An Abrupt Goodbye

On Sunday we received some bad news; an old friend of ours passed away. Dick was the owner of Chipman Point Marina, in Orwell, VT—which was where we kept our first boat, Sugar Magnolia.

It was 10 years ago when we first tied up to the dock at Chipman Point and met Dick. He was sitting on the patio at the head of the dock. The patio is still one of my favorite spots in the world; it’s where you can always strike up a conversation with someone, and Dick was always going in and out of the ship’s store. He used to chime into the conversation whenever he walked by.

Dick was an older gentleman. He had a weather-beaten face, bright white hair and matching beard. But he always had a smile on that face. As his health declined later in his life, he tooled around on the marina grounds in a golf cart with artificial sunflowers stuck to the back of it.

From Dick we learned a great deal about boat restoration and about sailing. His tool shop was always open to us, as was his ear when we needed advice. With Dick there were no stupid questions, though he couldn’t promise not to provide a tongue-in-cheek answer. I vividly remember the first time Todd and I sailed to a marina on Lake Champlain and picked up a mooring instead of tying to a dock. At the time Todd was on the foredeck, and reached out to grab the pick up stick floating in the water. He pulled on the stick and retrieved the mooring line. Then he tied some ridiculously complicated Eagle Scout knot, and we slept at mooring for the first time aboard Sugar Magnolia.

The next morning we returned to Chipman Point, and excitedly told Dick about our first night on a mooring. “The only thing that was bad about it was the pick up stick kept smacking into the side of the boat while we slept.”

Dick lowered his voice and said, “You’re supposed to pull the stick onto the deck of the boat to keep that from happening.” And that was so Dick. Sure, he liked to joke around; but he never sought to make you feel stupid.

There are things I didn’t know about Dick until I read the obituary. He was pretty low key about his accomplishments. I knew that he was a machinist, like my father, and that he made tools that violin makers use. What I didn’t know was that he and another man designed and built the world’s first teleprompter. Because of Dick’s ingenuity, public speakers and politicians use that device every single day. Yet, he was so modest and never talked about it.  He was so cool like that.

Thank you, Dick, for all that you’ve taught us. Even though we haven’t been fixtures there for quite a few summers now, thank you for always making us feel welcome. I am trying hard not to be sad, because you wouldn’t want that. But it’s hard not to be. You made Chipman Point one of my favorite places in the world, and without you it’ll never be the same.

We’ll miss you.

The Adventure is Almost Beginning

We’ve made a list.

It includes all the boat chores that need to be done. We need to fabricate a fuel tank that holds more diesel than my car can carry. (Seven years ago we installed a “temporary” fuel tank.) Also on the list are things like finally installing the anchor windlass we bought 6 years ago. We bought the chain to go with it. Six years ago. It’s been sitting in Maggie and Charlie’s yacht rigging shop since then. They used to tease us about it. Now they use the chain’s container as a table.

I put in for two weeks vacation in July, and got approved. I also requested two weeks unpaid in August. I don’t think I’ll get the August time, so we’ll have to figure something out with that.

I grabbed a book from the library about where we will sail to. Todd read some of it last night and used Google pedometer to plot how far away our destination is. 405 miles.

Destination: Chipman Point Marina in Orwell, Vermont. We will sail east through Long Island Sound to New York City. We’ll have the masts taken down and head up the Hudson River and into Lake Champlain.

We’re at that exciting and overwhelming time at the start of the trip. There is a lot to do; a lot of phone calls to make, a lot of plywood to cut to build the prototype for our custom fuel tanks, a lot of time spent trying to figure out why the radar won’t work, and a lot of calls to Raytheon technical support.

There’s a lot to do at work to make sure my absence won’t stress out my co-workers and boss.

There are provisions to plan out and buy.

There are details to arrange, like sailing the boat to Essex, Connecticut the weekend before the trip, then taking the train back to Rhode Island.

Then we need to figure out how we’ll get back to RI from Vermont.

Spreadsheets have been made; measurements have been scrawled in notebooks.

And we're loving every minute of it.

Summer Sailing Adventure Part 5

Friday 17 July 2009

We tied up to the mooring ball in Tiverton, and lamented that it would be our last night aboard. Typically we try to take vacation for 2 weeks at a stretch, so some serious miles can pass below the keel. Unfortunately I only had a week of vacation time at my disposal.

We headed to one of the swankier restaurants in Tiverton to celebrate our last night. However, we did not dress for the swankier restaurant. I walked into the joint with my hair tied in a bandanna, in ratty shorts and a tank top. Todd wasn’t dressed much nicer than that. The maitre d’ eyed our appearance, then caught herself staring and seated us. We ate a lovely meal, I pounded a few mojitos, and then we headed back to the boat.

Once aboard we needed to take the boys ashore. They hadn’t been all day long. Griffen paced, and Nemo, miraculously, hadn’t soiled the deck all day. Our lack of coordination screwed us again, Griffen ended up in the water while we prepared to get them into the dinghy to go ashore. We shrugged our shoulders and decided to let him swim alongside the boat all the way to the public dock—approximately a quarter mile away.

Griffen loves to talk while he swims. He chatters excitedly in squeaky puppyish barks as if to say “This is great! I am having such a fun time! I love to swim! I love you guys for letting me swim!” The problem with his swim chatter is that he has to open his mouth to do it. If he opens his mouth salt water flows freely down his throat. We learned several years ago that salt water and the doggy digestive tract are not friends. At all. We learned the meaning of the phrase “projectile poop” the hard way (kinda like my experience on my way to work yesterday).

Tired dogs and people climbed back aboard and settled in for the night. Overnight a massive thunderstorm blew in and carried buckets of rain. We listened as it pelted the cabin top over our bed—but thanks to our diligence in the spring not one drop fell on our bed.

Saturday 18 July 2009
We freed ourselves from the mooring and headed west to cross the bay and return to East Greenwich. The wind blew from the south, which is perfect from Sabine as she prefers her wind to blow across her beam (her perfect point of sail is when the wind is blowing in perpendicular to the direction she’s traveling, so directly into her side). We had a leisurely, sunny and windy sail home and only slowed to clean off the deck several times. (See above, “projectile poop.”)

We tied up to our home mooring and sighed. Coming back from a sailing vacation is always difficult for us. I distinctly remember our first sailing vacation on Lake Champlain in 2000. We were out for 10 days on a 26’ Pearson Commander called Sugar Magnolia. Sugar Mag had a 10 horse outboard engine; Sabine has a 53 horse inboard engine. Aboard Sugar Mag, bathing was either done in the lake, or with a solar shower, while aboard Sabine it’s done in a tiled shower with hot water. Drinking water on Sugar Mag was carried in gallon jugs purchased at the store; Sabine has a sink in the galley and bathroom with fresh running water. Cooking was done on a butane camp stove aboard Sugar Mag, while it’s done on a propane stove in the galley aboard Sabine, or on the gas grill on the aft deck—depending on what we’re having. Sugar Mag required us to bring a cooler filled with ice to keep perishables and beer cold; while Sabine has a top loading fridge.

But those 10 says aboard Sugar Magnolia were blissful. We first felt the bittersweet ending to a sailing trip as we tied to our mooring at Chipman Point Marina in Orwell, Vermont. It’s always the same feeling every time a sailing trip ends. While we’re happy about the places we’ve gone, sights we saw, and experiences we had there’s a slight sadness in that it has to end and more places, sights and experiences have to wait until the next trip.

Summer Sailing Adventure Part 4

After my bummer of a last post, I need to continue to re-live my vacation.

Thursday 16 July 2009

At the end of the last installment, we were held hostage by a small craft advisory in Westport, Massachusetts. We attempted the trip back to Narragansett Bay, just to be tossed around in the ocean like a tub toy.

The moment we got tied up to our mooring, we considered our options. There isn’t much to do in Westport that we could access on foot, and rain was forecasted for Thursday. We got on the Internet and reserved a rental car for Thursday afternoon so we could expand our exploration range.

The rental car arrived at the marina, and we set off to explore with a copy of a hand-drawn map of the area. Once we were a few miles inland, sprawling green pastured farms lined the road side. We stopped at house and barn that was converted into a general store. We wound our way through the maze of hallways into rooms that were once living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens that were converted into spaces where saleable merchandise lined the shelves and tables. We had lunch. We ate ice cream.

We ended up in a seaside village called Padanaram (PAY-duh-nair-um) where we window shopped and watched the fishing boats return from their morning trips. We stopped in a jewelry store, where Todd purchased my vacation bling. It’s become a bit of a tradition for us; we buy each other a gift while we’re on vacation. He often buys me something sparkly, and I usually buy him a book or a T-shirt. This year’s bling is a necklace with a turquoise sea glass pendant made by a local artist.

We continued on to explore New Bedford, Massachusetts which was once a thriving sea side town. Much of the industry has left the area, and it shows in the unkempt buildings and the saddened expressions of the people walking around. Just miles from New Bedford are upper class neighborhoods with gates that keep everyone out of their lush green lawns and pristine exteriored homes. But in the heart of New Bedford are boarded up windows, graffiti tagged walls, weeds creeping through the cracks in the pavement and broken signs. All I could think was the potential that the town has. All it would take is money and jobs to turn the place around. But for the moment, it's a desperate ghost town.

Before returning the car we ran a few errands for the boat. We hit up the local Bloodbath and Beyond to buy some new silverware for the boat, a new bathmat for outside the shower, and a few other odds and ends.

