Sailing Posts – Page 2 – Neil Hanson

Casco Bay—The Basin and Quahog Bay

Casco Bay in Maine is a place that-all by itself-would take several summers to explore. Mainers in the area all seem to have some secret favorite place in Casco Bay, and we’ve explored a few of them over our three summers in Maine. This summer we found two new anchorages, thanks to advice from folks we became friends with in Portland.

The Basin in an amazing anchorage up the New Meadows River. It’s very well protected—really a nice little inland cove of sorts—and we sheltered there from tropical storm Elsa in early July, though Elsa was quite tame by the time she reached Maine. Once Elsa passed, we loved the Basin so much that we spent a week there, enjoying several really nice hikes close by.

As to hiking, we found that we could land the dinghy at Denny Reddy Pt, and walk a trail from there. It was slightly buggy, but was a very nice trail that led to a road that wasn’t too busy and the hike could be extended with fewer bugs. We also found that by taking the dinghy to the furthest eastern point in the cove, there was a beautiful little waterfall, and we could land the dinghy and walk up to the road. Once on the road, we walked a quarter mile to the Mica Mine Trailhead, which took us up over a couple hilltops and past several old mica mines. It might have been possible to make a several mile loop that would include some local roads, but we just went out and back.

We also spent time up at the top of Quahog Bay, which is the next “river” to the west of the New Meadows River. Quahog Bay is a favorite among locals in the area, and it’s easy to see why. The anchoring is excellent with good holding in reasonable depths. As with most anchorages in Maine, the scenery is stunning. Great Island Boat Yard has a great reputation as a place to get work done, and they have several mooring balls for rent in an extremely well protected little river. Really in nearly all directions the protection in Quahog Bay is outstanding.

We went ashore at Great Island, but there wasn’t a lot of walking there. We couldn’t identify anywhere else to go ashore to walk, so our time there ended after only a couple of days.

Portland, Maine

Portland is at the west end of Casco Bay. In summers past, it was just a city to get past for us, and we didn’t spend any time there. This summer we spent a total of two or three weeks in the Portland area, and absolutely fell in love with the city.

First, as to anchorages, there aren’t a lot of options for anchorages right close to town.

The city of South Portland has a free dock they offer for overnights, and this is where Dave, Gene and I tied up when we made landfall after our journey north from Norfolk in June. The dock is at Thomas Knight Park, under the south end of the Casco Bay Bridge. From the dock, it’s a mile walk to laundry and supermarket, so it’s a good place to stop for a day or two. But it’s pretty loud and not the most scenic of spots. Additionally, there always appear to be a few local boats who have decided to take up residence on the dock, making access questionable. You can walk across the bridge to Portland, and Dave actually ended up walking all the way to the Portland airport from here when his Uber ride didn’t show up.

Another option is an anchorage called Simonton Cove, which is on your port side as you sail north into the harbor. We stayed a night there, and if you found a great spot with good holding you could spend extended time there. It looked like beach there, but I have no idea if any of it is public.

This is a problem in Portland—finding public landing areas for your dinghy.

Old Portland was built on a peninsula that extends to the NE. At the far NE end of this peninsula is a hillside sloping down to the bay. This hillside is called the Eastern Promenade (or Eastern Prom). Mostly north from the Eastern Prom, and easily visible from there, is an anchorage that the charts have labeled simply as “anchorage”. We wandered around a bit there, and depths seemed consistent and friendly, though there are several warnings about shoaling in the area. We dropped the hook there twice, and both times the holding was excellent—once through a 35+ knot storm overnight that had the added bonus of large seas rolling in from the S/SE—the one direction with very limited protection.

From that unnamed anchorage, we would dinghy over to the East End Boat Ramp, which is at the base of the Eastern Prom. It wasn’t allowable to tie up to the dock, so we beached the boat in the mud each time. It’s messy, but there were water faucets to clean off muddy feet close by. It’s also possible to dinghy to Maine Yacht Center marina, which is west of the anchorage. However, they don’t really encourage visiting dinghies, and will charge $25/day for access. They run and outstanding marina though, and we did stay there for about three days over the summer.

The town of Portland is a walker’s dream town. We walked up and down, back and forth, across the entire downtown peninsula several times. Old Port is quite touristy, but great fun nonetheless. Our real love of the town, was along the many streets over the top of the hill, and along the Eastern Prom. Over on the north side of Back Cove, and along the biking/hiking trail that runs the perimeter of the peninsula. All through Munjoy Hill, West Bayside, and the West End.

Most of the time, when we spend a lot of walking time in a town, we end up in neighborhoods that feel a little iffy and dangerous to us. It’s just part of the deal when you explore new towns by foot, especially the towns we’re exploring, which are always old port cities and towns that have been around for centuries. But in Portland, I never really ran across a neighborhood like that. I’m sure they must exist, but I just never ended up there.

Portland is a foodie town. I’m by no means a foodie, but I can say that I enjoyed the food a great deal in Portland. It was the summer and vaccination rates were high in Maine. We felt relatively safe from Covid, as the new variants hadn’t yet moved us back into the danger zone. And overall, Maine is an extremely safe environment. From the beginning of the pandemic, they’ve been responsible and safe across the board. So we took the plunge and ate out several times. My most memorable meal, though, came from a truck.

At the Eastern Prom, along the street called Eastern Promenade, food trucks set up on most days. Some days are busier than others, with more or fewer trucks depending on the day. I found the food from these trucks to be consistently outstanding, and I understand that some famous chefs actually got their start here selling food from a truck. I can confidently say that the absolutely best fish and chips I’ve ever had came from one of those trucks. I sat on a park bench overlooking the ocean, happy people walking by, enjoying a delicacy that I was sure would rarely—if ever—be matched.

