Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Cruise is Dead, Long Live the Cruise

Meeting with the crew
Every cruise ends sometime. Years ago when we first started I had imagined that we would cast off the dock lines and go forever. Instead we came back within months rather than years. Obligation's short leash tugged at our plans. If only we had had a longer leash we could have pushed further, seen more, walked on emptier beaches. That was so naive.

Looking back I now understand that those years would have melted away whether we came back or not. Our first venture would be over, no matter how long that leash. Fortunately that first Bahamas venture was only the first chapter in a much longer sailing novel.

This summer's Cape Cod adventure can only be remembered. A winter's journey starts from here. I'm single-handing for a while, indulging in the bittersweet feeling of being alone under way.

Learning a new tune
I can work on the same tune a thousand times without wondering whether this might be getting a bit repetitive. Crew meetings are short. No compromises, no adjustments for others' needs.

And, alas, no one to clink a celebratory glass on landfall. It cuts both ways and I find that solitude makes companionship a precious contrast. I shall miss her terribly.

The Bahamas beckon. Long live the cruise.








Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Pilgrimage

This Serenellini was silky in a clutch. We may become a couple.
Anita's needles clicked away while I disappeared into the next room to fondle one enticing beauty after another. As it turned out, I didn't buy yet another button box -- though an engagement announcement may be in the works, so I didn't strike out entirely.  Anita, who was only along for the ride, ended up finding the ultimate yarn stash and came back lugging a bag o'hanks.

We made a pilgrimage to The Button Box in western Massachusetts. It was time for a six-week checkup of my new (used) Castagnari G/C. A couple of its higher notes were not so sweet as they could be. Margaret, who is remarkably able in her role as my melodeon acquisition disease enabler, encouraged me to bring my baby by so that they could shower it with attention.

Bringing it involved renting a car and driving a couple of hours, but so what? I'm now responsible for my melodeon's health. Plus, I had seen pictures of The Button Box show room: shelves of finger candy, begging to be played.

 The Button Box adjusts some slightly sour notes
I was ushered into the tuning shop where Bob asked what I thought needed to be adjusted and listened to me play a couple of tunes. He winced at those off-key notes -- at least I hope that's why he winced -- and agreed that an adjustment was in order. I also asked why my taped thirds sounded odd. He cocked his head, listened to the chords, and speculated that I put tape on the wrong holes. We would soon find out.

All my diagrams pointed my Scotch Magic tape
to the wrong holes.
Previously I had opened up the accordion and stuck tape over the holes that allow air to sound the thirds: the middle note in a three-note chord. Taped thirds are the way to go for those who are learning the French Stuff, as I call my efforts, in order to gain flexibility by making a chord neither major or minor. It's like an old guy sporting a brand new tattoo: geezer or dude? It could go either way.

Some accordions, my Gaillard for example, have a lever that blocks off those holes. Others require a little Scotch Magic. Part of the magic is knowing which holes to block and I had somehow stumbled. While Bob sealed off the correct holes and then scratched away at the treble reeds to adjust the pitch, I wandered into the retail side to meet Margaret in person.

Anita trailed along and knitted while I speed-dated button boxes. I started off a bit shy but was encouraged to try this one and then that one and then another. What a strange sensation to hold a stranger and tickle all the same places only to invoke a subtly different response. Well, perhaps not unprecedented. But I've never experienced such a thing in broad daylight, in a music store, with an audience.

Anita clutching her hank
That Margaret, talk about an enabler. She clued Anita into WEBS, which calls itself America's Yarn Store. We were off to Northhampton. The store's front end was impressive, colorful, full of all sorts of wools and tools, and quite busy. That was only the prelude. The back end was warehouse-sized and filled with women wandering the aisles, looking starry eyed. I wasn't the only one fondling lovelies that day. Anita did her share too.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Honor of Legacy

For me, life is a happenstance of connections to people, places and things, shaped by chance and inclination. I've never cottoned to the idea of a grand plan, a single path through existence that we create by our own efforts or discover through faith.

Instead I have a image of a Pachinko in which our own decisions, hopes and desires control only the force with which we launch ourselves to cascade down through a dense forest of life's pins, each of which represents a decision or event that in turn determines which path we'll take to the next juncture. Only in the rear-view mirror of my memory does that path resemble free will, fate, or divine plan. At just such a juncture I decided to acquire a Castagnari G/C diatonic accordion.