Friday 17 July 2009
The battery powered alarm chirped at 7 AM. We leapt out of bed and looked out the portholes. The wind had died down substantially as it wasn’t howling anymore, but the tide was still incoming. We fired up the diesel, cast off the lines, and pointed Sabine out of the harbor.

We continued dead south until we reached the buoy that instructed us to turn west. The waves were minimal compared to the day before. The sun was shining, and the wind was still headed directly from the west. Sabine doesn’t like to sail windward. We often joke that where ever we go the wind will always be on the nose. We continued to motor toward the bay, without having to raise the sails.

After a few hours we turned north into the mouth of the Sakonnet River. This is the river that separates the east side of Newport (Aquidneck Island) from the eastern-most portion of Rhode Island. We’d never been up the Sakonnet, and have always wanted to check out that side of the state.

The wind shifted from the south west, which was perfect for us. We were headed directly north. We raised the sails and killed the diesel. When ever we turn off the engine and sail, it feels a bit like the world has stopped. The roar of the engine ceases, and I always expect that the boat will stop moving because that’s the way it works in a car. It is different on a boat because it will continue to coast on the residual inertia created by the propeller spinning below the water line. Eventually that momentum will slow, and the boat will continue moving from the pressure of the wind on the sails. The relief of turning off the engine and listening to the wind, and each other, is always welcome.

We found an anchorage just south of Tiverton, RI where we ate lunch and lounged around on deck for a few hours. Griffen jumped into the water to chase down a kayaker, I napped, we worked on my book for a little while and relaxed.

Then we released the mooring and headed into Tiverton for the night.

Summer Sailing Adventure Part 3

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Todd looked up from the Eldridge tide chart and clicked on the laptop one more time, “OK, looks like this afternoon is our chance to get back to Narragansett Bay. The weather’s going to suck on Thursday and the wind we saw last night is only going to get worse.” He turned the page in the Eldridge, “The tide’s going out around 2 today. We’ll pick up about 3 extra knots of speed by going out with the tide. We need to be ready to leave right then.”

“OK, sounds good,” I replied as I carried two bowls of dog food onto the deck. “Let’s get these guys ashore right after they get fed.” When we’re at home the dogs get fed twice per day, once in the morning and then once when we get home from work in the evenings. Feeding them two small meals every day helps them keep their metabolism high, so they won’t get flabby. While we’re on the boat we only feed them in the morning, this way we can control their digestion a bit, and not have to walk them ashore twice.

The biggest problem with this plan is that we tend to feed them a bit later in the morning on the boat. In the time between their waking up and their feeding, their digestive systems continue to percolate. If we don’t get them shore immediately after feeding them, then we end up having to scoop poop off the deck of the boat.

We don’t actually mind if they poop on the deck. If they have to go they have to go, and there’s nothing we can do about it. They’re trained to use the foredeck if they need to. But if we can get them to go ashore, then it’s one less thing to worry about. So far every morning on the trip has involved scooping poop because even at our fastest, we didn’t move quick enough.

“OK, I’ll pull the dinghy to the side of the boat, let’s get them in it fast,” Todd shut off the laptop and climbed the stairs onto the deck.

From the cockpit I saw Nemo squat on the starboard side, “Dammit!!” I groaned as I went back below to get the Green Works, the scrub brush and paper towels.

Getting into the dinghy with the dogs has become more challenging over the years. Griffen’s impulse control has waned, and his separation anxiety has increased drastically. In recent years he’s begun randomly jumping into the water because he cannot contain his desire to swim. I’ve watched him lie across the edge of the boat and stare longingly at the water below, then pace as if to wait for the urge to pass. Eventually he cannot take it anymore and needs to feel the water on his fur. His brain becomes focused on swimming, that it shuts itself off to any other stimulus. He sits back on his haunches and prepares for the leap into the water, his eyes intently focused on the glistening surface. He doesn’t hear the “Griffen! NONONONONONONO!” from his humans. He hits the water, and an expression of pure joy and relief crosses his face. As he swims, his humans grouse at each other, “You were supposed to watch him!” “Me? I told you to get him!”

While Todd pulls the dinghy up to the side of the boat, Griffen also lets out this horrible yowl, as he fears being left alone on the boat without his people. I don’t know if he fears we’ll never come back or if he thinks that where ever we go will be fun for dogs and he’ll miss out. But he makes this screechy howl that makes my teeth itch. No amount of commanding him to be quiet, or even forcing his snout shut, will stop him.

Todd stepped into the dinghy, “Nemo, come on pal!” he called. Nemo easily leaped from the deck onto the pontoon of the dinghy, while Griffen screeched at the injustice of being left behind. I climbed in, and then Griffen clumsily flopped in. I instinctively grabbed Griffen’s collar and forced him to sit. He will only sit for .05 seconds before trying to jump from the dinghy into the water, so we command him to “sit!” over and over for the entire ride to the beach.

Westport Point has miles of pristine beach. The sand is soft, and there are few rocks unlike other New England beaches. We pulled the dinghy onto the soft shore and the dogs hopped out and began exploring. Griffen barreled into the water, while Nemo sniffed near the sand dunes. I donned my shorty wetsuit and joined Griffen in the water. The incoming tide was strong, and I felt the water force against my legs as I waded in. A sandbar presented itself and I called to Todd, “I am going to swim out to that sandbar with Griffen.”

Approximately a third of the way to the sandbar I turned to the shore and noticed that I’d been carried several yards over from where we beached the dinghy. I heard the dinghy motor behind me, Todd called out to me, “We’re joining you guys on the sandbar.” He passed Griffen and I, and beached the dinghy onto the sandbar. Nemo jumped out and splashed around in the knee deep water. I turned to Griffen just as he turned to head back to the beach. He was closer to the sandbar, but sought the stable ground of the beach as he fought the current. I doubled back and put a hand on his collar and we swam together.

The sand abruptly curved upward, and we were able to stand. We climbed onto the sandbar where Todd was playfully chasing Nemo. The water splashed around them, and Griffen and I couldn’t resist joining in the fun.

We splashed around on the sandbar until the tide had come in to the point where the dinghy no longer would rest on the sand. We climbed in and headed back to Sabine for a shower and lunch.

At 2 PM I untied the mooring line. The wind was directly from the west at 20-30 miles per hour. We exited the harbor and followed the GPS heading to the buoy that marks the end of the channel. Sabine rolled back and forth on waves that were forecasted at 2-4 feet, but looked more like 4-6.

We reached the buoy and turned the boat west and directly into the wind. Our speed dropped to 3 knots, even with the tide pushing us along. The wind was stronger offshore and it battled the outgoing tide and created the humongous waves that Sabine teetered over. We rode the waves for about 10 minutes then Todd said, “OK, at this speed we are in for a 10 hour ride to Newport. This is going to be a miserable fucking ride.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I think we should head back. This is dangerous and stupid.”

“But you had said that tomorrow would be even worse,” I reminded him.

“Well, then we’ll have to stay in Westport until Friday, then,” he sighed. “I just know that I don’t want to go today.”

We turned around and headed back into Westport.

“So, you want to try the other place for dinner tonight? We did try the one place already, might as well try the other place in town,” I shrugged.

Summer Sailing Vacation Adventure Part 2

Monday 13 July 2009

One of our vacation days always ends up being a chore day. We let go of the anchor in Jamestown and motored east across the bay to Newport. We had a shopping list of boat supplies we needed for a few of the projects that we wanted to complete that day. We had a few items on the to-do list that needed to get done. The water filters for the sinks hadn’t been changed in who knows how long. The antifreeze from seasons past coagulated in the filtration cartridges and made teeth brushing nauseating. The water from the galley sink was entirely undrinkable as well.

The floors in the boat were utterly disgusting. My springtime cleaning binge this year was rather disjointed and there were whole portions of the boat that hadn’t been cleaned. The radar system was still not functional, and Todd also wanted to wire an electrical outlet into the cockpit.

It sounds like a crappy thing to do on vacation, you know, fixing stuff on the boat when we’re supposed to be relaxing. But this is how we relax. Boat restoration is a hobby of ours, and spending an afternoon checking a few items off the list is worth it to us if it means that life aboard will be just a little less like camping. I am happy to say that I can now brush my teeth with water directly from the tap without getting the urge to barf. I can also drink the water from the tap without fear that I am drinking antifreeze. We can also plug electrical things into the cockpit, and the floors no longer had that layer of filth which clung to the bottoms of our feet. The radar system, however, still eludes us. It remains classified as “decorative” rather than “functional.”

Tuesday 14 July 2009

I woke up with an itch on my brain. (No amount of thinking about sandpaper would relieve it.) This itch would only be scratched by going somewhere we’d never been. We’d been examining the maps, checking the forecast on the Internet, and trying to make a decision as to where to go. We settled on Westport, Massachusetts, which is pretty much a stone’s throw east of where Narragansett Bay lets out into the Atlantic Ocean. We untied the mooring line and set a course for south once we left Newport Harbor.

We watched coastal Rhode Island pass us on the left as we headed east. There was no wind to speak of, so we motored the whole way, Auto von Pilot steering the way. After about 2-3 hours we came upon the entrance buoy for Westport Point.

Westport Point is located at the mouth of the Westport River. The entrance into the harbor is a bit tricky as the river and the rides have worn in a narrow channel that winds around a humongous sandbar in the center of the entrance. The tide was on its way out and was producing a three knot current that we had to steer against while we tried to keep the boat in the deepest part of the channel.

We tied to the mooring and turned off the engine then did what we normally do when arriving in a new anchorage. We took a nap. There’s something about the drone of the diesel engine and the salt air that makes us sleepy. Once siesta time ended, we headed into “town” to explore.