It’ll be hard to keep me from Portland on future trips to Maine. Even if it’s only for a day to stroll the Eastern Prom in search of the fish and chips food truck…

Anchoring Harvest Moon

When folks think about the romance of living on a boat, the anchor and the art of anchoring is rarely part of the fantasy. But for most liveaboards, anchoring is one of the most important aspects of their lifestyle.

How well I’m anchored determines how much I worry about my anchor dragging, and thus how well I sleep and how willing I am to take trips ashore. How well everyone around me is anchored determines the same things.

Entire books have been written about the art of anchoring—just do a google search and you’ll find many great resources. This post is meant as a summary, and a chance to toss my own $.02 into the kitty of ideas.

First, the hardware. Anchoring involves an anchor, a length of anchor rode, and your vessel attached to the other end of that rode. That’s the bit over which no controversy exists. But then…

The Anchor

Folks dive into near (or actual) zealotry when they insist that one anchor manufacturer is the absolute best, or one design is so much better than other designs, and I won’t add to that heated debate, other than to say that on Harvest Moon—our Island Packet 380 —we have a 55# Rocna 25 as our primary anchor, and a 15# Fortress FX23 as our secondary anchor. In addition, we have a smaller fortress that we use as a stern anchor in some situations, as well as yet another fortress that we keep in the bilge as an emergency anchor should we need an additional stern or bow anchor.

Note that the Rocna is our primary, but we have three Fortress anchors. It’s the Rocna that we depend on each night for security, and the Fortress anchors are chosen for their lighter weight and easier storage options. There are lots of manufacturers and a myriad of opinions on which designs the best anchor, and I would encourage every single potential buyer of anchors to immerse themself in the never ending debate in order to make the decision that will help them sleep best on a windy night.

Anchor buoy / trip line

I confess that I don’t always deploy a trip line, and I suspect I will regret this some day. The trip line is a line with one end attached to the appropriate spot on the anchor, and the other end attached to a floating buoy. It serves to mark the position of the anchor, and should the anchor snag on something on the seafloor, it serves as a potential way to free the snag. The reason that I rarely use it anymore is just the hassle of deploying it and retrieving it. As I say, I will likely regret this one day…

Rode

Regarding rode there is less debate, though certainly not none. Rode is the material that connects the anchor to the boat—the anchor line if you will. Some folks use rope rode, some use chain, and some use a combination of the two. The ratio between how much rode I deploy and how deep the water is is called “scope”. A 5:1 scope in 20’ of water means I have 100’ of chain out. (5:1 = 100:20)

Chain is more expensive and heavier. If you have a light weekend bay sailer or racer, then chain is a disadvantage. If you have a heaving blue-water vessel, the weight is not as big an issue, and the extra weight seems insignificant when compared to the added holding ability of chain.
Chain will hold better, generally speaking. I know some folks will argue about this, but chain is generally going to be stronger than the rope that would be used to replace it, and the additional weight of the chain between the anchor and the boat adds a catenary effect that helps keep direction of force on the anchor parallel to the sea floor, which is required in order for the anchor to work.
Rope stretches, chain doesn’t. Stretch is a good thing when the winds pick up, because the action of waves in a big wind puts periodic “jerk” on the anchor rode. This jerking is referred to as snatch load. It exerts additional stress on every piece of the puzzle, and is the thing likely to break an anchor from its safe position “dug in” to the seabed, which is when the boat starts to drag. Rope will stretch as this snatch load is applied, and is therefore a valuable component in the equation. Folks who deploy a combination of chain and rope rode have the advantage of the mathematical catenary that the chain provides along with the stretch advantage of rope.
The physics involved indicate that the heavier chain absolutely does keep the direction of force lower, but only up to a point. Peter Smith has an excellent comparison of chain vs rope here, and I have to say that the science he shares makes an excellent case for rope/chain combination and spending the weight saved on chain into a heavier anchor.

In the face of the science, I have to say that when we replace our aging primary chain, I’m unlikely to give up my 300’ of chain. It just makes me feel more secure.

How much rode we put out is determined by several factors”

Weather. For an overnight anchorage with no chance of winds or weather, with water that’s 20’ deep, I’m fine with 4:1 or 5:1 scope. However, the longer we’re anchored in a spot, the higher the chance for wind and weather, so my scope comfort creeps upwards. When there’s a chance of weather, 5:1 is my minimum, and 8:1 is my preference.
Depth. In deeper water, the catenary effect of my chain has more constant and positive effect, so in shallower water I might consider a higher scope ratio. However, the counter to this argument is that is shallower water, the angle between the boat and the anchor bedded into the seafloor is already low, so less rode is needed. If space to swing allows, I tend to put out more scope in shallower water, just because I can and I sleep better. The only time we ever drug was in shallow water in one of those situations where we were well protected and the weather was beautiful—check out that story here.
Etiquette. If I’m all alone in an anchorage, or the anchorage is huge with very few boats, then I can put out as much chain as I want. This is not the norm, as we’re most likely going to be anchored with other boats around. The key to a happy anchorage is that everyone has the same scope out, and thus everyone swings around their anchor in a friendly fashion. If I’m coming into an anchorage where there are boats already anchored, I find the spot where I want to anchor, then I try to ask any nearby boats how much scope they have out, so that I can try and match their scope.

Snubber

Since we use all chain rode on Harvest Moon, we add a snubber at the end of the chain close to the boat. A snubber is a length of rope material that allows the all chain anchor setup to absorb the snatch loads in heavier seas and winds. In our case, I use about 10’ of rope with a clip on one end and a chain grabber on the other, pulling a foot or two of chain up and connecting the rope snubber to the chain at both ends of the snubber. The effect is that a couple feet of chain is hanging loosely between the two ends of the snubber line, and if the anchor rode pulls bar tight then the rope snubber is absorbing the snatch loads when they happen.