The ghostly imprint of a lover
My Castagnari definitely isn't a youngster; every surface shows a patina of experience and relationships.  On the exhale it whooshes a heady aroma, as if it resided for years in a library and spent its time inhaling fumes given off by leather-bound volumes and snifters of brandy. Under the bass strap is the ghostly imprint of a palm, showing precisely how someone must have held hands hour after hour with a true love. I became curious about who had embraced this beauty with such devotion. 

I inquired of melodeon.net -- a worldwide gathering of those who play button boxes -- whether anyone knew of its provenance. In response I got the suggestion to document the keyboard layout, which might provide a clue.
G#/G# indeed

For a melodeon, the arrangement of what note or chord a button sounds on the push or the pull typically follows a standard pattern, though there are many standards and instruments may be customized to fit a musical style or the whims of the player. 

My Castagnari had a typical layout except for the first button on the inner row, which obstinately played only a G sharp in either direction. As a melnetter commented, "Really? G#/G#??? That seems strange! Scary!!!".

This one button proved to be very distinctive and I received a gracious reply.

Joe Theriault
1924-2007
"You are the lucky owner of the instrument played for many years by my old friend Joe Theriault of Topsham, Maine. Joe passed away about four years ago, and was playing almost until the end of his life. He performed in several bands around this part of Maine (including one I also played in), on the street, and in a number of restaurants and cafe. He served on an oil-tanker in the merchant marine in WW II. After the war he worked as a ship-builder at the Bath Iron Works. He was also a recreational sailor and a great raconteur. For most of his life he was a pipe-smoker, hence the unique "atmosphere" of the instrument. He took up the melodeon after spotting an old Hohner in a yard sale, and picking it up for pocket change. He played all sorts of things, but was particularly fond of Finnish music, and he said the G#/G# was useful for some of the tunes he liked."

Joe's obituary provided additional details, "He spent most of his adult life sailing on Casco Bay; a passion that started during his years as a Merchant Mariner. A self-taught musician, he was also a devoted accordion player. He was a member of the band Raattikkoon, and was known as "The Old Port Busker."

For all I know objects also have a Pachinko animus. Perhaps my Castagnari decided to acquire me to be its person rather than the other way around. Either way we've been together this summer, getting to know each other. 

I now understand that Joe was a professional musician and played with a nuance and style that I could only hope to someday begin to imitate, after my own hand has added its ghostly impression. Even so, I too am a recreational sailor and I do like to tell a story now and then. I certainly hope that Joe's accordion knows why it decided to come on this boat, with me.


 


Friday, August 17, 2012

Running on Empty

A tropospheric fuel spill pushed us past Sakonnet Point
We made it back from Cape Cod with diesel to spare. So no worries, despite the fuel gauge sitting at one quarter for an inordinately long time, making me suspect it was telling me what I wanted to hear rather than the truth.

When we left Providence two weeks ago, I had convinced myself that the diesel tank wasn't half empty; it was half full. I know better than to leave port without having gorged on water and fuel, but knowing isn't doing. Besides, there would be opportunity to replenish along the way. Think of all those boats in Cape Cod, where do they buy diesel? She's a sailboat, yes?

Let me tell you about Quissett . . .
We called in all the wrong places. Vineyard Haven sells the stuff, but not at Lake Tashmoo where we hung out for almost two weeks. The image of pedaling yellow jugs uphill on a bicycle wasn't appealing. I never got around to it and I didn't have the heart to make Anita saddle up -- as if. Quissett and Cuttyhunk were dry, in terms of diesel at least.

Quissett Harbor was lovely, except that -- from my point of view -- the boatyard's owner was a first-class jerk. Ask me about trying to take on diesel in Quissett sometime when you want to get me all excited and hear a long, boring diatribe. I ended up telling him that I wouldn't dream of inconveniencing him in any way and I would make other arrangements, somewhere, somehow, someday. Actually I would have preferred to swim across Buzzards Bay, towing Sweet Pea rather than have any further interaction. He'll certainly never have the inconvenience of spending any more of my money. So there. 