“Town” consists of two restaurants. That’s it. That’s all there is in Westport Point. We settled on one of the restaurants for dinner, figuring that we had a 50/50 chance of finding something good to eat.

After dinner we explored the river in the dinghy. We motored under the drawbridge, and avoided the fishermen casting their lines on the bridge above. The delta of the Westport spread north in front of us and mansions dotted the shore. In all the places we’ve sailed, I’ve seen my share of mansions on the shore. They consist of huge houses with docks with boats or several jet-skis where the perfectly manicured lawn meets the water. I ask Todd the same question every time we see a place like this, “What the hell do these people do for a living?” I am sure that waterfront property is expensive enough without the mansion with several dozen bedrooms, probably several dozen bathrooms, and the dock with the toys thrown in there as well. I forced my jaws closed and we motored on.

By the time we decided to return to the boat we burned nearly a half tank of fuel. The tide was on its way in and the wind was kicking up from the west, precisely in the direction we were going. The incoming tide and the wind from the same direction caused us a very bumpy and wet ride back to Sabine. At one point I took the tiller so Todd could sit, and promptly drove us right into a gigantic wave that sent water splashing over the bow and soaking Todd.

It would be this strong westerly wind and the strong current from the tide that would cause problems for us in the days to come.

Summer Vacation Sailing Adventure Part 1

Day 1 Saturday 11 July 2009

The day started out with nearly getting run off I-95 by an obviously drunk driver. We watched him weave in and out of traffic in front of us. We got on the horn and called the Rhode Island State Police. We got transferred to this station and to that one, and were assured that a cruiser would come out and intercept the guy. We watched him take swigs from behind the wheel, and nearly hit a half dozen other cars. Before we knew it, we’d followed the car into Massachusetts and called the state police three other times on the way to report on the driver’s position. We considered our citizenly duty complete and hoped that Tipsy McDrinkerton didn’t kill anyone once he’d gotten off the highway.

We ran errands for the remainder of the day, then left the dock at around 3:00. We left Greenwich Bay and headed south to Jamestown, RI. Jamestown is an island in the middle of Narragansett Bay that has a few great restaurants, many many humongous houses, and a few of our favorite dive sites. This time we picked up a mooring on the west side of the island in Dutch Harbor. Not the same Dutch that the guys from Deadliest Catch go to, but whatever, it was still all good. We’d never stayed on the west side of the island, so it was nice to be somewhere different, yet still have the center of town in walking distance. I discovered my new favorite drink at our favorite restaurant, Tricia’s. The drink, called the Purple Nurple, tastes just like grape kool-aid and went down way too fast.

At 2 AM I felt water dripping against my arm. I woke up and realized that it was raining and the windows in our stateroom were open. I reached up, closed them, and hunkered back into my nest. Not two seconds later Todd called out to me from the cockpit “Beej! I need your help!”

I stumbled through the galley and up the stairs into the cockpit, where Todd was closing the panels on the cockpit enclosure. I helped him close the remaining curtains, and held the flashlight for him while he finished. At that point I realized I was standing in my cockpit stark naked. I frantically turned around and made a dash for the stairs into the cabin muttering “Stupid Purple Nurples.”

Day 2 Sunday 12 July 2009

We puttered around Jamestown in the morning, then let go of the mooring to sail around the north side of the island. The wind was coming directly from the south, and we stretched out the main sail (big sail in the middle of the boat) and the jib (big sail on the very front of the boat) and let the wind effortlessly shove us north.

I made a new friend along the way, called the Auto Pilot. All you have to do is set a course and it keeps a straight course on that bearing. Of course, you can’t set the auto pilot and go below to make a sandwich, because you still have to watch where you’re going, but it’s nice not having to do the little corrections to keep the boat on course.

We rounded the north of the island, which put the wind across the boat from the right. We reset the sails and made our way across the northern tip of the island. Eventually we tacked our way south to the other side of Jamestown, then started of the diesel to motor in for the rest of the way. I watched the Newport Bridge pass over as we motored beneath it and still noticed my mouth falling open at the sight. I have a thing about travelling under bridges, and have scads of photos of our mast against the backdrop of the underside of various bridges. Just anyone can drive over a bridge any old time. But it’s something else entirely to sail under a bridge.

We picked up a mooring on the east side of the island, headed in for dinner at Tricia’s again, then watched a jazz band play on the town green. We people watched while we listened to the music then headed back to the boat to bring the dogs ashore for their nightly walk. They made friends and flirted with anyone holding an ice cream cone from the local stand, in hopes that some sucker would take pity on them and give them a lick. No dice, guys.

Sleeping on the boat has been great so far. We go to bed earlier and wake up earlier on the boat because we alter our routine to match the sun. We don’t stay up late watching TV (though we might watch a movie on the laptop) and we just don’t have the same distractions to keep us from sleeping. Todd, typically a light sleeper, sleeps much better with a more natural rhythm. Reason # 45436 for cancelling the cable at home.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Life has been hectic since we came back from Florida on Monday, sorry about not posting sooner. Here’s the rundown on the adventures we had on vacation.

On Monday we headed over to the boat, and just as we were about to leave the dock two of my co-workers were walking by. They walk every day at lunch time from our office, which is located just a few blocks away from the boat. I catcalled out to them and they hesitated a bit and kept walking. Who knew that they would respond when I yelled out “Hey! Hoochie?” We set sail for Newport and just puttered around town for a few days—no big whoop.

Thursday morning we woke up at 3AM and lamented having ever moved from our old house that was located 3 miles from the airport. Groggily, we boarded our plane then landed in sunny Ft. Lauderdale. We cruised around for the afternoon and then prepared for our two days of eight dives.

The two days turned into three hours. The eight dives turned into two dives. The ocean was choppy on Friday afternoon, and we had two lousy dives. The first dive was to 90 or so feet, and the divemaster on the boat buddied us up with a man who was on his own. Once we got onto the anchor line, I was experiencing some technical difficulties at 30 or so feet. My mask was flooding and I couldn’t fix it because the current was so strong. I was afraid that if I took both hands off the line I would get swept out of position. I struggled with my mask, and looked to Todd from behind my rapidly filling mask. He and our dive buddy were further down the line and eventually they escaped my line of sight. I fussed with the mask some more, and spotted the divemaster pulling himself down the line with one hand while holding his spear gun in the other. He blew right by me as I held onto the line, alone and out of sight from the rest of the divers on the boat. He didn’t turn and flash me the “Are you OK?” sign. Nothing. He made his way down the line, and I jerked against the line to capture his attention. No response from him as he slipped further down the line and out of my sight.

Then I started to get mad. I wasn’t just mad. I was furious. I was furious with Todd for ditching me and I was furious with the divemaster for blowing me off. I made it to the surface, climbed back into the boat and told the captain what had happened. I fixed my mask, jumped back in and made my way down the line. At approximately 50 feet I encountered Todd as he was on his way back, and at that point I didn't get the chance to communicate with him about what happened. At that point, for all I knew, he ditched me. He’s never done that before. Though sometimes on a shallower dive he’ll wait for me at the bottom as I slowly equalize my ears on descent—but in that instance he can see me. On this particular dive he slipped out of sight and I was left alone on the line.

“Are you OK?” he signed to me.

I flipped him one finger, and I’ll let you guess which one it was.

He held up both hands as if to question, “What?”

I pointed to myself, then to him, and then pressed my hands together as if to say “You and me are supposed to be buddied up.” Then I held my hands as if to question him, then propped my fists onto my hips as if to say “What the hell happened to you?”I scowled at him as well as I could have with a regulator in my mouth. We descended to 90-ish, explored the wreck for a few minutes and then slowly made our way back up the line and climbed into the boat.

He asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I was furious with him and didn’t want to get into it just then as I didn’t want to be that couple on the dive boat that fought in front of everyone else. Then on the second dive we were so disconnected from each other and had a lousy time of it. We hauled ourselves back into the boat, and barely said two words to each other all the way back to the dock.

In the car we talked about what had happened on the first dive. Our dive buddy took off down the line and didn’t wait for us, you know, like a dive buddy is supposed to do. Todd, worried for the man’s safety, followed him down to the bottom. He found another buddy pair and told our buddy to go with them. Once he was sure that he was safe at the deeper depth, he started to climb up the rope to find me. His logic was that I was at a safer depth and less of a worry, while our dive buddy was going to be deeper and more of a risk at that depth. My logic was “How on earth could you abandon your wife and chase a stranger down without knowing that I was OK?” We quickly resolved the problem, and resumed our vacation. In hindsight I know he was right. Though in the heat of the moment I was pissed. We said our apologies, and salvaged the rest of the trip.

The weather cancelled the last of our dives. The wind roared and the ocean boiled. We made the best of it by exploring the land instead of the reefs and wrecks. We rented a power boat and explored the Intracoastal Waterway, which is something we’ve always wanted to do. We ate at Dairy Queen so many times that we began to call it “Daily Queen.”

All in all a good vacation, even though we don’t have any photographic evidence. I think I took only three pictures while we were in Newport. I didn’t take my camera to Florida because we hauled the video camera and the underwater housing there, hoping to record our dives. But the dives were cancelled. It doesn’t quite feel like vacation without having the pictures to prove it.

Oh well, we’ll just have to go again.

Spreading the Wonder

There’s something magical about taking people sailing who have never been on our boat before. There’s something inherently beautiful about the look of wonder on the faces of our guests the first time the sails fill with wind and the boat moves without having to rely on the rumbling engine. I love hearing the questions about the various pieces of equipment on the boat, and smile about the time my brother Kaz once asked me “Hey, what’s that propane tank for?” and I dryly responded “The grill.” My dad once lifted up the plastic scissor-like object off the foredeck and asked me what it was for. When I informed him it was the pooper-scooper for cleaning up after the dogs, he winced and dropped the gadget where he'd seen it and unconscioulsy wiped his hands on his pants.

