out for a short cruise, me sitting in the front. I was never particularly comfortable in Kintala's Dink. First Light's, with its hard floor and bigger motor, should soften my dislike for Dink travel. As should have been expected, one of those center console fishing boats cut in front of us during the test run, throwing a pretty good wake. Deb slowed up and turned bow in, but I got a bath anyway. For some reason they slowed down about the time water came pouring over our bow. I guess pulling one's head out of one's ass is still better done late then never. Since I enjoy anchoring out far more than being on a dock, Dink travel is a necessity—even with the occasional waterway bonehead encounter. But I don't have to like it.

With the motor mounted and the test ride over, we gave the new lifting rig its first real test. It worked better than the old rig but it is still a serious bit of lift for a single person to handle. There were many times on Kintala that, after a long day's sail, we were just too tired to wrestle the Dink into the water, mount the engine, and go exploring. Something we do not want to be the case with First Light. So we wandered down to the hardware store and then the marine supply store to see what we might come up with to make Dink launch and stow easy. At the second stop we found a small used winch that appeared to be in pretty good shape. They were willing to part with it for a fraction of a boat buck. We mounted it in the aft cockpit which gave us the final bit of lift we need to get the dink and motor out of the water with just a modest amount of effort. Once we were sure it would work, we added a small cleat and a thing to hold the winch handle and line when the Dink is up and secured.

Dow Corning 795 is awesome stuff for bedding
hardware of any kind

It was a project I thought easy enough to tackle without compromising my recovery. But (now don't be surprised) we got into things a bit deeper than anticipated by pulling the haws horn unit to see if it provided access to mount a backing plate for the winch. Getting it free of the aft bulkhead turned into a wrestling match that was more than enough for my left side. Deb took over and the unit eventually admitted defeat and came free. Unfortunately, it didn't provide the access we thought since there is a solid block of wood that the haws is mounted through.  We had hoped that the wood was big enough to catch the winch as well, but it didn't work out that way. After some debate we installed the winch as close to the wooden support as we could. It should work since the load is strait shear, but we will see. One thing is sure, getting the Dink + Motor up and on the swim platform is one-person easy now. I managed to rejoin the fray by drilling a few holes and installing some screws. 

There are other things I should be able to do. Another coat of teak oil on the rails as well as prepping and oiling the steps up to the fly bridge are high on my list. Those steps have been left raw. For me teak left to weather “naturally” marks a boat as wrecked, abandoned, or neglected. (Your opinion may very, no offense intended.) It is our experience that teak oil doesn't make things too slippery to walk on and, with the rest of the boat starting to look pretty good, those steps stand out as major ugly.

While down in the engine room working on some lighting, Deb found a failed fastener on a shaft seal that also held the bonding wire. That will have to be addressed before we head out, but will have to wait a couple of weeks. My arm is not yet up to that kind of work in a confined space.

So we poke along pretty pleased that just poking along is still an option.

On being still

From where I sit in the cockpit, the still water is like glass, save for a very occasional ripple from a stray breeze. The cormorants, perched like yogis on the pilings of the abandoned dock next to us, spread their wings to dry in the late-day sun. The gulls swoop by just inches from the water, looking for their evening meal and offering their signature laugh as they execute a perfect hammerhead stall to repeat the glide in the other direction. The little silver fish they hunt flip and jump joyously, evading their captors. In the water just behind the boat, the jellyfish glide silently, their bells pulsing rhythmically.

Exiting the chaos that was last week and being transported here has been a bit of a shock. Every few minutes my mind replays the incidents of those few days, unbidden like an endless screen saver, images I fear will be forever burned there. But being here, in this place of peace, forced to stop what is for many a frenetic pace of life and just be still...is a gift, however much it nearly cost us.

When was the last time you just sat still? No phone, no TV, no computer, no tablet no Pandora. Just still. Many of us can’t even do it. We panic. How much is missed by our frenzy?

Stillness is an exercise that must be deliberate and practiced, and one I confess I avoid too often. I’m a doer. So much so that even my grandkids have stated to complete strangers that “DeMa is happiest when she has a project.” Cruising on a boat certainly offers opportunity to experience stillness—the quiet anchorage at the end of the day, the star-filled sky, the sunrise as you start the day's journey—but often the pressure of weather and The List steal away the stillness even on a boat.