Bridle

We use a bridle whenever we anchor. It’s a chain grabber (like this one) with a shackle attaching rope to each side of it. I set a link of chain into the teeth of the chain grabber, then run the attached rope back to either side of the bow, attaching securely to the bow cleats on either side. This takes the anchor load and moves that loads to the bow cleats. It also lowers the point of attachment of the anchor to the boat down to the water line, effectively increasing scope. The even attachment at eight side of the bow also reduces the tendency of the bow to “hunt” in a stronger wind. (This “hunting” is the back and forth swinging of the boat in the wind. The bridle doesn’t stop it completely, but I do feel that it reduces the severity.)

Dropping the hook

Now for how to drop and set the anchor. I’ll start off with a nice image that comes from SafeSkipper.com — an excellent resource.

First, take your time. Assess the anchorage and the chart. Think about wind and currents, both as they are when you’re anchoring and as they’re likely to be as they change. Our first few times anchoring, (okay probably our first few dozen times anchoring), this advice would not have made as much sense. I had to experience a whole host of anchoring situations in order to be able to think about them sensibly when approaching an anchorage. And honestly, Christine often gets frustrated at the time I take exploring and wandering in an anchorage, looking for exactly the right spot, and even more frustrated when I announce that I’m not happy with how we’re set, and I want us to pull the hook and drop it again differently.

The simple description of the process is to decide on the spot where you want to drop the anchor, then slowly approach that spot, headed into the wind or current. (If wind and current are not in alignment, then setting the anchor is going to be tricky, and it might take a couple tries to feel safe.) Continue to slow down as you approach your drop point. Ideally, the boat will slow to a complete stop at your drop point, you’ll drop the anchor to the bottom, and the wind will start pushing you backwards. You’ll let out rode as you drift backwards, trying to lay it out on the seafloor without piling it up. Once you have as much rode out as you want, then give the anchor a few minutes to settle into the bottom, then once the bow is pointed toward the anchor, use the engine in reverse to back down on it in order to dig it into the bottom and set it hard.

Practically speaking, here’s what this typically looks like with us. We use wireless headsets to talk to each other while anchoring, so this conversation is respectful and fun—no yelling or wild hand waving. There are those who prefer hand signals, which can work very well, but for us we like the conversation. Here’s what it might look like:

We’ve come in to the anchorage, and I’ve made a loop around it, testing out the depths. I’ve decided on the spot where I want to drop the hook, and describe our approach to Christine. Often I’ll actually put a mark on the screen where I think I’ll drop, so Christine has a spot to shoot for. I head up to the bow while Christine takes the helm.

Up at the bow I untie the anchor from the cleat that secures it, flip open the safety chain stopper, and lower the anchor to just above the water level, ready to deploy. (This is the kind of chain stopper we use.) I stand up and watch around me, often gauging distance to lobster pots or crab pots or other such gotchas that might be around. The closer we get to where we’ll drop the anchor, the more we slow.

Neil: “Go to neutral.”

Christine: “Going to neutral.”

Neil: “A little left.”

Christine: “Going a little left.”

A little time passes as we slow.

Neil: “Are we just about to that spot on the screen?”

Christine: “Almost. Maybe another half a minute.”

Neil: “Most excellent my love. Tell me when we get there.”

Christine: “Oh you’ll know when we get there darling.”

See how useful these headsets are? I won’t relate all the fun and endearing conversations that might (or might not) occur, but suffice it to say that it’s way better than arm waving and shouting. Now back to the action:

Christine: “Okay, we’re on the spot now.”

Neil: “Okay, put her in reverse to bring us to a dead stop.”

Christine: “Centering and locking the wheel, going to reverse. We’re stopped now, going to neutral.”

I step on the switch to lower the anchor, paying out enough chain to make sure I hit bottom, then slowly pay out more as I watch the chain to assure I’m not piling it up. The breeze has of course caught the bow so we are moving sideways with the wind, the anchor chain going out to one side. In a light wind it’s a slow process, but the headsets allow for fun banter. We just have a nice conversation.

Once I’ve got the amount of chain out I want, (recognized btw with the bright paint every 50’ with double zip ties at the 25’ marks between), then I close the safety chain stopper in order to avoid putting stress on the windlass, and wander back to the cockpit to get my phone. My intention is always to bring my phone with me when I go to anchor, and I always forget, so this is a normal part of the process.

You might wonder why I need my phone. It’s because I use my phone to set an anchor alarm. We meet new cruisers occasionally who don’t know what an anchor alarm is, and never set one. I NEVER go without an anchor alarm. In fact, if we leave the boat at anchor for a few days to visit friends, I set the anchor alarm on my iPad, leave it running on the boat, and monitor it remotely. I can’t imagine feeling secure at anchor without the ability to visually see on a screen how the boat has moved and is moving around the anchor.

BTW, I’ve used several different anchor alarms, and the one I like the best is the one that comes with AquaMaps. I absolutely love AquaMaps for a number of reasons, and their excellent anchor alarm is only one of those reasons.

Back to our anchoring scenario: I wander back up to the bow with my phone, and look at the chain to make sure that the wind has pushed us enough for the chain to stop us, turning us bow into the wind.

Neil: “Okay, looks like the bow is pointed toward the anchor and we’re ready to set. Go to reverse.”

Christine: “Wheel is centered and locked, going to reverse.”

Christine has the engine at about 1000 RPM in reverse—really just a fast idle. I watch and listen and feel as the chain straightens itself on the seafloor. I’m watching for the chain to start to tighten, I’m listening for the sounds that vibrate up through it as it does so, and feeling those vibrations with my bare feet on the bowsprit. As the chain comes tight, I want to make sure there’s no vibration indicating that the anchor is moving across the seafloor. Once I feel comfortable that the anchor is bedded, and the chain is tight:

Neil: “Go to 1500 RPM.”