This past weekend my sister Chris and her 4 kids came to visit , and we took them for our first sail ever on Saturday. It was fun to watch my nieces and nephew, whose ages range from 4-14, stumble around on the boat as it moved beneath their feet until they eventually moved comfortably as they got used to the motion of the waves against the hull, and the slight tilt of the boat as the wind filled the sails. My sister, a mother of four who is accustomed to being at the center of the action, sat aside as I showed my nieces how to raise and lower the sails.

“It’s so nice to just sit and do nothing,” she said, sipping her wine.

“Yeah, and how often do you get to do that? Just enjoy,” I replied, laughing. She lounged on the deck of the boat, and stared up at the sails and the sky.

Chris has never seen me sail before. I’ve been a sailor for 10 years, and I’ve never had the occasion to take her out because her kids were younger and needed more of her constant attention. She watched me haul in the jib sheets to tack the boat and trim the sails. She watched me command the helm while Todd set the anchor, then pulled it in. Then I took the helm again as Todd and our 12 year old niece, Madison, took the sails in and then when we motored into the mooring field and he picked up the mooring lines and tied them to the boat.

“Wow, Beej, you really know what you’re doing,” she slightly gushed.

“I can fake it,” I shrugged.

“Don’t let her fool you,” Todd beamed at Chris, “Your sister’s a sailor.”

“I dare you to take your hands off the steering wheel,” our 10 year old nephew, Spencer, interjected, trying to incite daring recklessness in his aunt.

I took my hands off the wheel, shook them around over my head with reckless abandon and said “AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!” He nervously laughed and stared at me in awe. In Spencer’s experience, in cars and motor boats, one does not take their hands off the wheel for fear of losing control over the vehicle. But on a sailboat it’s different, and I explained it to him. Things happen a lot slower on a cruising sailboat like ours. I told him that it’s still vitally important to pay attention at all times, the captain doesn’t have to grip the wheel constantly when there aren’t any obstacles near by. Spencer seemed intrigued by the concept, and tested it out when it was his turn to take the wheel.

One by one they explored every inch of the boat, above and below decks. Rachael learned to raise the sails. Madison recited the names of the sails and ropes that operate the sails that she had just learned from her Uncle Todd. Spencer checked the depth gauge at the helm and periodically reported the current depth of the water beneath us. Cassidy stood on her 4 year old tip toes and strained to see over the compass located just behind the steering wheel, as she captained the boat.

And I fought back the tears of joy and pride at having my family thoroughly enjoy something that is such a large part of my life.

Let the Games Begin

Over the 4th of July weekend the weather was cloudy, hazy and all around "meh." Todd and I took advantage of the weather that normally makes us want to go out and play and got Sabine ready for her season.

I am happy to say that in the days since the launch the repair has held, and the ocean is staying on the outside of the boat. We cleaned the interior, Todd replaced the bottom of the pantry, and we replaced the fuel filter on the diesel engine as well. We put two of the three sails on, the third went on tonight after work, and we moved the boat from the winter marina to the mooring where we keep her in the summer.

That first short trip from Brewer's Boat Yard in Cowesett to the mooring in Greenwich Cove is always my favorite trip. It takes less than an hour from the dock to the mooring, but that trip is always filled with possibility. It's the first time in each season when we get to feel the vibration of the inboard engine as we power from the dock. It's the first time in the season when we get the chance to feel the breeze against our faces when we motor to the mooring. It's the first trip when the dogs run excitedly up and down the deck in anticipation of a new boating season.

It's also the first time in each season when I get to see the smile on Todd's face, as he grips the wheel at the helm, excited at the prospect of a new season--which is my favorite expression that I've seen on his face.

Goodbye, Brewer's Boat Yard. It's been real.

Hello Greenwich Cove.

Will somebody please untie us so we can run around like idiots? Please?

We've booked in our vacation time for this year. This is my calendar on my desk at work. It reads "Big lucky vacation time!" We're only taking a week this year because I've just started this job. Next year will be longer.

Been There... Done That

I think that Todd and I have officially grown out of local boat shows.

In the past we used to barely be able to contain ourselves with the anticipation of local boat show season. We’d see the billboards go up along I-95 in Providence that tell us when the Providence Boat Show would open at the Convention Center. We’d speculate about which vendors we’d hit up and what kind of deals we could get at the show. We’d excitedly wonder about which seminars would run at the show, and what new things we could learn about sailing, navigation, or overall life aboard. We would spend the better part of a day at the Providence Boat Show, and leave it exhausted at the end of the day.

We started to notice an inverse proportion of importance when it comes to seminars and vendors. Each year the seminars we’d attend would be a bit more advanced than the ones we attended the last year. While the vendors we visited were less vital than the ones we’d checked out the years before. There was one year where we looked for a good deal on a Yanmar diesel and a hot water heater at boat shows all winter long. We used to leave a boat show discussing the pros and cons of spending all that money on this engine or that hot water heater. We haven’t had a post-show boat budget talk like that in a very long time. Several years ago we went to a coastal navigation seminar at the Providence Boat show that we still talk about. In that particular seminar the presenter showed us how to read a chart, figure out where we are, and how that would translate to using a GPS. We left that seminar feeling empowered with new navigation know how. Now we look at the seminar list and say “Been there… done that…”because, well, we have been there and done that.

We moved on to the Simply Sail Expo in Atlantic City a few years ago. We attended that show twice; during one of the trips we got the chance to take Tom Neale’s offshore cruising 2-day class. The other time we attended Simply Sail Todd went to seminars that focused on diesel engine maintenance, while I scoped out sessions that were delivered by women for women about subjects that had nothing to do with cooking aboard, and other home-ec.-on-the-high-seas topics. But even after the second time around for that show we’d already felt that the show had served its purpose for us, and we haven’t been back since.

This year we went to the Providence Boat Show, and stayed for only a few hours. We walked the floor looking at the boats, renewed our SeaTow membership (like AAA, but for boats) and renewed the registration on the dinghy. We attended one seminar on using radar, but the rest of the classes were ones that we’d already attended.

Saturday we went to the New England Boat Show in Boston. Again we walked the show floor, looked at the boats, walked by the vendors and only stopped to talk to a custom fuel tank fabricator. The tank we have in the boat now is 19 gallons and was put in as a “temporary” tank 4 years ago. (How pathetic is it that my little Jeep Wrangler has a bigger fuel tank than my 41’ boat?) We didn’t attend a seminar at the show in Boston, because the topics covered were ones we’d already attended seminars on in the past.

Todd and I were eating some free ice cream that was given away as a promotion on Saturday after walking the show for about two hours. We were thumbing through the show program trying to find something we wanted to see when I said to him, “You know, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been there and done that with respect to the local boat shows. There’s nothing new here. Let’s go do Boston instead.”

But I’ll bet you anything that when January 2009 rolls around, we’ll see the billboards on I-95 and say “Ooooh! The boat show’s coming! Wanna go?” How else are Rhode Island sailors going to get their fix in January?

Labor Day Weekend Sailing and Diving Adventure

Saturday Sean and Heidi met us at the marina, and we loaded the obnoxious number of bags of food, clothing and gear onto the boat, over at least a half dozen trips from the dock to the mooring.

Around 1 we set sail for Tiverton, RI. Tiverton is a small town on the east side of Narragansett Bay, separated from Newport by the Sakonnet River. There isn’t a heck of a lot to do in Tiverton, but the moorings are cheap and it’s a relaxing spot to spend the evening with friends on the boat.

This is Tiverton, RI from the boat

The bridge we went under to get to Tiverton. At high tide we probably would not make it under this bridge with our 55' mast.

We picked up the mooring and headed ashore. We walked up to the tower in General Barton Park, and looked out over the Sakonnet River. The view from up there is gorgeous, and the graffiti on the tower is fun to read. Now we know which couples will be “2-getha 4-eva” and that is always a good thing to know.

This is the view from the tower, you can see the Mt. Hope Bridge in the background, the Sakonnet River and Portsmouth, RI.

This is Todd lounging on the dinghy on the beach in Tiverton.

We walked down the main street of town to look for the shop where a woman sold homemade salsa. The shop was replaced by a dance studio, where I suspect they dance the salsa rather than make the salsa. We decided to explore the waters around Tiverton in the dinghy, and came upon a snack shop/seafood dive on a small cove off of the river that we’ll be sure to check out the next time we’re in town.

The rest of the night was spent with beer, burgers on the grill and Sean’s homemade salsa. We went to bed early to prepare for the dive on the next day.

We woke up with the sun and Todd took Griffen for a swim. We tossed away the mooring lines and set off for Hope Island. Sean, Heidi and I went ashore with the dogs, while Todd scoped out potential dive sites with the handheld depth sounder. We donned our gear and got into the dinghy to head for the rocks on the southeast side of the island.

We’ve never been diving on this site, nor had we heard of anyone diving on this site. Todd scoped it out on the charts and carefully plotted the dive according to the tide schedule and wind direction.

It’s a maximum of 39 feet by this group of rocks. There are interesting rock formations to see underwater, and we saw huge tautog, conches and quahogs all over the bottom. Sean got my attention and got me to help him collect a few quahogs until his catch bag was too heavy to carry anymore. We swam around and explored around the rocks, until we got too tired. We all met on the surface where Heidi and I clipped ourselves into the side of the dinghy while Todd and Sean went down again to collect some more quahogs. They ended up with maybe 20-30 pounds.