This place, this sudden wrenching of our plans from our control, have forced me to stop. To be still. To realize in a very real way that we have a place in the network that is the natural life around us. It’s restorative. It’s calming. It’s peaceful. And right now, it’s the healing that we both need.

What it is

It has been a bit over a week since our plans got changed by my unanticipated visit to the cardiac ICU. At the one week check-up they downloaded a data dump from the thing in my chest. Apparently my heart fires normally 96% of the time, leaving the other 4% (a bit less than once a minute average) to be aided with a small jolt. At that rate, the battery life is estimated at 15 years. I was deemed as “doing just fine.” The bandage over the wound, which had grown to be more than a little irritating, was removed. The wound itself was also reported as "doing just fine". So now it is just a matter of waiting out the weeks it will take for the muscle to heal. Though limited to what can be done with my left arm, I'm not completely useless. (No snide remarks please.)

With Deb doing the heavy lifting, we assembled and installed a lift point for the dinghy at the aft starboard corner of the aft deck roof. With a newly purchased 8 to 1 block set at a much better (almost vertical) angle for the initial pull to get the thing out of the water, levering the Dink up onto the swim platform, motor and all, should be far less trying. We also added a U-bolt to the swim platform so the rig can be cleanly stowed but easily at hand when the Dink is in the water. The whole rig looks more “ship-shape” than did the one we were using. That one had the lines from two different block sets strung all the way across the aft deck to the top of the ladder up to the flybridge. We are waiting on the Dink motor to arrive after roughly 3/4 of a boat buck worth of work. Once it is mounted to the dink transom we will put the rig to the real test. It should be fine. As is usual for us, we likely overbuilt the anchor for the new lift point to some ridiculous degree. Other projects to help while away the weeks are mostly bright work and, maybe, some interior repairs. All things I can do without over taxing the still healing bits of my anatomy.

The enforced slow pace of my day makes time for sitting in the fly bridge, drinking coffee and watching nature do her thing with utter disregard to whatever foolishness us pesky humans might be up to. (I'm assuming the foolishness continues though we are not really paying much attention.) Thousands of little silver fish take to jumping in the mornings, ruffling the water and making it sound identical to rain. We are not sure what they are doing but cormorants and sea gulls swoop in for breakfast while larger birds, hawks and vultures, fly top cover. Dolphins can often be seen out in the river, casually broaching in a lazy way that suggests they are just poking around. Sunset and sunrise paint the waterscape with colors never seen in the city. There are no towering buildings in sight. With the exception of the bridge, the tallest structures around are the trees.  

Deb and I take long walks back to our old slip and then into town. My new heart control logs the “activity time” all by itself and blue tooth's the info to my phone. When necessary the info can be transmitted pretty much anywhere in the country. (The Borg weren't kidding when they claimed "Resistance is futile".) Often we chat with other live-a-board folks as we go. Sometimes we sit on another's boat and tell sea stories. Sometimes they wander over to our new parking place and come aboard. It all reminds me of a) how lucky I am and b) how much I enjoy this lifestyle. Once we get underway, there are plans to have various grandkids rotating on and off the boat, giving us some extra crew and them a chance to see what DeMa and Grampy T are doing while away. Eventually we will end up in St. Louis, mixing the two lifestyles together with the boat always available for an adventure. But for now we make the boat pretty, take it easy, and wait until it is time to go. Not bad considering what it is...and what it could have been.

The view of First Light from the bridge. First Light is in the center of the picture back 
near the tree line

You gotta do

Once upon a time, night flying was one of my very favorite things, and the more hard-core, the better. A night instrument take-off (ITO) into low hanging pitch black clouds was my cup of tea. Climb to the flight levels, maybe shedding a little ice along the way? Even better. Make a long run solid in the clouds (IMC) with a dead nuts (called that because nutsing it up would get you dead) approach to absolute minimums. Then finish it off touching down on a rain or snow-swept runway that appeared out of the mists at 100 feet. (Yes, one could go that low on an ILS if, at 200 feet, the runway threshold was in sight.) Now that's a pizza!

I really liked night flying but, for some reason, night sailing? Not so much. Which is a little weird since we liked sailing at night on our little lake. Since coming “out here” though, night sailing hasn't been near the magical fun it was at Carlyle.