Oops, I seem to be rehearsing that diatribe. Perhaps you've called at Quisset, met this guy, and he's now one of your best friends? Oh dear. Well, he's still a jerk.

The perfect storm fueled a perfect reach
So we set off for Providence at two knots, determined to sail most of the way, even if it got dark. The distance was 50 miles and I thought it best to save however much was actually in the tank for final approach or for dodging rocky, current-ridden points, of which there were many.

Within an hour we were flying along on a beam reach, riding the edge of a squall line and thinking the monsoon had surely come. NOAA weather was warning about flash floods from the intense downpour of a slowly-moving storm. As it tracked east the sky brightened and the wind moderated and clocked, staying on the beam as we made a hard right turn and headed north up the Sakonnet River. These things never happen, but this one time they did.

Up the Sakonnet River as the storm eases us along
A second storm came along in the middle of the night, with big winds on the nose and lightning like the Oyster Bay fireworks finale. By then the first storm had blown us to Potter Cove where I picked up that USCG mooring about which I had previously complained. It proved more than adequate despite shrieking gusts, making my plague-of-moorings sentiment an undeserved rant. But, we were still surrounded by fields of empty moorings. So there.

Uh oh, two grumps in one post. This is not a good sign.

Now we're tied to Port Edgewood's dock with deliciously full tanks, having sailed from Cuttyhunk, using only a drop or two of precious fuel. That lying fuel gauge was so wrong. It should have said one third all that time. We had ten gallons in the tank, more than enough to motor all the way.

Had I known, we would have left Cuttyhunk at our leisure rather than at first light. The storm would have hit while we were anchored off the beach in poor holding at the start of a falling tide. After we managed to kedge off, the wind would have been against us all the way. There's a lesson here, somewhere. She's a sailboat, yes?




Monday, August 13, 2012

What a Difference a Ray Makes

Room with a drier view
The gloomy rain has drifted away along with the thunderstorms, which never really managed to hit the Lake Tassmoo bullseye, despite all those tornado-like images on the weather radar. The humidity has plunged -- well, 70% is way down in comparison of the last three days' diet of near 100% -- and we're swinging about in gentle breezes beneath blue skies. It feels so different.

Lake Tasmoo town dock
Today's task is to retrieve the bikes, top up the water and get out of here. We arrived ten days ago to stay the night and head out for Nantucket. We should have checked the events calendar as well as the weather. As it turned out neither was favorable and Nantucket was a landfall too far.

Race week meant that all the Nantucket moorings were occupied. I've been anchored in Nantucket harbor on the edge of the mooring field in OPB (on Tenacity, a Valiant 42). Anchoring there is way too exciting for my taste though it is quite a show if you like that sort of entertainment. I even saw a dinghy climbing an anchor rode and dangling high above the water looking like a kid who fell off the climbing wall at a shopping center.

Seeing that dinghy trying to board a stranger's yacht made a big impression. As I was idly watching the current sweep past moorings in Nantucket Harbor, a Cape Dory sailed by with a hard dinghy in tow. It was a quintessential New England yachting scene, colorful and placid. Suddenly the film changed to a jerky horror show when the dinghy, which had sagged off at an angle in the current, failed to clear a large power vessel's anchor rode. Quick as a wink the dinghy climbed right up the rode and tried to crawl aboard. This stopped the Cape Dory dead in its tracks, but for only a moment. The current and wind slammed her along side her new mother ship, jamming the boom between the life lines and thoroughly tangling her rigging. I've never seen anyone raft up in such a hurry and tie on with so many lines.

Greeted by a flock of  Herreshoff
Being told that there was no room for us at Nantucket took the gloss off calling there. Instead, we have taken a mooring in Buzzard's Bay's Quissett Harbor and are exploring Woods Hole and Falmouth via trolley, which is a short walk from the boatyard.

As we arrived at the described stop a big white bus flashed by and disappeared around the corner. Thinking it might have been the trolley I asked a fellow who was building a deck nearby if the trolley looked like a bus or like, well, a trolley. As he was telling me that he was from out of town and only doing construction here, a strange look came over his face and he blurted out, "It's red and looks like a trolley". I glanced around just in time to see it flash by, too. Unmistakably an old time trolley and red. As the guide books say, the prudent mariner always seeks local knowledge.