Todd towed the three of us behind the dinghy back to the boat. By then the wind had picked up and made the water a bit too choppy for the second dive we’d planned on doing on a submerged tug boat on the southernmost tip of the island. We set sail for East Greenwich and called it a day.
We said goodbye to Sean and Heidi after unloading the ridiculous amount of gear that we’d brought for an overnight. Now I mourn the unofficial end of summer, and want another month to spend on the boat sailing and diving. Oh well, there’s always fall sailing and fall diving.

Already Pining for the Long Weekend

I just got back from vacation 2 weeks ago, and I am ready to go on another trip. We were trying to set up a dive trip in Florida for the long weekend, but waited a bit too long and didn’t get a good price on the fare. So we decided we’d do something locally, involving both sailing and diving.

It’s Thursday, and I am itching for the 3-day weekend. It is also the last week that I can use flex time at work. In the summer they let the employees work 9 hour days Monday – Thursday, and then you can leave early on Friday. I am hoping that my workload won’t be too heavy that I can still leave early on Friday.

On Friday afternoon we’re going to pack up our dive gear and food for the weekend. Todd will be inviting some dive friends to go with us, and we’ll sail on Saturday morning for Bristol, RI. We’ll do Bristol for Saturday, and then on Sunday morning we’ll set sail for Hope Island, in the middle of Narragansett Bay. This island is the one that Maggie and Krys explored on the last day of our vacation. There is a sunken tug boat on the south shore of the island that we will hopefully dive on Sunday as well.

I’ll let you know on Monday or Tuesday how the trip went.

Happy Labor Day, Internet.

My Thirteen Favorite Photos from our sailing vacation. 1. Griffen and Nemo peeking into the cabin from the cockpit. I have a zillion pictures like this, but it never gets old. 2. Todd on deck at sunset on Shelter Island, NY. We just spent the day exploring the island and were so very happy. 3. Beej and Griffen in the cockpit waiting out the rain on Shelter Island. 4. Sailboats at dock in Old Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT. 5. Beej in the electric car on Shelter Island. It only went 25 mph, and was a blast anyway. 6. The bridges for I-95 crossing the Thames River between New London and Groton CT. 7. Our hitchhiker who caught a ride with us on the way to Noank, CT. Todd named him Franklin. Franklin rested his wings with us for about an hour. 8. Krystian and Maggie in the scooters at Fort Adams in Newport, RI. 9. Krystian helping Maggie take in the head sail. 10. Todd teaching Maggie how to raise the main sail. 11. Beej at the spot on the Thames River where we beached the canoe when we went to Mohegan Sun Casino. 12. Todd and Griffen swimming in New London. 13. Nemo dozing in the cockpit. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Summer Vacation 2007 Days 13, 14 and 15

Wednesday 15 August 2007

We got up to a hot day once again. Griffen and I went for a jog while Maggie, Krys and Todd hung out on the boat and had breakfast. Once I was showered from my jog, Krys and I headed back into town with the dogs so we could get some fresh cookies from the bakery for our ride into Jamestown.

We left the dock at 11.30 AM. We headed out into the Sound and turned the boat east. We would have to head 17 miles in this direction before we turn to go into Narragansett Bay. The seas were rough. The predicted 2-4 foot seas actually looked more like 6-8. Maggie and Krys handled it like champs, however. You can tell that Maggie is my niece, as she dozed in the cockpit as the waves tossed out boat back and forth—just like me, it appears that Maggie can sleep anywhere.

We suffered no sea sickness. Maggie and Krys ate cold leftover pizza while the waves tossed us back and forth. Todd had taken TripTone before leaving the dock, and that kept his sea sickness at bay. I’ve never suffered from it.

I am beyond impressed with how Maggie and Krys handled this rough ride. Not only were they in good spirits the whole time, they crewed the boat with such incredible skill, as if they were doing it their whole lives. They are great kids who listen and respond with intelligence. For the remainder of that ride I would look at them in awe. When I held them as babies, I never imagined they would grow into two such adventurous spirits as they are.

Maggie plotted the waypoints on the GPS, and we followed them to exactly where we needed go. Again, ridiculously impressed at how quickly they pick up tasks around the boat and do them with ease.

We reached the first waypoint and headed in toward Narragansett Bay. The 6-8 foot waves were behind us, and Krys observed that they were actually pushing us into the Bay. We made bets on when we would tie up to our mooring in Jamestown, which Todd ended up winning.

We made it back to the mooring, tied up, and headed in to walk the dogs and get an ice cream. We went back to the boat to have a dinner of mac and cheese, hot dogs, (and if my brother and my sister in law are reading this lots and lots of veggies and fruit.)

Thursday 16 August 2007

We woke up and moved the boat a short distance across the harbor into Newport. We dinghied in after breakfast to rent some motor scooter coupes in town. The scooter coupes are two-seater cars that are actually 3-wheeled mopeds. We cruised all over Newport and the surrounding area in them. First we went to Fort Adams to walk around the fort. We decided we were hungry and headed to Brick Market Place for subs for me and the kids, and sushi for Todd.

From there we headed up to Sachuest Nature Preserve at the end of the island to walk along the rocks. Todd and I taught Maggie and Krys a game that we made up a few years ago called The Rock Game. In this game you bounce a rock off of a rock and land in the tidal pool in such a way that will win the thrower a point. We played The Rock Game for a little while, then wandered barefoot in the tidal pool to check out the snails.

We got looked at the clouds, and saw that they were threatening rain. We decided to go to the arcade in Newport to wait out the rain. Maggie and Krys played a bunch of games and won 1300 some odd tickets. They ended up walking out of the arcade with a bag filled with candy. We headed over to Brenton Point via Bellevue Avenue for the last hour of the scooter rental. We gawked at the Newport mansions, and drove by Nicolas Cage’s new house. We walked out on the rocks at Brenton Point, then headed back to return the scooters.

We walked over to The Music Box to get a few new DVDs then to The Smokehouse to get the BBQ ribs that we’d been promising Krys. We headed back to the boat and marveled at the fog rolling in. It was so thick that soon all lights on shore were entirely obscured, as well as some of the boats around us. We watched a couple of DVDs and went to bed late. (Or if Kaz and Melissa are reading this, we went to bed very very early.)

Friday 17 August 2007

I woke up in the morning feeling a little sad that this is the last full day on the water. After this weekend Todd and I will return to work after not being in the office for two full weeks of waking when we want coming and going when we want and not having an employer to tell us to be to work on time and to leave at the end of the day at a certain time. We had two full weeks without meetings, two full weeks without deadlines, two full weeks of “Which fun thing are we going to do today?”

We pulled the mooring lines off in Newport, and headed north to Hope Island. The plan was to anchor off the island, swim, explore the island, eat lunch, and enjoy what Narragansett Bay has to offer.

We were under full sail for much of the way to the island, and only turned the diesel back on when we were getting close to the island to anchor. We ate some lunch, then Krys and Maggie went ashore to explore the island. Todd and I had never been to this island, but we decided that it would be important for Krys and Maggie to do some exploration on their own. The island is uninhabited by humans, and has approximately 2492305 seagulls flying around. We sent them ashore with a walkie talkie with which they could call us to get picked up.

Maggie had slipped on the island and scraped her knee. The were making their way around the perimeter of the island when the rocks got to be a bit steeper than they wanted to climb. Maggie had made the wise decision to abort the hike. She later said that she would have liked to continue to make their way around the island. We reminded her that she made a very good decision to end the hike, and that this practice is something Todd and I do all the time when we are on one of our adventures. If either of us is uncomfortable on a dive, or a hike, or a sail, we end the trip. Todd treated her scrape on her knee from the first aid kit, and then the three of them pulled up the anchor so we could head back to our home mooring in East Greenwich. Just before we pulled up the anchor, Maggie gave me a shell that she found on the island. It’s a huge conch shell she found on the shore. I collect shells when I dive and beach comb, and set them on my desk at work. This way if I am having a less than ideal day at work, I can look at my shells and take a mini vacation at my desk. Maggie's shell will give me a lot of mileage when I return to work on Monday, and I'd rather still be on the boat with her and her brother.

As we were entering Greenwich Bay I called our friend Will on the cell. Will lives right on Warwick Neck, facing Greenwich Bay. Almost every time we’ve sailed by Will’s house since we’ve known him, we always call to see if we can catch Will looking out his window. Finally today I managed to connect with Will and we saw him wave to us from the shore near his house. I was thisclose to mooning Will, but alas didn’t do it this time. Maybe if Maggie and Krys weren’t aboard…

We were getting closer to our mooring, when we saw a boat named “Freedom” anchored in the middle of the channel. We know the owners of Freedom, and we wondered if they were in distress. We tried to hail Freedom on the radio, and got no response. We figured that they would have flagged us down if they needed us. We motored on. I looked back to see if Freedom was OK and Todd asked me what I was looking at.

“I am looking at Freedom. Both literally and figuratively.”

Saturday morning we will pack up and get off the boat, after being aboard for 2 weeks. I am sad tonight, knowing that our vacation will end when we wake up in the morning. We will drive to Connecticut for a party at my brother’s house, and to return his children to him.

Maggie and Krys picked up some sailing know-how on this trip. They collected a few inside jokes that they will share with Todd and me. It is my hope that they will always remember this trip. I hope that they will call each other up when they are in college and mention one of the inside jokes from this trip and laugh. I hope that someday they will tell their respective spouses about the week they spent on their aunt and uncle’s boat. I hope that someday they will each trust each other with their own children on a trip like this, just like my brother has trusted me with his children. I am flattered that my brother has trusted Todd and I to care for his children on this trip of constant exploration.