Just a bit of color on this night sail though we had expected a glorious sunset.

I'm trying. We keep doing overnight runs partly because there is little choice if one wants to get to the Islands in the fall. Daylight is in depressingly short supply. Today, where we are, the sun will set at 1705, not to return until 0645 in the morning. Nearly 14 hours of darkness. Making any kind of distance means sailing at night. Besides, serious cruisers, even coastal ones, make multi-day runs and, someday, I would like to be taken for a serious cruiser. So sailing at night is something we just need to do.

We did one last night as part of our Oriental – Beaufort – Masonboro – Wrightsville Beach run. So far as night passages go, it was as benign as could be. Perhaps a bit too benign as there was little wind and we motored the majority of the way. Fortunately the tiller pilot mod to the Cape Horn wind vane was working pretty well. A nice surprise since it, literally, works on a shoestring. The sky over Kintala was clear and, though there was little moon, lights reflecting off the clouds over the distant shore made it less dark than it could have been. It should have been an easy passage. It was an easy passage. But I still could not wait until it was over.

I keep trying to figure out why. A lot of esoteric explanations come to mind, but none of them really matter. I just don't like sailing at night. Really though, last night had its charms. No one gets the view of the night sky that a sailor gets. There is no windshield in the way, no ground lights, just stars and planets wheeling overhead horizon to horizon, punctuated by the occasional meteor streaking across one's sight. Nothing will make one feel as small on the one hand, or as grand on the other, as seeing the cosmos laid out in all of its glory. There is barely a spiritual bone anywhere in my body, but I couldn't help wonder if my dad is out there now, a part of the mystery, and whole once again. One doesn't get that kind of healing on land. Sorry.

All things considered did a pretty good job. The stern nav light came a cropper with traffic closing in from behind. Some duct tape and a dinghy light got us visible once again. With the auto-helm working, the on-watch person could sit in the dodger while the off-watch person slept below. A huge improvement from sleeping in the cockpit when not standing at the wheel for hours at a time. The Masonboro inlet was new to us, but there was no way to time the trip to get us there in the daylight. So, as much as we wanted to be done with the hook down, we made the call to idle around the “A” marker until the sun was up enough to see. Masonboro is an easy inlet, but it was the right call to make.

The Wrightsville Beach anchorage

A walk to the beaach at Wrightsville Beach

And now we are tucked deep into the anchorage at Wrightsville Beech. There is some weather due to start building tomorrow night, so we will likely be here a few days. We liked this place when we came through here two years ago, but didn't stay long enough. We hope to remedy that this time around. It is also a chance to work the Dink and the Merc a little, both of which have been sitting idle for too long. And we are back, laying to an anchor in a pretty place. Which is why we came this way in the first place.

Then, like it or not, more night sailing will be required to keep on moving south.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Weather windows

The journey back to Kintala was aided by my Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law. They drove in from PA to meet us at Oak Harbor so we could drop off the car. We then went off for dinner with family from that half of the family. The next morning we stuffed their car with the stuff we had stashed in the hotel room and headed to Oriental.

The plan was to have them stay with us on the boat for a couple of days but, alas, boats move. As much as we like this town, boats at the piers near the bridge in Oriental will move a lot in surprisingly little wind. In less than five minutes of sitting in the cockpit my sister-in-law decided that staying on the boat would not be an option. They took a room at the marina. A very nice room for a very reasonable cost. The total package was good enough to keep them here an extra day, so we all had a kind of mini-vacation.

My brother and sister-in-law and yes he does look like Santa :)

They left Oriental yesterday morning. Normally we would have started in on a couple of boat projects with the idea of being ready to head south at the first available weather window. Unfortunately, as stated, the piers here are not very well protected. (Unless one manages to snag a spot at one of the free docks.)

On our first day back, Kintala suddenly danced, swung, and rolled against her lines like she was trying to get away from something. Deb and I both popped up on deck to see what was going on (along with virtually every single person who was on a boat at the time) but there was nothing to see. No mega yacht had just passed through throwing a monster wake. There was no tsunami sucking the water out of the bay, airliner crashing into the harbor or tractor truck falling off the bridge. Still, it was a serious hit. The power boat on the face dock just off Kintala's bow got tossed into the pilings so hard that the rub rail was split and the starboard side upper hull was cracked. Ugly.

