Some pics

I've been really lax about posting both here and on Facebook lately, mostly because we're out in the boondocks and haven't had much in the way of internet. I've also been terrible about getting pictures with friends we meet and/or visit, mostly because when we're together we're having such a good time I just never think about getting pictures. Then....when I finally think about getting pictures something happens like my phone camera goes all wonky as evidenced by this weird pic I posted the other day of our friends on Rover.

So I tried to rectify the situation but couldn't manage to get both of them in one place at one time before we left the Severn River Marina, so here at least is a good picture of Mike in the absence of Anja who was walking their dogs. Mike was waiting patiently to help us off the dock on day two of our attempt to do so, fortified with a large mug of coffee.

Somehow, since leaving our summer marina, I managed not to post pictures of David and Nancy our good friends from Oak Harbor, or Sue and Wayne who we met there, or Stephen, our good friend and fellow Tartan owner who generously hosted us at Kent Narrows, or Jan and Steve who we visited with in Chestertown, or Cindy and family, our good friends at Back Creek, or Tom and Maje who we know through Women Who Sail, or Carl and Ardys our new friends who we met while in Annapolis, or Ken on Catatude, or I'm sure I'm still forgetting someone else. I really, really have to get better at those group selfie things.

So, since I'm lacking any friend pictures, I'll leave you with some miscellaneous pretty pics from the last few days.

An interesting tug whose owners live aboard full time on her at Severn River Yachting Center

The military presence on the Chesapeake is sometimes astounding.

The parade leaving Mile Zero led by Kokopelli

Kokopelli in the Great Bridge Lock

One of the neatest boats I've ever seen. Anyone have any idea at all what it is???

We rarely travel with anyone so having Kokopelli as a buddy boat has been a treat!

The northern mouth of the Alligator Pungo Canal as seen from our anchorage spot

This barge approached the anchorage just as we were leaving. We decided to let him go ahead since he was doing 6.4 knots
and that's just a tad to fast for us. He took up over half the canal width and the total width of the channel. Good thing we didn't meet him coming the other way!!!

“Know when to fold 'em...”

I am not a big Kenny Rogers fan. Indeed, that whole genre of music usually makes my teeth hurt. But when a man is right about something (and his song gets stuck in your head) he should get some credit.

The forecast was for winds gusting to 20 with a small craft advisory. Not great but nothing to make a story out of either. Friends are out there even as I write, and the plan was to meet them at the anchorage at Ft. Monroe. It is only 30 miles or so, being hard on the wind for a few hours would not be that big a deal. And, truth to tell, as much fun as it has been to be here, spending time with good friends and hiding out from a hurricane, I am suffering a killer case of restless. Places south and warm, with sparkling water and sand bottoms for the Mantus, are whispering “come hither” in my ear. Yet they are still weeks away at sailboat speeds. Time to get a move on.

We looked at the cards and anted up, getting the deck set for being under way. We even raised a bit, recruiting help, playing out extra lines, and waking up the Beast.

Winds up to 20 had Kintala hard against the lines keeping her off the dock. There would be no just casting off and motoring away. After some discussion it seemed reasonable to drop the dock side lines, run a second spring to keep the boat from surging forward in the wind, pull in the off dock lines, get some quick release lines around the pilings for and aft, drop the spring, drop the lines, power forward and GO! An enthusiastic starboard turn would be needed to miss the next set of pilings, then we would be on our way.

We got right to the point of tossing the spring, sucking in the lines, and GOING. Then we stopped. The pilings forward that we needed to miss loomed large. The winds were a bit higher than we liked. We were running out of hands to handle lines and drive the boat. And just getting to where we were had taken more than an hour and required some serious pull using the jib winch to pull against the wind. The whole set-up felt wrong.

I've bounced off of piers before. Deb suggested that maybe we should have waited a bit more. Know when to fold 'em.

I tossed our cards onto the table.

A couple of extra lines thrown around the windward pilings would ensure the hull stayed clear of the dock. A bow line went the other way to keep the other side of the hull off the pilings and aid the spring. With the spring snugged up the crew of Rover went back to their own tasks. (Thanks Guys! It was a good try.)

An attempted selfie with the crew of Rover but it appears my phone camera
is going wonky. It took a bunch of really bad pics in the last two days.

The dock is about 10 feet away so we are boat bound. If the winds ease as forecast late this afternoon Kintala will make her way out to the anchorage and spend the night on the hook. Tomorrow is another day, less wind but from a better direction. Should the winds stay where they are, we will stay where we are.