Christine: “1500 RPM.”

I watch to make sure everything stays set. I set the anchor alarm, as this is the point where I know how far I am from the anchor and in which direction, as the chain is tight and pointed right at the anchor. In addition, I’ve picked out a couple points on shore to line up in my vision to assure that we’re not moving. If we’re set, then:

Neil: “Go to 2000 RPM.”

Christine: “2000 RPM. Our speed is zero.”

I continue to watch my points on shore, and when Christine’s instruments continue to show no movement, and my eyes confirm that with points on shore:

Neil: “We’re good. Shut ‘er down.”

Christine: “Shutting ‘er down.”

I walk back to the cockpit, we take off our headsets, exchange a high five, and smile at another accomplishment as a team. I take the snubber and bridle up to the bow, and set first the snubber, then just above that I set the bridle. I reset the safety chain stopper to make sure that in no case will the windlass ever have to carry load, then double check everything before heading back to the cockpit. This is also, btw, a time when I fiddle with stuff up on deck, making sure everything is secure and nothing looks odd.

Christine says I just need to walk around and touch everything. She’s right. In all seriousness, I’m probably somewhere on the scale…

There are many things we do as a couple on Harvest Moon that make me feel that we are a team. Things that are little accomplishments each day. Joint accomplishments. We each know where we fit and how we function as this team, and we compliment each other, building successes with each other, learning together.

Anchoring is one of those things that makes me feel wonderful as a part of this team.

The Night Our Anchor Dragged

I believe that if you spend enough nights and anchor, at one point or another you’ll drag. I heard a cruiser say once that there are two kinds of cruisers — those who have stories to tell about their anchor dragging, and those who have lies to tell about never dragging.

We’re in the first group. We have a story to tell. The experience taught me a lot—hopefully enough to assure that we don’t develop more dragging stories to tell in the future.

It was early in our sailing life. We’d anchored dozens of times at the point this incident occurred, but certainly not hundreds of times. It was early June, and we were exploring Mobjack Bay in the lower Chesapeake. We dropped the hook in about 10’ of water, and the bottom was reported to be silt and mud. I put out about 50’ of scope with the bridle but no snubber—at this point I didn’t understand the value of the snubber.

The first day was beautiful, with light winds and a bluebird sky. Day two was a repeat of day one, just more hot and humid. That second evening, thunderheads were developing to our west, so as the sun set I stayed up in the cockpit to watch the storms in case they were going to visit us. They were to our west and our northwest, and I assumed they’d continue to move NE, leaving us to their south. So I finished my drink, confirmed that the tiny south breeze had us pushed to the north of our anchor, and headed down to join Christine in bed.

She sleepily asked about the storms, and I said that I thought we were safe—the storms should pass to our north. What I failed to do was look at radar on the weather. If I had done that, I would have realized that the storms were moving SE, not NE, and we were directly in their path.

About 30 minutes after my head hit the pillow, a strong wall of wind from the north pushed Harvest Moon suddenly and quickly southward. I felt the wind push us hard and sat up. Then I heard the pop as we hit the end of our rode suddenly. Looking back, I’m sure that this sudden snatch load popped the anchor out of the seafloor.

We were being pushed out of 10’ depth and across 20’ depth now, so there was no way our 50’ of scope was going to allow that anchor to set as we drug it southward with us. By this time I was up in the cockpit and had started the engine. At least the dragging anchor was keeping us pointed generally into the wind, so I was able to use the engine in forward gear to slow our drag down through the worst of the wind, which only lasted about 20 or 30 minutes.

There were five sailboats anchored in that creek, and all but one of them was dragging. The wind was whipping me with slashing rain at the helm in the cockpit as we sawed back and forth in the wind, the bow hanging on to the dragging anchor.

When it was all said and done, two sailboats had drug their anchor across the rode of the one sailboat that wasn’t dragging. Two of them had done a bit of crashing and fending off each other as well. After the winds died, they were able to pull their anchors and return to the spots where they had anchored in the first place. We hadn’t fouled with anyone, and had stayed safely out of the fray, so we quietly skulked off to our corner in the dark.

The two sailboats that had fouled and bumped and crashed were out of the anchorage at first light. Once I saw that the couple on the boat that hadn’t dragged were up and about, I dinghied over to them to ask if all was okay. They were fine, and had sustained no damage. I told them I was impressed that they had not dragged at all, and asked about their ground tackle.

Turns out they had just bought the boat, and this was the first time they’d ever anchored. Ever. In any boat. They had no idea what they were doing. They had a CQR anchor that was barely big enough for their boat, (most cruisers scoff at the CQR design as ineffective,) and their rode was all rope—no chain at all. They said that since they didn’t know what they were doing, they had put out all 150’ of their rope rode. They hadn’t budged behind their 15:1 scope, while those of us with superior anchor designs and sizing, as well as chain rode, dragged across the anchorage.

The moral of the story that I took with me was this: Additional scope will hide a lot of other shortcomings in the anchoring equation. Of all the bits and pieces of that equation, adequate scope might just be the most important.

Sailing in Maine Fog

As I prepare to post about our 2021 summer in Maine, I wanted to first add a post about navigating in the fog. Because if you’re going to cruise in Maine, you WILL be navigating in the fog, no matter how much you try to avoid it.

Not all the time of course, but some of the time. Our first two summers there I felt like avoiding it was impossible because you couldn’t predict it, but I’ve now come to understand that while avoiding it is still impossible, it IS possible to understand how it works well enough to reduce the amount of time I spend navigating in it.

Navigating in the fog is stressful. I’d like to say that it get’s less stressful over time, and that you get used to it, but that’s not really how I feel. It’s always stressful to me, and while I do feel like I’ve come to understand a few things about it, I never feel like I’m “used to it”.