We never did figure out what caused it.

Now, two days later, the boat is still dancing and rolling.  Truth to tell, after a couple of weeks on the hard we haven't gotten our sea (pier) legs back yet. Sitting and reading (or typing) is not a problem. Well, not a big problem. We do get off the boat to "stretch" pretty often, but that is only because we have been sitting too much for the last couple of weeks. Right? Hanging upside down in the bilge to install a new gray water tank or to find a small oil leak under the Beast? That will pretty much ensure we will be getting off the boat to do more than "stretch".

It may take a weather window to get us ready for a weather window.

Then we can get started south once again.

Going home...

First, for all who have offered kind thoughts and good wishes as we left the boat for a while to lay my Father to rest: there is a tendency to think that such offerings mean less than they do, that words are hollow and offer little. This is not the case. Our hearts have been lifted by the many who have reached out during these past couple of weeks. The words that can't carry the load, that actually do sound a little hollow, are “thank you”.

We left PA this morning after a week or so of offering what help we can to deal with the details of closing out a life. Social Security, Veterans Affairs, Insurance, Finances...all require forms, mailings, and phone calls. There was even a trip to the heart of downtown Pittsburgh to get some information. We drive through the city now and again, but it has been years since we were in downtown. If pressed I will confess to preferring a city to suburbia every day in every way; so that trip was kind of fun.

Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Most fun was having kids, grand kids, and family, mostly staying in the same hotel. A hotel with a pool. Though we were gathered for a pretty solemn reason each evening saw the pool full of laughing, splashing, playing kids all cavorting loudly with Grampy-T. Those will be favorite memories for a long, long time.

My Dad would have approved.

But now we find ourselves heading toward the boat once again, and back to the life we have made as cruisers. Though we loved the time with family, it would seem we are ill suited to land living any more. A comfortable house, big screen TV, ice cream in the freezer, and unlimited hot water for showers is like a vacation visit. And, like a vacation, after a week or so some things start to wear thin. It turns out my capacity to tolerate traffic, silly drivers and, (believe it or not) bumper stickers, is severely limited. Why announce being stupid to everyone on the road? At least the in-your-face pro-gun stickers let me know which vehicles likely contain the slightly deranged violence lovers. They also tend to be very aggressive and somewhat inept drivers which, I'm sure, is just a coincidence. Best to treat them like container ships and give them a wide berth.

Pennsylvania back country roads

Even xfinity TV and its endless list of programs, movies, sports channels, and specialty networks; all projected on a monster, high definition screen (one bigger than Kintala's main bulkhead), gets tedious quickly. Did you know there are multiple different TV series' called NCIS something? They all appear to be the same thing; bad people, dead people, goofy science, gunfire, problem solved. There is a series about various kinds of monsters based (very loosely based) on old fairy tales. Mostly it is about bad monsters, dead monsters, goofy science, gunfire, problem solved. There are a multitude of cop shows based on bad people, dead people, goofy science, gunfire, problem solved. There was a hospital ER show that included bad people, dead people … you get the drift. I've been walking around for 60 years, spent time as an air ambulance pilot. There are more dead people in one half hour of TV than I have seen in my entire life. No wonder land livers are convinced the world is a dangerous place with bad guys (and monsters) lurking around every corner.

Even with xfinity TV one can't always avoid the ads, especially the political ads. (Never watch TV during an off-year election campaign.) People running for local and state positions appear to be, impossible as this may sound, even more inept and corrupt than those running for national office. I like to think of myself as a somewhat capable story teller. I can't hold a sputtering candle to people who stare straight into a camera and tell the most bold faced lie with a smile and a glint in their eye. When it comes to slinging nonsense there isn't sailor on the planet who can match a politician.

In just a day or two life will return to normal. It is two steps from the galley to the salon. Four more steps will reach the head, and a single step from there will bump up against the v-berth. From the galley it is ten steps to the cockpit, eight of them mostly straight up. The cockpit is our back porch, which looks out on our back yard, which is a big chunk of the North West Atlantic ocean. We will watch the sun set and the moon rise. The night sky will be full of stars again. While we have been away, friends heading south have caught up and passed us by. It is our turn to catch up now, with Stuart, FL then Biscayne Bay being the immediate goals.