In the mean time the boat is secure, provisioned up, and ready whenever the weather deals a playable hand.

A pic from our genoa restitching project. This is how the boat looks in sew mode.

Yesterday's beautiful sunset taken from a badly misbehaving phone camera.

Things not mentioned

One of the few moments the rain slowed down enough for me to risk my
non-waterproof camera to sneak a picture.

Sunday was one of those days that never show up in the Cruiser magazines. Though Joaquin turned far out to sea another storm system battered the area with “1,000 year” rains. We spent the day kind of grimly holding on as Kintala shook, pitched, and groaned her way through a day of lashing rain and wind guests in the high 30s. At high tide the road into the marina was under water while waves washed over the higher of the fixed docks. The low fixed docks were under by several feet and the walkways to the floating docks did weird things, bouncing like diving boards and sticking up into the air. Getting off the boat was a chore, but we had to when the rising tide pulled the power cord completely taut. A few minutes later the flood waters shorted out all shore power in the area anyway.

The fuel cans were stored off of the boat for the storm. It took another jump to the dock to retrieve one so the Honda generator could get a tank full and be brought into play to keep the batteries charged. Even if the dark clouds and rain weren't rendering the sun inoperative, the solar array had been removed and stored below. By Sunday night yours truly was well and truly tired of the wind, rain, waves, and ride. Hurricane or no, the idea of having run off to hide in a hotel room was feeling like the option we should have taken.

Come Monday morning the boat was still dancing, but just a little. No rain fell. There were even a few shadows in the salon, something not seen for many a day. The air was dry and cool and a look at the NOAA sight showed Joaquin well to the east of and moving further and further away.

A short aside here; though NOAA was seriously worried about Joaquin making landfall in the US, European models always had the storm turning east. Still being a pilot at heart and having had a life-long relationship with weather and weather forecasts, I was curious as to why the difference. From what I can learn, NOAA's funding for climate research and forecasting is being reduced, leaving them working with outdated models and limited computer capabilities. Something that, frankly, sounds like lunacy. Nothing is more expensive in lives and property damage than being unprepared for large scale weather events. But America isn't even keeping up with the rest of the world when it comes to forecasting and research, let alone being on the leading edge. Lunacy indeed. Anyway...

What a difference today

A hurricane scare is much better than a hurricane hit. Come early Monday afternoon we started turning Kintala back into a sailboat. With the boom back up in the air, the anchor, dink motor, and solar panels remounted in their normal positions, and the bimini and dodger back up, boat life is slowly returning to something nearer to normal. Today the main sail was bent back on, halyards run to their normal places, and the cockpit is, once again, a cockpit. In the next day or so we will start repairs on the head sails. (We noticed some stitching and a few tears in the sunbrella when taking them down.) While Deb is running the Sailrite machine I may try to track down and fix some of the worst leaks that made themselves apparent over the last few days.

This is work that just has to be addressed. Putting damaged sails back up when heading out for a 2000 mile season is pretty poor seamanship, sure to lead to even more damage later. This has been a good place to ride out the storms, and we have friends here who are also working hard at getting back underway, so hanging around for a few more days to do things right isn't a bad thing at all. Still, the weather for the next week and more looks to be perfect for getting a move on. So, good place or not, it will chafe a bit, pinned here getting things done that need to be done, while the sun is shining and the winds blowing gently on a good point of sail.

That isn't in the cruising magazines either.

Head and heart

Kintala is tied with a total of 10 lines strung to pilings. All the canvas is down. Everything is stored, stowed, and secured. Compared to the beating friends took in the Bahamas, we are sitting pretty and safe. We are. But it doesn't feel that way.

The boat is bouncing and rolling, tugging on her port side lines as the wind blows a constant 30+. On an outside dock, there are waves nearing three feet washing past the hull. She is making noises unfamiliar since we have never been on her when she was rigged for a storm. For those who have never lived on a boat, unfamiliar noises are not passed off easily. They vie for attention and understanding. When a new one pops up everything gets put aside to puzzle out what has happened, even sleeping. A sailor will sleep blissfully as the rigging sings in a 20 knot blow, but let something thump against the hull or slap on the deck, and that same sailor will be up and moving before being fully awake. Just now we heard a sizable “thunk” for the third time and have yet to figure out what is making the noise. Sounds minor, but it grinds at the back of the mind. Sleep will be shallow and bothered this night.