I’ll start with a quick, two number overview of how fog works. The two numbers to know in Maine are the temperature and the dew point, because when those two numbers meet then you’re gonna have fog. It’s really that simple.

The finesse is understanding exactly where those numbers will meet. The ocean holds a pretty constant temperature, and on a hot day the ocean keeps things cooler, while on a cold day the ocean keeps things warmer. If I’m right on the coast, and the temperature all day will be in the sixties, and the dew point is about sixty, and the ocean water temperature is about sixty, then there is gonna be fog out there on the ocean for most of the day. Land holds heat and is more likely to heat and cool with the days and nights, so if it’s a warm and sunny day the fog will likely thin and disappear the closer I am to land. On a day like this, you can stand on the sunny shore and watch the bank of fog out over the ocean just a few hundred yards away.

While it seemed very random to me my first two years, I’ve come to see that it’s not random at all. The ocean temperature is going to stay constant at something from the mid-50’s to the low-60’s, depending on where you are in Maine. This means that any time the dew point is close to the ocean temperature, the ocean will keep the air close to the water at about that dew point, and there will be fog.

Practically speaking, this explains the phenomenon that cruisers often experience. They’ll leave their anchorage under a clear blue sky on a cool morning. As they get further from land, the fog sets in. They decide to tuck in to an anchorage to avoid the fog, and are worried about getting in to the inlet to the cove in the fog. As they approach the inlet, the fog suddenly lifts. Christine and I said it several times in our first couple years, and I’ve heard many cruisers say something like, “we spent the day in this stressful fog, and were really worried about getting into this little harbor, but amazingly the fog lifted just as we got to the mouth of the harbor.”

From the cruiser’s perspective, it’s not an exact science, but it’s a rough understanding of how it works. It helped us quite a bit in our third cruising season in Maine.

Here’s a fun bonus story. In 2020 (our second season Downeast) we were making our way northeast toward Maine with our friend and crew member Gene. We had made landfall at Block Island, then up Buzzard’s Bay and through the Cape Cod Canal. This is probably the most common route for cruisers to head Downeast. Our target was Boston, where we would drop Gene off and he would make his way back home from there on land.

We’d taken the one mooring ball that was available in Cohasset Cove, which as a very narrow and rocky entrance to a very small harbor, and our plan was to grab the ball right as the day ended and be out at first light. All went according to plan, but morning dawned shrouded in thick fog. We slowly motored out through the narrow entrance with Gene and Christine watching from the bow, and me watching radar carefully.

This went on for an hour or so, with my brain building an image of what was around us based on the radar feedback laid over the chart on the chart plotter and what we could hear around us. about an hour later, we found the edge of the fog fairly suddenly. I looked up and could suddenly see the world around me through my eyes rather than through the radar screen. What I saw made me panic for a second, and I immediately brought the engine back to idle for a few seconds while my brain brought the two worlds back in sync.

Christine and Gene heard me say something like “oh crap” while throttling back, and asked what was wrong. The visual image they saw didn’t need to get synced with a radar world in their brain. I felt more than a little foolish, probably jabbering something about the land looking too close.

It’s not that one image was wrong and the other was right, but rather that my brain had been creating an image that it expected from the radar images, and when the actual landmarks suddenly appeared to my physical vision, the perspective and perception were off slightly, causing a bit of a short circuit while my brain brought the two images into sync.

I suspect this is a fairly common thing that anyone who uses radar in extremely low visibility situations needs to learn about. I share it here in case it helps any reader learn to anticipate that “oh crap” moment.

By the way, we ALWAYS run the radar when we’re sailing at night. I can’t imagine feeling safe without it. This odd perception thing never happens then (or hasn’t yet), and I think it’s because you do have some visual queues around you at night to keep the two images in sync. When dawn comes, it isn’t a sudden lifting of the veil from 20’ of visibility to miles of visibility, but rather a gradual process that allows the images in our brain to stay in sync.

Happy sailing!

Journey North — Spring, 2021

Our journey back north in the spring was delightful.

We left Stuart and headed north for a day, exiting into the ocean at the Ft Pierce inlet. Terrible night with steep and confused seas, I could barely stay in the helm seat we were being pitched so terribly. We ended up heading into the New Smyrna inlet and motoring up to Daytona Beach, where we dropped the hook and got a good night’s sleep.

We continued north inside on the ICW, spending several days at St Augustine again to wait out a bad storm, finally moving further north, out the Jacksonville inlet, and had a really nice overnight up to Charleston Harbor. We spent a few days at Isles of Palms which we were surprised to find that we really enjoyed. Lots of good walking.

We stayed on the ICW as it followed the Waccamaw River north from Georgetown in South Carolina, which is one of the parts we missed going south, since we sailed outside from the Cape Fear inlet down to Winyah Bay on our way south. I have to say that the Waccamaw River might just be the prettiest section of the entire ICW.

We stayed a couple days at the Heritage Plantation Marina, where we found some decent walking in the upscale neighborhoods in the area, and I spent a day doing repairs on our refrigeration system.

Next day we made a short but beautiful day of it to a little side creek called Prince Creek, which is certainly in my top 5 beautiful anchorages we’ve found. The weather was very settled so I didn’t put out a stern anchor in the narrow creek, which was quite dumb of me. We were lucky in that the current always kept us in the middle of the creek, but I should have set a stern anchor. Some great birding there, and I added at least one species to my life list, might have added two, I just don’t recall. It was Easter morning as we woke on Prince Creek, a gorgeous morning.

The next day took us through the “rock pile”, a narrow section lined with rock formations barely above water on both sides. It also took us past monster mansions lining the ICW, and rows and rows of canals cut back into the land either side and lined with 3 story ticitak houses. We once again had the conversation about the obscenity of the ostentatious display of wealth in these big houses. All this resource tied up in these taj mahals built to the ego of these people is disgusting. That night we stayed up at Calabash Creek, which was not a great anchorage, but was the last one before a long stretch without anchorages. The shore was littered with boats from recent hurricanes, one of which was Isiais which was the hurricane that got to us in Maine last summer.