Thank you Sabine for keeping us afloat and keeping us safe.

Thank you Kaz and Melissa for entrusting your children to us for a week.

Thank you Maggie and Krys for being the best crew ever. We had a blast with you, and hope you did as well. We love you!

Thank you Todd for being the best adventuring partner I could ever ask for.

Summer Vacation 2007, Days 11 and 12

Monday 13 August 2007
We woke up to rain coming in through the hatch. We got up and battened down the hatches and went back to sleep. When we woke up again, it was sunny and starting to get hot again.

There were a few things we needed to do in town on Monday. Todd was still trying to get the radar installed and working, and spent a part of the morning on the phone with Raymarine technical support. Then we needed to get some solder from the hardware store and he also needed to find a shop with a drill press so that he could drill some holes in the bracket that the radar head will sit on.

The trolley took us to the hardware store, and then I went off to pick up a few groceries while Todd hit up the local boat yards in search of a drill press. I found the groceries, and Todd found his drill press, then we met up for ice cream and to buy a birthday present for our nephew, Krystian.

We headed back to the boat to swim off the heat of the day. We took the dingy across the river from the mooring to an island with a beach on it. This island is secluded, and is a great spot for the dogs to run free and swim from shore. We swam, the dogs ran, and even Nemo swam a bit—which is not his favorite thing to do. But when it is hot enough he’ll wade in until the water us up to his neck, and then he might paddle a bit here and there.

We headed back to the boat to prepare for Maggie and Krystian’s arrival aboard. Maggie is 12, almost 13, and Krys is 11. We cleaned, we got dressed, Todd tinkered with the radar a bit more and left it just as frustrated as when he began.

My sister in law, Melissa, called us to let us know they were on shore. They arrived on the launch, and Maggie and Krystian got settled in, then we went ashore for dinner at the Black Seal. After dinner Melissa and her youngest daughter, Hali, headed back to their home, while Todd, Maggie, Krys and I all sat on deck to plan out our week’s adventure. We laughed about the glow of the Pepsi machine on the gas dock causing a shocking amount of light pollution as it cast it's light over the Connecticut River, and I knew it would be a start to a wonderful leg of the trip.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

We woke up to another perfect weather day. The plan for the day was to head back over to Noank, CT. We had to wait for the tide to return to our favor, so we spent the morning swimming off that island again after Griffen and I returned from our morning jog. The water was warm, we splashed each other and the dogs swam happily right along with us.

We headed back to the boat and got ourselves organized for the sail over to Noank. We waited for the railroad drawbridge to open up for us—it is always such a treat for me to see drawbridges open from the water. The winds were against us to Noank, so we motored for much of the way with the main sail up to stabilize the boat. We tied up to the dock, and got ready to head into Mystic for some pizza and ice cream.

We dinghied into Mystic, just like we had done almost a week before. Maggie and Krys each learned how to drive the dinghy, and they drove for most of the trip. We went under the rotating train bridge, and then under the Mystic River drawbridge to head over to the historic Mystic Seaport. The Seaport has some old tall whaling ships on display that we were able to get close to right in the dinghy.

We tied up to the dinghy dock and walked over to the drawbridge. The bridge was about to open, so we decided we would stay and watch it open. A loud train horn blows when the bridge is about to open, this time the horn surprised Maggie so much that she shrieked and jumped off the ledge she was sitting on. We all laughed at her reaction, and she ended up laughing too. The horn blew a second time, just to elicit the same reaction out of Maggie.

We went to Mystic Pizza and told Maggie and Krys all about a Julia Roberts movie being filmed there. They hadn’t seen or heard of the movie, however. It is before their time, and maybe they will stumble upon it when they are older and check it out because they ate at the restaurant. We headed back for ice cream, and watched the bridge open again as well as we ate our ice cream. Maggie was prepared with her hands over her ears this time around.

We headed back to the rotating railroad bridge, and waited for it to open. We are short enough to fit under the bridge in the dinghy, but we wanted to wait for it to open. Just before the bridge opens you can hear a loud ZAP of the electric lines for the train being disconnected. We turned off the dinghy motor and waited for the telltale ZZZAAAAP and then watched the bridge open.

We got back into the boat and went over the plan for the next day. The forecast was predicting 2-4 foot seas for Wednesday, and 4-6 foot seas for Thursday. We decided that Wednesday would be the day to go back into Narragansett Bay, and then we would play inside the bay and out of the weather for the remainder of the week.

Summer Vacation 2007 Days 8, 9 and 10

Friday 10 August 2007

We woke up to rain. We woke up to very strong winds, like 30-40 miles per hour. It stayed this way the entire day. Todd went in to shore to check in with the marina, I stayed aboard and didn’t leave the boat until the evening.

Normally when it rains like that there are 3-4 leaks in our stateroom that we have to place containers under to collect the rain. Somehow the containers stayed bone dry. It rained non-stop for the entire day, and these containers stayed dry.

We stayed indoors, made some soup and grilled cheese for lunch and watched 3 movies, while it rained outside. There were white caps on the water in the harbor, yet our boat stayed nice and dry. Out boat is also a very heavy boat, so it doesn’t bounce around too much in a storm like this. It was quite nice to just hang out all day, and not have to do anything.

We had decided that we were in need of some clean bed sheets. We were waiting all day for the rain to let up so that we could go in to shore and do the laundry at the marina laundromat. The rain never did let up. Around 5 or 6 PM we decided we needed to go in to do that laundry. I had already packed up the dirty laundry in the morning, and the dirty clothes sat there stewing in the bag all day. Neither of us wanted to sleep on the sheets that had gotten even grosser as the day wore on.

We packed up the laundry and the dogs into the dinghy, figuring they’d need to be walked as well. In the dinghy we bounced over the waves as we rode in, gripping the hand holds on the sides of the boat. We got a shore and I was trying to get out while Todd tied the boat up. We didn’t have Griffen on a leash, which to him means “Hey! Time to go swimming! Let’s go!” Splash! In went Griffen. He happily paddled around near the dock while I scrambled out of the dinghy after him. I managed to drag him out.

I dragged the sack of dirty laundry up the dock, in the rain, to the laundry room, while Todd tied the dinghy. He came in just as I was finishing loading up the washer. We broke out the Uno cards and began to play. We decided we were hungry and Todd called the one pizza place on the island. Unfortunately they did not deliver, so Todd called a taxi. The taxi dispatcher told him that the pizza place was about a mile a way, and that it would cost $10 each way to get there. We weren’t keen on paying $20 just to get to and from the pizza place, and decided to wait on dinner.

We continued to play Uno while we waited for our sheets to wash. Another couple came in to wash their clothes too, and we struck up a conversation with them. They live on the island, and he has a house cleaning business. Apparently he’s rather successful at cleaning houses, because he was driving a BMW SUV. (But then that leads me to wonder why he is using the laundromat at the marina if he is successful enough to drive such an expensive car.) Anyway, their names were Jose and Flavia, and they are very nice people. Jose offered to pick up a pizza for us if we ordered it, and sure enough he returned with our pizza. We offered to share it with them, but they’d already eaten.

We asked him a few questions about life on the island. He said that he used to clean Billy Joel’s house, and that most of the houses on the island are summer homes. The houses I had seen so far were the insanely huge houses facing the harbor. If those are merely summer homes, I seriously wonder what these homeowners live in for the other 3 seasons of the year. I also wonder what they do for a living to be able to afford such beautiful homes, and do they ever have time to fully enjoy these homes on the Island.

We finished the laundry, and double bagged it in trash bags to keep it dry for the dinghy ride out. By the time we finished the wash, night fell. It was completely dark on Shelter Island. There are few lights on buildings, and I don’t recall seeing street lights at that point. We made our way, in the rain, to the dinghy dock, and back to our boat. We got the dogs and the wash in, and then we had the challenge of how to find the boat in the dark mooring field. We, of course, forgot our flash light and laughed about how to find our boat in the darkness.

We found it; we came aboard and put the sheets on our very dry bed. It would seem that enclosing the cockpit has somewhat solved the problem of the leaky bedroom roof.

Saturday 11 August 2007
We woke up to a perfect sunny day. The turmoil that yesterday’s storm created was gone and replaced by clear skies, and flat water in the harbor. We decided to explore the island with an electric car that we rented from the marina office. It’s basically a more modern looking golf cart that travels at a maximum of 25 miles per hour.

We picked up the car, and drove off of the lot with it, only to see the battery gauge fall to 68% after we’d only driven it for a few minutes. We decided to go to one of the restaurants that would let us plug in while we ate there—there was a list of these restaurants in the car. We went to Pat and Steve’s and plugged the car in—we could recharge the car’s batteries while we charged our own.

We ate our breakfast, and then went back to the car to see that the gauge was even lower than when we went in. The woman at the marina office told us to return or plug in when it got to 50%. We were at 60%. We figured that something might be wrong with the car, so we went back. They plugged it in, checked it over and said it was fine.

We decided to explore the island by bicycle, then. We got on the bikes and didn’t even get to a mile when Todd said his knee was hurting him. Todd had a knee replacement when he was a teenager, and sometimes physical activity like a long walk or riding a bike is quite painful for him. We returned the bikes, and sat on the porch to wait for the car to charge up. After an hour it was charged, and ready to go.