We took some time off of the boat this afternoon, going into town with the crew of Rover for lunch and a movie. (The Martian: good flick.) It was a needed break. Kintala is never happy when the winds blow and she is tied to piers. She has been so confined for several days now and there is at least two more to go before the forecasts have this storm finally moving away. The folks who live around here, whose houses don't float, will be glad when it does. Flooding is a concern with the ground totally saturated. When we drove out of the marina today we had to go the back way as the main road was flooded even though the tide had yet to reach high. Lunch and a movie was enough time to have the tide peak and start to recede. Had we returned after just a lunch there would have been no path back into the parking lot.

This is a part of cruising that is hard to explain. The head says all is well, that we are perfectly safe in this place in this weather. But the fact is we humans don't really look at the world with the head, we see it though the heart. What we know, and what we are experiencing, are often in open conflict. When that happens we go with the heart. I know we are safe, but I want to feel safe as well.

I will be glad when this storm is over; when Kintala is back together and ready to sail.

We cannot be on our way soon enough.

Stood up

Friday 8am track

Kintala is as prepared for a hurricane hit as we know how to make her. All the canvas is down and the aft end of the boom is lashed to the deck. The solar panels are stored below with all of the associated external wiring taped to the bimini frame. That frame has lines run to various cleats to support it. The dink, dink motor, and anchor are all stowed in the cockpit, and a hundred additional tasks were done as well. It was two days worth of intensive work, most of it while wearing full foulies in deference to the constant rain. This is what one does when invited to a dance with a hurricane named Joaquin. But, as of this morning, it appears that Joaquin has had a change of heart and is going to dance across the Atlantic after giving the Bahamas a thorough bashing.

There is nothing quite as good as being stood up by a hurricane.

Which is not to say that we are sitting in the sunshine. The forecasts for the next three and one half days include heavy, heavy rains with wind gusts to 40 knots. The weather here is still deteriorating rather badly. At any other time such a forecast would suck serious lemons. But compared to what it could have been? I may go sit by the pool (in my foulies) and drink a cold one (even though steaming hot coffee would be more appropriate) just to celebrate our apparent reprieve. Of course doing that would mean actually getting off the boat, and I'm not sure we will be doing that for a couple of days at least. The wind is pushing us hard away from dock and the lines are set to make sure the hull can't reach the hard stuff even if the winds shift. Which means we can't reach the hard stuff either. Still, I would rather be boat-bound than leaving the boat behind while scurrying for cover at a hotel far inland.

Likely, it will take three days or more to have ye 'ol Tartan ready to move again. Of course trusting a hurricane is not what smart people do. Kintala will sit, just as she is, for a few days yet. Once the momentum of more than one hundred billion pounds of hurricane is fully committed to a direction that doesn't point toward Severn Creek, then we will think about making like a sailboat again. It would be extra nice if the rains finally moved off before that task begins. Working in the rain is one of those things one does when one needs, not something one does when one wants.

Pulling down the headsails exposed some wear so it will likely take an extra day or two to tend to some restitching. That, and the fact that I will not be pushing as hard putting things back together, hopefully in the sunshine, as I did while taking things apart in the rain...yeah, a week at least before being happy gypsies once again. More likely two.

But we will be happy gypsies once again. Something that wasn't as likely just 24 hours ago.

Our nekked girl

I hardly even recognized her as I strode down the dock late this afternoon. I'll be very glad when we have her back to herself again. Just hoping that there's some Bahamas left to go to...

The very full aft cabin.

Who ordered this?

Kintala is hundreds of miles north of the hurricane zone. On Sunday morning it looks like Joaquin is going to deliver a direct, category 2, hit anyway. We had decided to wait out the weather anchored here in Severn Creek but a look at this morning's GRIB files had us making differnet decisions. First a check with our insurance guru to make sure we were all on the same coverage page. Then we talked to the folks at Severn Creek Marina who, a) told us that they survived Isabel with no boats damaged, and b) let us know that piers were available on a first come, first serve basis. After a bit of a debate we moved onto a dock.

The rest of the day was spent stripping all the sails and tying the boat with every heavy line we could find on board. It was good timing as the main went below just as the first rain shower arrived. Flaking and storing soggy sails is as unpleasant a task as it sounds. The dink was hoisted aboard, deflated, packaged and stowed in the cockpit. Gas cans where carried ashore and stored off the boat. The heavy rain and lighting arrived on the walk back. There are thunderstorms all around us tonight, none of it Joaquin's fault, but a preview of things to come.