Next day on to Carolina Beach where we took a mooring ball for a couple nights, doing some walking in one of our favorite places, then up to Wrightsville Beach for a night, then outside up to Beaufort and up the ICW to a great little anchorage at Cedar Creek for a night.

Then a sporty day up to Belhaven, NC, where we spent two nights. We’d heard to many great things about this place so had rather high expectations. While it’s a cute little town, and the folks are quite friendly, the marina we stayed at really wasn’t well protected, so our first night was not comfortable. Left in the morning, back through the Pungo Canal up to the Alligator River, where weather came in again and left us a little uncomfortable, but the next day it cleared and allowed for a comfortable ride across the Albermarle Sound to Elizabeth City, where we tied up at the town free dock, which is actually right alongside the Mid-Atlantic Christian University.

Then spent the last two days of our spring trip on the Great Dismal Swamp, which we loved. Very pretty, though you’ve got to take it slow and be prepared to touch either the bottom or a log now and then. We spent two nights at the Great Dismal Swamp visitor’s center, where there is a dock to tie up to, and had some great hiking there. We had not bugs at all, though I can easily imagine that bugs are bad some times of the year.

Parked the boat at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA, and spent the next couple months with kids and grandkids in both Virginia and Colorado.

Stuart, Florida

Continuing south from Cocoa Beach, we anchored just under the Wabasso Bridge. Next day we continued to Stuart, which had been an optional target for a while.

We stayed a week in Stuart on a mooring ball at Sunset Bay Marina. Stuart turned out to be one of our favorite towns. While there was a very large contingent of folks who did not wear masks, everyone at the marina wore them, and several places in town seemed to demand it. I borrowed a marina bike and rode a few miles to get our propane tank filled. We ate out at a nice restaurant which was a treat, listened to live music most nights from the boat, and one day on shore. The walking was wonderful.

Our neighbor was a fella named Jeff from Colorado. He had inherited a sailboat from his dad, (or at least I got the impression that this is what had happened), and had spent the last two winters in Florida on the boat, returning to Colorado to work at Camping World selling camper stuff. Very nice guy with whom we had several good conversations between cockpit and dinghy.

As it turns out, a YouTube publisher was in the mooring field as well—Taylor from Taylor’s Adventures. She started off with Bobby on Sailing Doodles then broke off, got her own sailboat, and is doing the YouTube thing. She’s a cute girl with an adventurous spirit, and after finding this out from Jeff (who had been spending time with Taylor) I decided to watch one of her videos. Turns out she’s been making this trip without any instruments, motoring down the ICW using only her phone for navigation.

I struggle with this a bit. When I was young and reckless I did some reckless things for sure. Youth and recklessness just seem to go together. But the line between recklessness that endangers only me and recklessness that endangers other folks is not often a clear one. Do I believe that Taylor is being irresponsibly reckless? I dunno, maybe not. Watching a couple of her episodes makes it clear to me that she’s embarking on this journey without enough knowledge, background, or equipment. That’s her choice, and I actually applaud her in many ways. I love that adventurous spirit. I’m all about the notion that “we’ll figure it out as we go.” But is she crossing that line and endangering others? I’m not certain one way or the other, but it does make me uneasy.

Either way, we enjoyed our time in Stuart, and both agreed we can see why people choose to spend their winters here. After a week in early March, however, it was starting to get a bit hot, and we decided that we preferred cruising in moderate climates. How we will do in tropical climates, I wonder?

Derelict Boats in Florida

We made our way south from St Augustine along the ICW. We anchored at a spot called “Cement Plant” on the charts, and it turned out to be one of the best anchorages we’ve ever stayed at, at least from a protection perspective. It’s perfect for one boat and will accommodate two. The little “pond” appears to be surrounded by a SeaRay plant these days, so probably nowhere to get off. Next day we continued south to a wide open spot in the Mosquito Lagoon. Very cool place, but in any kind of wind it would be bad. Next morning we transited the Cape Canaveral area and on to Cocoa Beach. It was Friday, and we had seen enough of Florida boaters to know that we didn’t want to be out on the weekend if we could avoid it, so we anchored for the weekend here. Nice anchorage and they also had a free dock which we could have taken advantage of as we would have been better protected from the significant northerly winds that kicked up on Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday morning the winds were pretty sporty still. We’d stayed on the boat Saturday to avoid getting soaked in the dinghy, and it looked like this was going to be another day on the boat. As I was looking out the galley window, I saw a boat going by pretty close, and was a bit surprised that folks would be leaving in this wind. It’s a small sailboat with a tiller, and wait—there’s nobody at the tiller. In fact, the washboards are up and nobody appears to be in the sailboat at all. It’s broken free and it just blowin’ in the wind. I rush up to the cockpit just in time to see it clip the bow of Ambassador, a very pretty sailboat neighbor, and it seems to get stuck there, obviously tangled on something. A guy rushes up from below and starts struggling to free the dang thing. His wife runs up to help, but she’s carrying a baby. A young couple obviously.

I call BoatUS but just as they are answering the guy gets on the radio and asks for help, so I hand up with BoatUS, jump in the dinghy, and go over to see if I can help. Turns out BoatUS couldn’t have helped him anyway because it would have had to be my own boat to use my account, and this guy didn’t have BoatUS. Stephan is this fella’s name, and he’s new to boating. He and his young bride and their baby (Ocean) had been rudely awoken by this drifting derelict thumping into them, and now it was caught on them and causing damage by the minute.