In Quissett Harbor, nestled among classic vessels a short row from the dock


You can never be too thin
Now we're nestled down in front of Huntress, a needle-thin historic sailing vessel designed by C. Raymond Hunt. (He is more widely known for designing the classic Concordia Yawl and the Boston Whaler.)

There are several fleets of exquisite Herreshoff 12 ½'s in this tiny inner harbor, the yacht club dinghy dock is crowded with oar power,  and we're surrounded by grey shingled buildings and rock ledges.

It looks much like Maine and not at all like Nantucket. These classic vessels and rays of sunshine don't hurt a bit.
Huntress off our stern






Sunday, August 12, 2012

Tendril Can Vote

Tendril turns twenty two.
Tendril is old enough to vote in the upcoming election. This is a surprise because it seems so unlikely that my first boat-building effort still keeps us above water and has muscled out all my other dinghys to become our favorite. She launches in seconds, her engine always starts, and she really stands out at the dock among all the puffy gray lookalikes. I've become quite fond of her.
Bolger and Payson inspired me

She is a Nymph, drawn by the late Phil Bolger and conceived in the aisles of Home Depot as I studied the materials list in Herb "Dynamite" Payson's book, Build the New Instant Boats. She was my first venture into boat construction and got rather short shrift. Rather than shop for marine plywood in the classifieds in Wooden Boat magazine, I made do with Home Depot straight-off-the-rack, loading my cart with several luan door skins and throwing in a couple of two-by-fours for good measure.

Three-sixteenths ply sandwiched by lots of oak
Without knowing any better, where the plans called for quarter-inch ply I thought three-sixteenths would probably serve. I had already built her in small scale, using a spare manila file folder and a little hot glue. In card stock she came out just fine, stiff and proud. That quarter-inch stuff looked awful heavy whereas the door skins were feather light and way thicker than a file folder, so why not?

As others have noted in the extensive literature about actually building a Nymph, the instant part is highly optimistic. For me it took about six months from first cut to launch followed by another fifteen years of adjustments as I recovered from boneheaded mistakes and added and subtracted parts along the way.

The biggest backtrack started when I spotted some polyester resin in the car care aisle at Walmart. I had used up my West System epoxy and thought this might be a cheap and handy substitute. For some reason it never really set up properly. It became about as substantial as maple syrup in Vermont after Christmas: tacky taffy. Rather than do the right thing and remove the stuff, I thought an overcoat of epoxy might be just the cure to make it cure. As a result she molted after a couple of years, shedding a snakeskin of fiberglass and paint. Unfortunately the uncured resin didn't shed until I put in long sessions with a heat gun and finally left the scrapings in the trash.

Elbows for the dinghy dock
When I first stepped back and looked at her final form her gunwales seemed naked and fragile. Well, luan isn't the hardest of woods and three sixteenths is a bit slim. Pictures in Thomas Hill's book Ultralight Boatbuilding showed adding a gap toothed wooden rail to the inside of a canoe. I liked the look and headed back to Home Depot for some oak molding to fancy her up. To avoid having to saw down the bulkheads to allow for the rail, I took the easy path and put it outside, using some quarter round inside to hide the screw heads.

The result is perhaps her best feature. She is surrounded by a tough as nails fence, giving her suitably sharp elbows at the dinghy dock where she bangs against hard dinks and stone walls without suffering more than a varnish scab or two. Plus the rail forms a set of handholds for dragging her about the shore and gives me lots of places to tie her down when she car tops to windward. I wish I could say it was a considered design decision but it started as camouflage for having scrimped on her scantlings.

Over the years she's lost and gained weight. Her sailing rig which weighed almost as much as Tendril herself started staying at home after the mast jumped off Sweet Pea on an overnight passage in the Bahamas. She sailed only once in her life before that and I wondered why I had bothered to make all those parts. Since then I've seen lots of modifications that make her a more competent sailor.

Boarding would be difficult at this angle despite the knee hole
I sawed a knee hole in the longitudinal seat after noticing how some of her sisters had been customized to allow stepping into the dinghy rather than having to dance atop it. This makes it easier to board and gives a roomy but wet place to stow cargo when she's turned into a provisioning barge.

She's gained weight as I added more and more heft to her skeg, put in more oarlocks, and lengthened her oars. Initially under oar power she zig zagged back and forth like a dog exploring a field and I flailed at the water with oars that were so short they barely got wet.