Tomorrow the rest of the canvas will come down, the boom will get lashed to the deck, and the solar array will get stored below. It is likely to be a wet and dreary day. Thru-hulls will get closed, the batteries will get a full charge, and the boat will get unplugged. A hundred other little tasks will be done to make our old Tartan both as small and as tough a target as possible.

Friday morning Deb and I will join another crew from the marina and run inland like scared little bunnies, riding out the storm in a hotel somewhere far inland. There are those who chose to ride out such weather on their boat. I am not one of them. Once the prep is done and the storm arrives there is little one can do to change the outcome. The boat will survive, or it will not. If it doesn't being on board accomplishes nothing but putting one's self at risk. Everything we own is on Kintala. Everything we cherish from the boat will be riding in the car. Because a boat is only a boat.

The plan at the moment is to return Monday to see what we see, but that will depend on how much damage is done. Cat II is serious stuff, roads get closed, National Guard Units get put in the streets, access gets limited. It may take a while to learn what the future holds for our cruising life, but it seems unlikely Kintala will come through unscathed. Right now we are floating nearly 5 feet below the deck on the piers. By Sunday morning the marina expects those piers to be under water. I am not exactly sure how one secures a boat for that kind of thing, but we will do our best.

This is our first storm prep, and the first time we have had a few days warning about weather that might deliver a serious hurt. Up until now such events have blown up right on top of us with, at best, a few hours warning. But the worst was just about 60 knots worth of wind. Right now they are talking winds of 110 mph.

All this is a bit of a downer. This thing is going to miss Florida, the place our insurance company says we are not allowed to be. Then again we are not in Annapolis, anchored in Back Creek jammed cheek to jowl with people looking forward to the Boat Show. We have friends up there.  The good news is that they are 100 miles north of where we are and so might take a glancing blow, not a full on assault. We are hoping for the best...

...for them and for us.

Dolphin inspection

Bye Bye Fishing Bay

It is best, if one is going to start a sailing day by visiting a  water / pump-out / dump trash / get gas dock, that it be a short day of sailing. Marina fuel docks are reminiscent of passenger waiting lounges at airports, nothing seems to happen in a hurry. Kintala eased onto the dock behind a very nice looking Moody 46 already at the pump-out. We touched bases with India, Dock Manager extraordinaire who became a new friend last Spring.  It was nearly 0900 when Kintala, now full / empty / empty /full, eased away from the dock and moved back into the middle of Fishing Bay.

A single reef in the main and the staysail took over from the Beast, making enough HP to log nearly 4 knots on the GPS. Not fast, but fast enough for working the “U” shaped channel leading back to the Chesapeake. As the day wore on the staysail was stowed, the jib deployed, and the reef shaken out of the main to work the basically beam reach winds hovering in the 10 to 15 knots range. Waves barely topped a foot. Thin, feeble little things that slapped gently along the hull. Hard to believe this was the same body of water that Kintala had romped through just a few days ago, spray flying, lines tangling, deck monkey thrashing about, sails jammed and poles hanging.

Turning up into Mobjack Bay meant turning far off the wind. The main dropped easily onto the boom and working on the barely rocking deck was like working at a dock. The jib carried Kintala across Mobjack and deep into the Severn River. It was barely a half mile to the anchorage when the last sail was rolled away and the Beast went back to work. Along the way a pod of dolphins dropped by to play tag in the bow wake and see how we were doing. It was the first we have seen close up in several months. Such encounters are pretty high on the list of “best things about cruising” and it was an added treat to top a nearly perfect day.

Severn River is a new place for us, talked up by many as a must see. Kintala is set secure in front of the Severn River Marina; where friends have spent the summer working on their Catamaran. There had been some vague plans of seeing them tonight but, truth to tell, easy day as it was, launching the Dink just seemed like too much work. Even a great day of sailing is still a pretty busy day, and the four nights spent in Fishing Bay waiting for wind and sea to settle down were not much of a rest. All in all it took about 7 + 30 to cover the 34 miles from the last place to this. At the end of the day Kintala's deck was well ordered and tidy. Nothing was jammed or hung half way up the forestay. Which was good. I would hate to have the dolphins drop by and catch us in a state of disarray like the day we went into Fishing Bay.

It would have been down right embarrassing.