It will be good to be home.

Downtown Pittsburgh, PA

Now THAT was a day

The sun rose on Styron Creek this morning to find most of the boats with crew already on deck and prepping for departure. The weather gurus have been saying that Friday is going to be an ugly one for sailors. Everyone seemed of the same mind; get a scoot on to put in as many miles as quickly as possible.

The 16 mile run down the Pungo River starts out heading south west, then turns west, then south east. More boats joined in the line as we went along, with the line itself clumping up in small groups of 4 or 5; the groups stringing out for miles. It was a repeat of the last few days, the “V” shaped wakes gently rolling the placid, unruffled surface.

The water on the Pamlico River hinted at a bit of wind. Head sails blossomed on all four of the boats in our little group as we made the turn onto the river. Kintala heeled to starboard just a bit and picked up a knot of speed. (Every bit helps when one is in a hurry on a sailboat.) It didn't last long though. The route crosses the Pamlico into Goose Creek. The breeze was flowing directly out of the inlet so all the sails were rolled back in as the boats came head to the wind and started down the creek.

Goose Creek leads to another canal (this one not as ugly as yesterday's), which leads to Gale Creek. The total run is about 10 miles and it was a pure motor parade the whole way. The breeze didn't fade as expected though and, in fact, seem to pick up a little; perhaps from a sort of funnel affect. I started to think that the weather guessers had called this one wrong.

Gale Creek empties into the Neuse River. Head sails bloomed once again as boats made the turn south east on the Neuse, but this time they snapped open, filled with a solid breeze. We left about one third of Kintala's head sail on the roller as we were too close to the wind to sail without help from our old Westerbeke. Boats near by who put out more sail heeled hard in the wind, struggling to hold the course. Boats a few miles out ahead of us disappeared into a rain curtain. The weather guessers were clearly hours behind what the weather was doing.

It is a five mile sail down the Neuse River and into the Pamlico sound. The wind built the whole way and would once again be right on the bow when we made the turn south west. At the mark we rolled the head sail back in and swung the bow to starboard. It is hard to describe what happened next. The wind increased rapidly and soon more than 30 knots hummed in the rigging. The waves weren't that big, four foot or so. But the biggest ones formed into groups of three and the combined assault stopped Kintala nearly dead in her tracks. (That's 25,000 pounds of boat getting stopped cold in less than a boat length.) With her speed gone it was impossible to steer; the bow would fall off the wind putting us broadside to the waves. The old Westerbeke never missed a beat, but it was clearly over matched.

We eased just a whisper of the head sail back out and fell off the wind. It helped. With the added speed and lift on her bow Kintala was now a match for the waves; shouldering the water aside and keeping some momentum. The deck was nearly constantly awash; spray off the bow blew aft in sheets of water that soaked the helm. It was impossible to tell if it was raining or not.

YeeHaa!

Just to add to the fun our new Mantis anchor, which never really fit in the bow roller very well, started to bounce and rattle as we pitched our way over the waves. It didn't help any that it was also getting completely buried in the short coupled mounds of water. After one particularly hard thump the pin securing the chain fell free; the only thing holding the anchor on board was the clutch in the gypsy. Losing the anchor overboard at that moment wouldn't help so going forward to secure it seemed the sailorly thing to do. It was a wet and wild ride. I couldn't help but laugh when I got back to the cockpit, yelling to Deb (talking was useless in the howl of the wind) …

Now THIS is a day!

It took more than 3 hours to pound down the 15 miles of the Pamlico Sound, but eventually we made the turn to enter the harbor at Oriental. Deb got her own ride on the bow having to go forward to fix lines. It only took me three tries to get Kintala into her slip in the 20 knots of wind ruffling the harbor. I even managed to avoid bumping into anything.

This is what a dodger looks like after a day in heavy weather

The weather gurus claim the that real weather will be here tomorrow. We have pushed pretty hard to get this far and Oriental is a place we have wanted to visit ever since we learned about sailing. Kintala needs some attention.

I think we will stay here a few days.

Oriental Harbor Marina

(Ed note: I liked all these pictures of the sunrise so much I just decided to put them all in. Hey, we have free wifi :)