Slipping along in a more sedate moment.
Now her skeg is as big as an Airdale's nose and the seven-foot oars make her skim right along. I even won a dinghy race at Stuart, FL, several years ago at the cruiser's party. A bunch of grownups entered along with the kids. We all vowed to loaf around the course, leaving the competition to the youngsters.

As soon as the horn hooted, we were off, eyeing each other like teens in dragsters. Afterwards I crabbed around like an old man for several days because I couldn't stand up straight.

But I trashed those other guys, including all the preteens. Just goes to show what a well-built dinghy will do in the hands of a maniac.




Saturday, August 11, 2012

Gray on Gray, Heartache on Heartache

We've had a gray and dank spell and it is affecting our normal sunny outlook. It's a good thing that Anita is along for an entire summer of cruising New England rather than only this week of sailing Cape Cod. If these last several days were her only sample of the pleasures I fear that she would become an instant landlubber, basking in the glory of an Atlanta summer while sipping iced tea over the cold-air vent.

Sweet Pea feels like we took the garden hose into our closet at home and gave everything a thorough misting before we packed our luggage with dirty clothes and damp towels and set up house keeping in that closet, along with every mildew spore on the planet. If only we had a pooch to join us in our whining about being cooped up, smelling like wet dog, this would be cruising at its most realistic.

We've redecorated
This morning we rowed ashore in the mist and biked to town in showers to attend two events: a yard sale and an arts and crafts market. This was to be the anchor of our day: a treat to Anita who likes those sort of events, a chance to get off the boat and be back before the afternoon thunderstorms roar through, and a declaration that a little moisture isn't going to stop us.

Both events were rained out. It's easy to see why that yard sale was on hold. While we talked with the young woman who was hoping to put her things in the yard, she was starting to wrinkle as the starch ran right out of her. But the market was more a surprise since it was to be held in a church, which would presumably be waterproof.

We arrived to find a crowd standing at the locked front door. I wondered why this particular arts and crafts market would be so well attended by four-year-old children. Then I overheard a mother consoling her child about the puppet show, which also was not happening in the same church at the same time. Exactly how the puppets and the crafts were to coexist wasn't clear, but it appeared that a steady downpour had cured what certainly looked to be a scheduling mishap. That's really too bad because I thought the puppet show sounded like great fun and Anita does love markets.
Tendril, hung out to dry

A quick glance at Doppler radar showed that we had best high tail it back to Sweet Pea before the clusters of ominous red stuff blew in from Long Island. The night before I had watched a sailing vessel drag by at a smart clip as a similar squall line lashed us with gusts. I didn't fancy meeting Sweet Pea coming as I was going against horizontal sheets of water blowing off the chop. So, the prospect of a little moisture actually did stop us.

Now we're on Sweet Pea watching it not rain at this moment and wondering why we didn't take in a Saturday matinee.The movie that was playing did get viciously panned by critics but the theater's air conditioner would have made the place bone dry. We could have taken that basket of laundry and hung it out to air. Down in front, indeed.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Surprise, Baby Surprise

To my eye this baby's bottom looks just like
the previous baby's bottom. What do I know?
Anita has just about finished the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern she is knitting for our youngest's youngest. I say just about because last evening she declared it finished and I thought her agony was over at last. Then she gave it the critical eye and declared herself not at all satisfied, despite having finally deciphered the pattern. Next was rip it, rip it -- this is apparently called frogging and even I get the insider's knitting pun -- and the bottom of the jacket ended up unknitting itself.

This is after several weeks of struggle, so I was amazed that she didn't just declare the boulder rolled up the hill and bask in the glow of a job done. I suppose it's like doing bright work. You lay down that final stroke and step back to admire the varnish only to see a holiday or a sag. It really doesn't matter that within a couple of weeks there will be gouges and scratches all over and that one imperfection won't matter. At the moment it shouts out. Ah well, nothing that a good sanding and another coat won't cure.

Here's what I've learned about knitting to a pattern, having watched this baby surprise its creator. This is from a sympathetic observer's point of view since I don't do needles. My only role is to listen and commiserate and occasionally take a hank of yarn and untangle the rascal. Well, that plus going online to be sure there's some interesting food opportunities along the way to various yarn shops.