The rudder of the offending drifter had caught itself on Ambassador’s anchor chain. We try all sorts of things, and the thing that finally works is that Stephan levers the rudder free and it falls to the bottom, releasing the derelict from Ambassador. We scramble back onboard Ambassador and both jump in our dinghies, aiming to try and guide the derelict toward a safe shore as it’s being driven by the wind. Stephan’s motor won’t start though, and within minutes the wind has driven him far from Ambassador, so I go back to him and tow him back. In the meantime, the derelict has drifted far downwind, and folks who had been watching Stephan and I had called it in as a drifter for mariners to be on the look-out for.

We baked a loaf of bread for them, hoping to make them feel better after such a nasty start to their life aboard. Turns out they had just bought the boat and had just moved aboard, neither of them knowing much about boating or sailing.

That story is the perfect segue to the topic of derelict boats in Florida. This just floored us as we traveled the Florida ICW. All along the route we saw boats in varying stages of dereliction. Some sunk, some half-sunk, some still afloat but clearly derelict, some still afloat but hard aground and had clearly been hard aground for a long time.

I’d read many articles by boaters about the terrible anchor restrictions that Florida and Georgia were instituting, essentially making anchoring illegal in many places. Seeing this mess, I understand how folks would be in favor of finding ways to prevent this sort of abuse. I don’t think the anchoring laws as written solve this particular problem however. As I’ve read more about the situation, it appears that the laws have been written to satisfy wealthy hotel owners who are mad that boaters anchor outside their expensive resorts.

But something should be done, of that I have no doubt. But, as always, define the problem well before going about solving it, otherwise you’re likely to solve something that doesn’t need solving, and fail to solve the actual problem.

St Augustine and Covid Vaccinations

We pulled in to St Augustine a week ago. Our plan was to sail offshore from Charleston to here in two hops, but that plan got changed. As sailing plans nearly always do.

Our first hop from Charleston to Fernandina Beach / St Mary’s was a pleasant overnight with no wind, resulting in another night of motoring. We pulled into the gigantic inlet mid-morning with a rising tide and meandered up to St Mary’s where we dropped the anchor, and I began planning our departure the next day.

As it happened, the tides and currents would make it difficult to leave early in the morning, and an approaching weather system would make it dangerous to wait until later in the day, so we called an audible. We pulled up the anchor and started motoring down the ICW, dropping anchor again off Amelia City in a place called Alligator Creek. We spend a pleasant night there, then motored further south the next day to a little oxbow that curves around Pine Island. Our third day was a quick 15 miles or so to St Augustine, where we settled in to the Municipal Marina for a month.

We took the marina rather than anchoring or mooring as a strategic move in our effort to find a way to get vaccinated. Traveling back to CO when our turn came up seemed overly risky, not to mention that in meant we’d just have to sit and wait somewhere then buy expensive last-minute tickets when we got notified by Kaiser that our turn was up in CO. We needed to find a different way.

We’d heard that Florida was pretty loose with their vaccinations, maybe even encouraging people to travel there to get the vaccination. Since the federal government is footing the bill for all of the vaccinations, that seemed like a reasonable way for them to try and encourage travel to their state.

Don’t get me wrong on this. I’m not a fan at all of the way that Florida’s governor and legislature has behaved during this pandemic. They’ve done all they can to downplay the pandemic and encourage people to continue to travel and behave as-if nothing was wrong. That attitude is apparent here in Florida, where very few people behave responsibly. Bars are full, streets are full of mask-less people, and even restaurant workers are not wearing masks. There is no doubt in my mind that people have died as a result of the reckless and immoral leadership here in Florida.

But that rumor that they had created a bit of an underground “vaccine tourism” intrigued us. We wondered if it’d be faster to get vaccinated in Florida. So we started investigating, and found that indeed, Florida had scheduled group 1c to start soon, meaning that since we are over 65 we’d be eligible. At the same time, the information we read on the web indicated that they were also cracking down on the “vaccine tourism”, and you’d have to meet certain residency requirements. Specifically, if we were in Florida seasonally, we would be eligible for a vaccine if we could show a rent receipt and a utility receipt. Well, by checking in to the marina we would pay rent, and we’d pay for a utility hookup, so that should qualify us. I called the county and the state for guidance, and the folks I talked to seemed to think the logic made sense.

Hence, our decision to come to the marina here for a month.

And it worked. We were able to snag an appointment at the Community Center, which was a lucky. It was one of those online lottery things where you had to go in exactly when they opened it, and hope that the site let you in to set an appointment. We kept refreshing, snuck in, and set two appointments. Then we headed south from Charleston to give ourselves plenty of time to get here for our appointment.

The day of our appointment we walked to the community center, which was a little over three miles, half of it through neighborhoods of questionable degrees of savoriness. We stood in line, walked up to the desk ready to prove our temporary residency, and the gal waved us aside and said that proving such a thing wasn’t necessary—if we’d been able to sign up we must be residents.

And so we were vaccinated, with an appointment for a second vaccination.

I read stories about old folks who are struggling to figure out how to get the vaccine. I get it. We’re slightly tech savvy, (at least for our age) so we were able to navigate the online process. The majority of older folks would probably have no idea how to play that game successfully.

Here’s a great article from NPR about this exact topic today.

As my son Jesse lamented when I was with him a while back, why on earth couldn’t we use our existing data to get folks vaccinated? The vast majority of folks 65 and older are on Medicare. Technically everyone over 65 is, though I am sure there are some who are not registered with Medicare. Medicare knows who we are, where we live, and how to get hold of us. Why not simply use our existing data to get the job done? Why force each state to play hide and seek with folks, trying to find them or trying to get shots into their arms? It’s a crime and a shame that we didn’t have someone running the Federal government when this was all getting set up in December and January who had a brain big enough to figure this out.