We jumped back in the car, once again ready to finally check out Shelter Island. Overall, it’s a pretty place, and the people are very friendly. You can definitely see a difference between the people who are visiting and the people who live there. You can definitely see an affluent influence. We even noticed that when we were reading the local paper over breakfast—there is a feeling of wanting to preserve the island from things like traffic lights, chain stores, Starbucks and the like.

We headed over to Shelter Island Heights, which is the shopping area of the island. The Heights consists of maybe a half dozen stores. There were boutiques containing ridiculously “couture” items that I’d never wear even if I could justify spending the $200 for a sundress. We stopped in at Bliss department store, where I bought my favorite vacation souvenir, a green hoodie sweatshirt with “Shelter Island” embroidered in pink across the front. We popped in and out of the stores a little longer, and we stumbled upon a bakery called “Mark it with G.” Todd and I like to check out the local bakeries, and we popped in to sample the single best chocolate croissant we’ve ever tasted. We ordered a few and planned on picking them up later.

Our next stop was the Mashomet Nature Preserve. The Preserve occupies a third of the island, and is stunningly beautiful. We opted for the 1.5 mile loop, as it was approaching the end of the day, and walked along the path to check out what the preserve had to offer. We saw birds, tall bushy trees, a turtle, a gazebo that overlooked the water. Absolutely beautiful, and well worth the walk.

We went back to Mark It With G to get our croissants, and downed them on the way back to the boat. Well, it does take a long time to get anywhere on the island when you’re only doing miles per hour. We returned the car to the marina with 34% left in the battery. We puttered around on shore for a bit then headed back on to the boat to have some dinner. Todd had picked up some teriyaki sauce at the gourmet food store in town, so he put that on some burgers and grilled them up for dinner. Then we had some croissants as well.

The rest of the night we set on a few boat chores that needed our attention. The light in the bathroom ended up shorting out because water was leaking into it. He replaced the light, did some repairs on the generator, and on the bilge pump. Then he got into installing the radar.

We bought this radar system 3 years ago. We installed the dome on the mizzen mast, but never installed the parts that you actually use when you’re sailing. You know, the screen part of it that tells you where all the obstacles are. Lack of radar prevents us from going anywhere in the fog, so we decided to take the time to finally install the thing.

He managed to get it installed, but it wasn’t working. It was dark by then, and harder to see what was going on in the cockpit, so we decided to pack it in for the night and give it another whirl the next day.

The net upshot, we loved Shelter Island, and will definitely be back again. We’ve been wanting to go to the Island for several years now, and we’re thankful to finally have had the opportunity to see it.

Sunday 12 August 2007
We woke up early to make it out of Shelter Island on a favorable tide. The tidal currents in Long Island Sound are very strong because it is a relatively narrow stretch of water between the Connecticut coast and the northern coast of Long Island. The current is called “The Race” because it is so strong. When you time it right, the current will add considerably to your speed. When you are against it, then you will make very little progress against it.

We settled up with the marina, and untied the mooring and said goodbye to Shelter Island. We made our way out of the narrow passageway out of Coecles Harbor, and back toward the Connecticut coastline.

Our next stop would be Essex, Connecticut. Essex is one of our favorite spots on the Connecticut coast. It’s 6 miles up the Connecticut River from the Sound, and up here the water is fresh. We can swim in it without worrying about the dogs ingesting too much salt water. The fresh water is also good for our engine and toilet intakes, as it helps keep the systems clean from the salt built up that naturally occurs in ocean water.

Essex is a postcard town filled with historical houses built in the 1700s and 1800s. You can walk down Main Street and imagine that it doesn’t look too much different than it did back when the houses were built.

Last year when we were in Essex we had the pleasure of meeting Jim and Helene McMullen. We were sitting at dinner at The Black Seal with my brother Kaz and his family. Kaz and company drove down from their home in northern Connecticut to see us for the afternoon. That night we were at dinner and my niece, Hali, struck up a conversation with the couple at the table next to us. We ended up talking to these people all night. Todd invited them aboard to use the Internet, because Jim had mentioned that he was having trouble finding Internet access. We ended up talking to them late into the night and could have talked to them all night. We ended up hanging out with Jim and Helene for the next few days as well.

Coincidentally, Jim and Helene were in Jamestown, RI and managed to track us down last month. So we hung with them in July while there were visiting our state and we got to show them around our state too.

This year we haven’t had the chance to meet up with any other cruisers yet. But, Kaz and company will be joining us on Monday night because my niece Maggie and nephew Krystian will be making the trip with us for the week. So, maybe Hali will do her magic and introduce us to some new people again.

Sunday afternoon in Essex, Griffen and I went for a jog in the stifling heat. Then we all decided to go swimming. There is an island in the river directly across from our mooring field where we liked to swim last year. Seeing as how it was Sunday afternoon, the beach on the island was packed with boats. We motored the dinghy up a little ways and immediately drifted back into the anchored boats. The flow of the river combined with the outbound tide created a very strong current in the river. We gave up on swimming after about 20 minutes only because it was so hard to stay with the dinghy. It was just enough to refresh Griffen and myself.

We went back to the boat and chilled out for a bit then headed into town for dinner at The Black Seal. As we were leaving the restaurant I saw a flyer for a trolley that runs through Essex. We walked down to the Connecticut River Museum to catch the trolley, and we got a chance to see more of the town that we hadn’t been able to explore before because we didn’t have a car.

The trolley took us past the Connecticut River steam train, and we thought that would be a fun thing to do on Monday. I grew up in Connecticut, and completely forgot about the steam train. I had never gone on it as a child either. The trolley is a new thing they’re doing this year, and it’s great because the drivers are willing to take people off route to places like the hardware store and the supermarket.

We headed back for the boat, got into the dinghy, and motored north to explore more of the river. We went through Hamburg Cove and checked out the area in there. Then we headed home, to the boat. I went ashore to wash a load of towels and other clothes that we didn’t get to wash on Friday on Shelter Island, and Todd worked on the radar some more.

Summer Vacation 2007 Days 6&7

Wednesday 8 August 2007

The heat wave continues. Todd and I went into New London to walk around and explore the city a bit. We didn’t spend that much time exploring because of the heat. We walked by a bank and saw the sign said the temperature was 94 degrees. This sign was also in the shade, so maybe the air was even hotter.

We found a Cuban joint and had a bit of lunch and the best mojito I’ve ever tasted. I looked around at the restaurant, at the way it was so festively decorated. The walls were painted bright colors, the ceiling bright green. There were artificial potted palm trees everywhere, and loud Cuban music piped in through the speakers.

“You know, when you think of communist Russia, you think of downtrodden people waiting in bread lines in the snow. Yet Cuba is under communist rule, and our impression of Cuba is… well… this,” and I gesture around the restaurant. “I mean, does that mean that Castro parties harder than Breshnev, or what?” Then we sat there and had this great conversation about Cuba as I finished my mojito. This is one of the things I really love about Todd—he’s brilliant and interesting. We can have really great conversations, and we can have very silly ones as well. It’s always fun, and I always end up learning something new.

We walked through New London trying to find a marine supply store that was rumored to be in the area. We talked about how New London is, as Todd calls it, a study in contrast. The area along the Thames is pretty, and then when you look across to the other side you see the Electric Boat plant. The streets of New London look like they are trying very hard to go through revitalization, yet the poverty among the people is very apparent. There are little kids learning to sail at the New London Community Boat House in these little bitty sail boats, yet up the river there are nuclear submarines sitting at a dock where people are trained to train their torpedoes at the enemy du jour.

We found the boat store, after passing by the City Marina, where they advertise $25 moorings—less than half of what we were paying at the marina. Now we know where we will stay next time. And there will be a next time in New London.

We went back to the boat to swim and wait out the heat. Then we headed into town to pick up a few things and grab some dinner. We took the dinghy back to the town dock, and grabbed a cab at the train station. We struck up a conversation with the driver, as we always do. This guy started off by answering “How are you?” With “I am blessed by God, thank you.” Turns out he’s some sort of Reverend, according to his business card that also said something to the effect of “Let Jesus help you.” Surprisingly he wasn’t preachy, and answered our questions about New London.

Then he went on to tell us he was Jewish. I brushed it off at the time, because I didn’t want to get into it. I later asked Todd “OK, now wait a minute. The Reverend said that he’s Jewish, yet his business card talks about Jesus. What’s up with that? I thought Jewish people had Rabbis, and not Reverends.” We both decided that we didn’t want to ask the question because we didn’t want to get into it with him. There’s just something about New London and contrast, I suppose.

Thursday 9 August 2007

Today’s the day to leave New London. Next stop, Shelter Island, NY. We got up early in the morning because our friend Tonya the Canvas Lady would be bringing the rest of our canvas that will enclose our cockpit. Tonya rolled in, and got to work, I cleaned below decks and prepared for the journey to Shelter Island.

Tonya left, we settled up with the marina and we left too. We had winds from the south east at about 14 knots. We decided to put up all 3 sails and see if we can make some time to the Island.

Then we lost the steering.

We have hydraulic steering aboard, so every now and then we have to fill the steering pump with hydraulic steering fluid. Todd had just filled it a few days ago, and it was bone dry again. There’s a leak somewhere in the system. Todd went below to scout it out, and then we determined we needed to take the sails down. Being under sail puts more pressure on the wheel, and uses more hydraulic fluid that will inevitably leak to where ever it was leaking.

We were only a few miles off of Shelter Island anyway. We’ve never been to the Island and we were looking forward to checking it out.