Finished with yarn to spare plus another hank in the bank.
First, you always buy too much yarn. The Baby Surprise surprise was that it requires only one skein of yarn  rather than two. Why buy two when one is enough? Apparently the yarn shop owner thought this a good idea and no doubt it was, depending on your point of view. My suggestion to knit a second jacket -- before forgetting just how the pattern actually works -- was dismissed. Instead there's a tiny hat and tiny socks to be created from the excess, as soon as she finds the right needles. I'm surprised the shop owner didn't anticipate this opportunity and suggest alternate needles as well.

Like a transformer it changes shape.
Second, a pattern is only a suggestion. It's like a nautical chart, which may resemble the littoral topography but isn't the same thing as the actual shoreline and bottom. There is an extensive literature about how to turn a Baby Surprise pattern into a sweater. The Baby Surprise surprise is that the how-to differs, depending on who's describing the details. I would have though that to knit is to knit but not so. It's more like to knit is to not know exactly what to do. It's like life, I suppose.

Third, the pattern is a really cute little thing that suddenly turns from a flat dishcloth-shaped object into a jacket through the magic of origami. First it's not a jacket and will never be and then, surprise, it is. So there is a design and a magic built into those cryptic suggestions to knit 1, purl 2. It reminded me of building Tendril from Phil Bolger's design. First, it was a bunch of flat pieces of plywood and then it was a boat. Astounding.

Surprise, it's finished.
I've had the same sensation when following a deep channel and then surprise, I'm aground. So, in the end, knitting and cruising are much the same: full of twists and turns with an occasional knot to unravel and lots of back tracking to make life interesting.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Man Bites Biscotti

We rode the bus from Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs Harbor to find out more about transient moorings. As a bonus we discovered some terrifically tasty treats.

Trash day in Lake Tashmoo is upwind both ways.
According to Dozier's Waterway Guide Northern 2007, "The town maintains 50 heavy-weight moorings, geared to a rafting ethos appropriate to a small and popular harbor." I was curious about how this Oak Bluffs rafting ethos worked out in real life and whether the moorings were even still there. We had chased the free, state moorings all through Rhode Island only to find that a newer edition of my guide would have stopped mentioning these ephemeral objects.

Just as importantly I wanted to see with my own eyes how much a pull would it be from one of these moorings to the dinghy dock. Everyone uses an outboard these days, so inquiring of another yachtee about rowing from the mooring to the dinghy dock is like asking a car driver how far it is to the grocery store. The estimates can be wildly optimistic, resulting in a trip that is uphill both ways through knee deep snow, like when I was a boy and walked to school.

It was a cold and wet mid-summer.
Several years ago I had taken Sweet Pea on an exploratory voyage through the Erie Canal in early May. It was such fun that Anita joined me in midsummer at Fulton, NY, and we spent the entire summer gunkholing the tiny towns along the way back and seeing the sights. When people inquired, "Where you headed?" thinking somewhere in the Great Lakes we had to answer that we were already there and yes, we sailed all the way from Georgia to summer on the canal.

My first stop after clearing the Federal Lock in Troy, NY, was Waterford, a terrific little town where I ossafied into a dock fixture, one of those old coots who hang about, eyeing new arrivals, and generally pulling down the value of waterfront property. I was part of a tiny instant community of about five boats who velcroed themselves to the town dock and didn't seem to have much else to do. Looking back I realize that arriving that early in the season was unusual though I did meet several others who were shivering they way north.

Single-handing from Baltimore had made me appreciate having anyone to talk to even if some were about as boring as white walls in an empty apartment. After a month of talking to myself, just the sound of voices would do. Pompous, bombastic, self-aggrandizing, it doesn't matter. They are cruisers, after all. Just my type and, most likely, just my style.

One of the Waterford boaters had rented a car from Enterprise and graciously issued an invitation to ride along. Four of us geezers took off for the delights of the hardware and marine stores. We sorted ourselves into skipper, navigator, and two back-seat crew -- not a one of us under sixty. The skipper handed the navigator a hand-drawn map provided by one of the town dock volunteers and off we went. After a bit the navigator asked, "Is north up on this map?" The skipper answered, "It must be." There was a thoughtful pause as everyone considered the implications of this giant leap of faith.