My next post will talk more about the city here, though I must say that our shock at the degree of pandemic denial here makes it very hard for us to say good things about the city. I’m hoping my disgust moderates for my next post.

Charleston After Christmas

The city of Charleston continues to enthrall us. I’ve never been in a city that has done such a great job of preserving it’s history. Or I guess, to be more accurate, to preserve the history of the last 400 years.

Any history has both good and bad, pretty and ugly. It’s no different here in Charleston. The architecture is beautiful. If you were born with the correct color skin, and into a family with money and power, then what a gorgeous city to call home. Beautiful homes situated among nice gardens on a peninsula sitting in a large harbor with cooling breezes in the summer, and far enough south to avoid the bite of any significant winter.

If, on the other hand, you happened to be born with dark skin, then this was a place of terror. The city was built by slave labor. Charleston was the largest slave market in North America. While the slave trade from Africa was officially banned in 1808, the practice continued on an outlaw basis. Charleston officially banned public slave auctions in the early 1860’s but private markets continued to flourish.

So in many ways I’m torn as I walk through this city. It’s a beautiful city that’s done an amazing job of preserving its European history. I’m often reminded, though, that this beauty was raised on the backs of slaves.

There’s an old man who fishes in a little bight not far from here. He’s black, and while I call him an “old man” it’s possible that he’s younger than me. I am, after all, an old man too at this point. Most days we pass him as we’re headed back to Harvest Moon after our walk. I always ask him what he’s catching that day. While he answers, it’s clear that he’s a little leery of any extended conversation. The other day I used one of the rental bikes that are around the city to ride to West Marine to pick something up, and as I was coming back I saw him riding home after his day fishing. He balanced his five gallon bucket and three fishing poles on his bike as he rode. I waved, though I doubt he recognized me.

I get the feeling that I’m too much of an outsider for him to be enthusiastic about having much of a conversation with me. But then, maybe that’s me imposing my own feelings on my reaction to him. I’d like to get to know him better, and learn about the fishing here, how to fish, and what to eat.

It adds up to reminding me again of the southern culture that was forged in a world of slavery. The wounds that stretch back generations. How long does it take to heal from the sins of our great great great grandfathers?

Not that “my people” were here at the time. While it’s possible that there were some relatives from my mother’s side who were here in the US during the days of slavery, they would have been poor immigrants rather than slaveholders. They would have been in the industrial north working to find ways to eke out a living rather than benefiting from a slave economy in the South. People on my father’s side didn’t arrive here until the turn of the century, migrating immediately from Ellis Island where they landed to the hinterlands of Wisconsin and Minnesota where they could find other Scandinavian immigrants like themselves.

But that doesn’t absolve me of the scars of slavery. For two reasons.

First, as a white man I have benefited all my life from the white male privilege that the age of slavery helped to cement in our culture. It wasn’t ONLY slavery that created this white male privilege, but slavery helped cement it. And there is zero doubt in my mind that I have benefited from this during my life, and that my current situation and “status” as a retired white man living a comfortable life is—in some part large or small—made possible by my gender and skin color. Certainly not ONLY gender and skin color, but those things have helped me rather than hurt me.

Second, we too often forget that slavery has been a human condition for all of recorded history across all (or nearly all) cultures, nations, and people. From the Israelites to the Egyptians to the Romans to the Chinese and Japanese. From the Incas to the Sioux. Human’s have found ways to build economies on the backs of others that they can force to do work for them. The practice continues to this day. And my people—those Scandinavians who are so productive and peaceful today—were some of the most prolific slave traders of the middle ages. In those days, if you were conquered, you became a slave to be brought home and put to work, or to be sold for profit. The Swedes were particularly prolific slave traders.

During the days of the horrific Atlantic slave trade when millions of Africa’s best and strongest were captured and sold into slavery in the Americas, the practice of slavery within Africa was also practiced. In fact, the Africans who were transported across the Atlantic were sold TO the slave traders by other Africans working as slave traders. (Over twelve million Africans were sold to European slave traders.)

Does this make any of it okay? Does it justify anything? Of course not. It’s just a reminder to me that this practice of slavery has been a chronic part of humanity for at least the last several thousand years, probably much longer.

I’m sitting in our nation’s cradle of slavery. Being here is reminding me of both the sins of the founders of this nation, the sins of my ancestors, and of the sins of humanity overall. While the African slave trade is our cross to bear, and here in Charleston it is on full display, what is it about us as humans that makes slavery okay in our cultures?

I’m reminded that during the age of slavery here in this country, churches and pastors regularly used the New Testament as proof that slavery was right in G-d’s eyes, referring specifically to passages instructing slaves to be obedient to their masters, as well as the fact that clearly the Israelites owned slaves and condoned the practice. Which causes a real dilemma if you’re a person who wants to take every single word of the Bible as the word of G-d, put together in English in exactly the order and meaning that we use today in the English language. Because using that measuring stick, then slavery is indeed just fine.

I remember having a discussion about this among a group of pastors one evening over a beer many years ago. The consensus among the group was that the meaning of the word “slave” needed to be understood in the context of the day. In that point in history, labor was achieved with slaves. It’s how economies worked. Slaves weren’t “free”, and most people treated slaves relatively well because the slave class represented an economic asset. It was simply a way of using other people to get work done on your behalf. Some of the participants in the discussion felt like in today’s world, we’ve simply taken to compensating people low wages and forcing them to find a way to feed themselves, and this is its own form of slavery.

I see the point, but I struggle with this point of view. A person today might be working for slave wages, but at least they have a choice, right? Hmmm, maybe that’s questionable. But they aren’t someone else’s “property”. They aren’t plucked from their home and taken somewhere else. Well, unless they’re Mexican and ICE finds out about them…

I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about. What I know is that this beautiful city is a place we should all spend time in, both to enjoy the beauty AND to reflect on our contribution to the evil of slavery in human history.