The entrance into Shelter Island is very shallow. We have a keel that’s 6 feet deep below the waterline. We have to be very careful about where we go so that we don’t run aground. We watched the depth sounder tick shallower and shallower as we entered into the harbor on the island. We must have called the marina a dozen times on the way in to as “Are you sure we can make it in here?” We found our mooring, and headed ashore. It was just after 5 when we arrived ashore, and the marina office was closed. We did see someone who works there and he told us that the whole island shuts down at 5. Nothing is open after 5 PM, at all.

We went back out to the boat, and cooked some kielbasa on the grill, and sat in our newly enclosed cockpit to watch the sunset. We checked the forecast and saw that we were in for rain. So we stripped the bed in the aft stateroom, and prepared to sleep up in the v-berth where it is dryer. Hopefully some day we’ll get the leaks plugged up so being on the boat in rainy weather won’t be an issue anymore.

Sailing Vacation 2007, Day 4


Hello from Shelter Island, NY. Shelter Island is a small island at the eastern end of Long Island, NY. We've never been here before, and it is quite possibly the most peaceful place we've ever been. Tomorrow we will actually explore the island, and I cannot wait to see what is here.


Tuesday deserves its own entry. I LOVED what we did on Tuesday, and I think you'll love reading about it. Enjoy!


Tuesday 8 August 2007

In the morning we were still in Noank. I walked into town to get more bread and cereal, and Todd saw about the stuffing box. He and one of the guys from the Shipyard managed to get the leak to a way more manageable level while I was gone, we were once again confident in our boat, and stopped having discussions about calling the trip and heading home.

We pored over the maps to decide where we were going next. We decided on New London, CT, and saw that it was only a few miles away. We reserved a mooring, and prepared to leave. We filled the water tanks, pumped out the waste holding tank and set off.

Blink. We arrived in New London. We picked up a mooring at Burr’s Marina, at the mouth of the Thames River. The Thames is a busy place, yet it's not as choppy as I expected. Right across the river on the Groton side is Electric Boat, where they make nuclear submarines for the Navy. The big hangar was open, and you could see the nose cone of some big boat they are building or repairing in there. Further up the river is the Nautilus Museum, where the Navy’s first nuclear submarine is on exhibit. Even further up the river is the Navy’s Sub Base, where there are often a few nuclear submarines hanging around.

It used to be that every Tuesday a submarine would return from sea and find its way up the river to the base. Now it is not as frequent, however one did come in on this Tuesday and we didn’t get the chance to see it come in. I imagine it is quite a site to see—a submarine motoring up the river, conning tower out of the water, bring sailors home from some unknown mission.

We hopped in the dinghy and headed north up the river to explore. We passed under the Amtrak bridge, and the bridge for route 95. We saw the Nautilus sitting at its dock at the museum, then ahead was the sub base. We motored along and saw 4 subs sitting at docks, and 1 in a dry dock with tarps strung all around it. There are patrol boats that are pacing back and forth around the perimeter of the base. Todd’s eyes lit up as he was looking at the subs in the base, as Todd has a thing for subs—actually for boats of any kind, but especially subs. I really loved seeing the twinkle in his eyes as we were motoring along the base, checking out the subs.

We flagged one of the patrol boats down to ask them a few questions. The patrol boat is a very intimidating looking boat. It’s inflatable with a wheelhouse on it. It has 2 huge outboard engines, and a very scary looking deck mounted gun on the front. One of the men in the boat came to the side to see what we wanted, and he had guns on his belt as well. I did not grow up around guns, I’ve never fired one, and just the sight of one sometimes makes my pulse race and makes me talk fast. We asked him what else there was to see up the river, and he told us that the Mohegan Sun casino was up the river about 5 miles. We could take the boat up there and dock it at their marina.

This put an idea into our heads. We raced back to Sabine. Todd got more gas at the marina and I packed some clothes for us and changed. We hopped back into the dinghy and headed north to the casino. It was 6-7 pm by the time we had left. We opened the throttle all the way and raced up the river. It is a beautiful river, well, in the spots that don’t have a power plant on them. I counted 4-5 power plants in this stretch of river.

The river is well marked, and we followed the navigation buoys to the bridge for the highway that leads to the casino. We came around the bend and saw the hotel for the casino loom over the trees, looking entirely out of place on the beautiful banks of the Thames River.

We motored closer to the casino and noticed a very obvious lack of marina, or a dock of any kind. We explored a bit more, ducked under a very low bridge, and still were not able to see a dock. We scanned the bank of the river and decided to beach the dinghy in a stand of trees that would hide the dinghy from people walking on the train track, just uphill from the riverbank.

We beached the dinghy and removed the gas tank from the engine, and took out the oars. Todd hid those behind a log, and we took the plastic key from the outboard engine. The plastic key is actually a very important little piece of plastic, as it holds out the stop button on the engine so that it will run. We often take the plastic key off when we are leaving the dinghy to prevent theft. The engine came with two keys. One of them came on a stretchy cord which is on Todd’s rear view mirror in his car where it wouldn’t be forgotten. (Well, we did forget it there before the trip, so maybe this strategy isn’t working out so well.) We have a spare that is hidden on the motor as well. We’ve been using the spare on this trip, seeing as how the one on the cord is in Todd’s car.

We grabbed our backpack and scurried up the bank to the train track. From there we tried to figure out exactly how to get up to the casino. There isn’t exactly a paved path leading to the casino from the riverbank. This little adventure will call for some bushwacking. We saw a sign along the track that we decided to use as a landmark to help us find our way back to the trail that will lead to the boat. We made our way along the track to find a way to get up the hill to the casino.

We found a trail in the woods long the track, and scampered up a hill covered in briars. We found ourselves in the employee parking garage of the casino, and asked one of them how to get to the casino. We came along a shuttle driver who offered us a lift to the casino. He gave us his name and told us to ask the valet to call him and he’d come pick us up when we were ready.

We had dinner, Todd played 3 card poker, and I just hung out. Casinos aren’t really my scene, but the people watching is fun. There was a man sitting next to Todd at the table who kept shelling out $100 bill after $100 bill after $100 bill. He opened his wallet to get another one, and I saw a stack of hundreds in there about a half inch thick. He could barely fold his wallet closed with all those hundreds in there. Yet, he kept slapping them down on the table over and over again. To me, a casino is the same thing as just letting someone stick their fingers into my wallet and letting them take whatever they want, and it often makes me sad to see all the people in a casino hoping to win big.

Todd finished gambling and we decided to head back to the boat. We called our trusty shuttle driver, and he was there in a moment, and he brought us back to the employee garage. We made our way down the hill with the prickers, and then found ourselves on the railroad track. That part was a bit creepy because you never know who might be on the railroad tracks behind a casino at night, even in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut.

We followed the track in the darkness, careful not to make any noise as to draw any attention to ourselves. We found the break in the trees that opened up to the trail leading down to the river bank, where our dinghy waited, tied to a tree. Todd pulled the gas tank and the oar out of its hiding place, and we put everything back into the boat.

Then Todd turned to me, “Where’s the key?”

“I don’t know. I never had it. Is it in your pockets?”

“No, I just checked there. Crap. Is it in the backpack?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to take all our spare clothes out, though this thing is packed pretty tightly, I don’t know that it had room to slip in there anywhere.”

We pondered what to do about the lack of key. Todd, being the MacGuyver that he is, found a way to re-create the effect of the key and got the engine started. (Which basically means that we can steal any dinghy we want.) The engine rumbled to life, and we were on our way back to Sabine on her mooring at the mouth of the Thames.

Once we left the glow of the casino hotel behind, we were in darkness. There are power plants along the river, and those provide a great source of light by which we can see the navigation markers. But it is completely dark between the plants. On the water, in the dark, it is very important to be able to see the navigation markers. In the direction that we were traveling, the red ones needed to be on our left, and the green ones on the right. The marker buoys have a reflective tape on them, so that we can scan the surface of the water with a flashlight and pick up the reflective tape. Then we will know on which side we need to be on so we will not hit any submerged obstacles.

Going back at night was a bit slower than it was during the day, as we had to be sure of the marker buoys. We were motoring along and saw a single white light on the shore. It looked like a boat coming right at us. I shined the flashlight in its direction as if to say “Hey, were here. Please don’t run us down.” The light looked like it was coming closer, and closer and closer. I started to get nervous, “Who is this jerk coming after us in the dark, in the middle of nowhere? Todd, get us the hell out of here!”

The light stopped moving. In fact it was never moving at all. We suspect it was a light at the end of a dock, and paranoia was playing a trick on our eyes. We motored on.

Eventually we got back to the sub base. We slowed the motor, turned on our flashlight, and made sure to be slow, vigilant, and law-abiding looking. That was when the gas ran out.

The gas ran out, right in front of the sub base. What better way to look like terrorists then to have our “gas run out” right in front of the sub in the dry dock that we were specifically told by the guy in the patrol boat earlier that day not to photograph.

Eagle Scout Todd made sure to fill a spare tank with gas when he went to the gas dock before we left on this little adventure. I was untying it from the front of the dinghy when we noticed that the patrol boat was taking an interest in us. We started joking about calling our families from the brig as I fumbled with the rope on the gas tank. I got it free, slid it over to Todd and helped him fill the tank for the engine. The patrol boat appeared to have lost interest in us, but was still hovering at a slight distance and keeping an eye on us. You know, just in case we were in fact mixing fertilizer with the gasoline, or something like that.

We filled the tank, got the motor started up again and managed to get away from the sub base without causing a stir, ending up in a cell in Guantanamo Bay, or worse.

Within 20 or so minutes we were back on the boat to retrieve the dogs for a walk ashore. We laughed about scaling a pricker laden hill to get to a casino, and running out of gas in a high security area. A story we’re likely to tell over drinks to our friends when we get home.