Every town along the Erie Canal volunteered information
In my experience the Waterford volunteers were very well meaning but generally not into navigation. It's a canal, after all, and there aren't that many intersections for them to worry about. Mostly they pointed toward the locks and suggested that once you passed the Waterford Flight you should avoid turning right or left until Oneida Lake many miles distant. The day before I had asked about walking to the hardware store and was told, "About 5 minutes." A boater overheard and discretely informed me that it was more like 5 miles and he thought it was unlikely that I'd do 60 mph, walking.

We of the good ship Enterprise had an interesting tour of upstate NY. Since we were blind lost and of course wouldn't consider asking for directions -- it was cloudy and no one thought to bring a GPS or charts -- we zoomed about, tacking at random. I sat back and watched as the same scenery whizzed by more than once. Eventually we crossed our own wake and spotted the canal. It was a straight shot back to the dock with only a few false turns. First time I can remember that a trip to the marine store didn't cost me any money. Mostly I was glad to be crew, as the navigator became tight lipped when we allowed as how he ought to be able to at least read a map.

Our bus trip to Oak Bluffs had another reason in addition to seeking local knowledge about the moorings. We were off to gunkhole The Oak Bluffs Open Market, which was one of several that were open on a Sunday afternoon. Anita was hoping to find vintage postcards and fresh vegetables. Such a find would contrast nicely with the new brochures and vintage vegetables we currently had aboard.

Portuguese Biscotti in the land of doughnuts.
 Who would have thought?
The highlight of the Oak Bluffs market was Portuguese biscotti, freshly baked and not at all vintage. This biscotti was a bagel-shaped object, rather than the traditional cigar shape and came in a variety of intruiging flavors. They differed from the more familiar Italian biscotti both in shape and in being not nearly so sweet. These biscotti barely nudged the sugar meter and never became coying, despite my standing in front of the booth and munching samples for an embarassingly long time. 

Patty, a firecracker of a talker, was encouraging me to try this flavor or that flavor. She acted as if I needed egging on when a firm command to, "Step away from the samples with your hands in the air," shouted through a bullhorn would have been perfectly appropriate. As I pillaged, Patty described the treat's Portuguese heritage and explained that burb bakes was a new venture, having started that month.

Have another! And another, and another...
 I predict that she and her sister (and her grandmother who was in the booth and is the source of the recipe) will find themselves fully engaged before too long. I hope she doesn't neglect going to markets when all the orders start flooding in over the web. I totally loved her enthusiasm and her biscotti, particularly the ones with pistachio.

What a pleasant find. Too bad I under bought and ate all of them before we got back to Sweet Pea. They would have been lovely with morning coffee.

Oak Bluffs is definitely worth calling on. The dinghy dock isn't that far from the moorings and according to the brand-new brochure I scored at the harbormaster's office, "rafting is mandatory". If the wind is up perhaps one of our raft mates will take a painter and give us a tow, turning Tendril into a proper yacht, with its own tender, complete with outboard.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

A Hill Not Climbed

Yesterday we reconnoitered Chilmark on Marthas Vinyard, MA, to gain local knowledge prior to possibly mounting an attack on Menemsha Pond, which is reputed to be number one on the local gunkholer's bucket list with the more easily conquered Lake Tashmoo holding second position.

This all started when Ron, a cruising friend of many years, wrote, "Ok, you conquered Lake Tashmoo. You went where most sailboaters fear to go. The final challenge beckons - Menemsha Pond, which allegedly has a narrow unmarked channel with a raging current at times. The chart shows plenty of water in the Pond - if you're able to negotiate the entrance. Don't attempt this until you get all available information including local knowledge. Even then, I'm not recommending that you accept this challenge. I wouldn't. But then, I'm not a dauntless gunkholer. Yet, to triumph over Lake Tashmoo and Mememsha Pond would be like reaching the summits of Everest and K-1 in the same season." That Ron, he is such a naughty boy and knows me so well.

Sweet Pea at Saddle Key in the Bahamas
I like to think I can gunkhole and have enjoyed getting off the path now and then. When Ron and I sailed Sweet Pea in the Bahamas a couple of years ago, we were always sliding into skinny water, just because it was there. It helped that those waters were as clear as vodka, making the bottom visible for sixty feet or so.

One time in Pipe Creek the entrance to a blue lead was blocked by an inconvenient shoal. We arrived slightly early on a rising tide and couldn't quite make it over the bar. I chanced on the strategy of leaving us in gear at a low speed so we wouldn't slew sideways in the current and nuzzling the shoal until we slid over. Fortunately the moon was such that subsequent tides were higher rather than lower. Otherwise getting back out might have been inconvenient. Excavating a channel underwater can be brutal work.

While many claim to have planted their flag past the summit of the Tashmoo Lake channel, few can make a similar boast about Menemsha Pond. Instead we learned that most find themselves planting their keel firmly (short of the summit) on a treacherous swirling sand shoal that happens to be located just off the deck of an upscale restaurant. Our unnamed local source told us that rumors that diners held up numbered placards to rate the grounding and subsequent kedging off are completely untrue. "They get a standing ovation when they finally get off," he responded, "We aren't Oriental ". Nor is this North Carolina, given the crisp Yankee accent.

So, yesterday's trip to seek local knowledge was serious business, made more so by our having passed up the chance to call on the Chilmark Flea Market as our #4 bus trundled by and we stayed aboard.

This effing market featured fresh farm food
Minutes before at the West Tisbury bus hub we had heard a local rider speak knowledgeably about the various effing markets (farmers, flea, flower, furniture), comparing and contrasting attributes, prices, and vendors with the adroitness of an effing affectionado. When she mentioned yarn it got Anita's attention -- I was briefly concerned about whiplash the way her head whipped around to zero in on the conversation -- and we learned that lovely hand-dyed wool was a staple at one of the markets. I forget which market but I'll bet good money that Anita remembers.

The market that we passed by on our bus was gay with colored tents and packed with people, some of whom might have been woolly, though in the muggy southwesterlies I mostly saw sober cottons punctuated by polyester bike outfits as gaudy as a parrot's plumage. Perhaps the yarn was under wraps.

Anthony Bailey in The Shores of Summer -- yeah, he's always my authority on sailing into impossible places around here -- describes the Memensha Creek channel as perhaps carrying about six feet at high tide, He did the creek on 3/4 tide falling and I'm sure Margot was telling him a thing or two as the depth sounder chanted its plain song of descending notes, pausing at 2 feet under his keel before soaring back to loftier heights.

He gained the Memensha summit in '91 before the Coast Guard started maintaining the channel, which makes his ascent historic. His 2-1/2 foot draft really shouldn't be held against him since he did it on a falling tide. After all, how little you draw doesn't matter than much when the tide is squeezing the water out from under you like someone stepping on a wet sponge. I've proven that you can go aground in inches of water when I've wandered off the channel in Tendril and made those aboard hop off to lighten the load and push us back into deeper water.

These days the Memensha channel carries even less than it did in Anthony's time. Now that the Coast Guard has joined Homeland Security, its dredging budget has been reallocated to much more important things, like installing machine guns on those patrol boats that I saw docked in Memensha basin.

Headed to Menemsha beach, properly attired for bathing
I can understand that. Priorities must be honored. The lifeguard chair at the nearby beach clearly spelled out the rules: NO NUDE BATHING. I know how ugly a crowd can be when incited to riot by those nudists. We certainly need the Coast Guard to be properly equipped for strafing the sand to put down any possible uprising. Look what happened in nearby Concord not that long ago when the British lacked machine guns and lost a colony.

So anyway, these days the channel would carry about five feet at high tide. Given Sweet Pea's draft I had six inches to spare with another six inches or so on a spring tide. I consulted my brand new copy of Eldridge only to learn that we had missed the spring tide unless we waded up that channel the very moment we were there. For each day after that, going aground would mean that dragging would not be of any concern for weeks. Alas, any applause at getting off would also be delayed for the same period. What to do? Risk it for the glory or retire in defeat?

Menemsha has its own charms
It was probably our attitude that ruined the Menemsha for us though we had come prepared to like it. It exudes a gritty reality that might have grown on us over several visits. The seafood was terrifically fresh and the dining facilities were unique. As it was, we looked at each other and wondered why we would want to come back even if we did manage to reach the pond.

Well, it's settled. Anita says that that today we're gunkholing over to the Oak Bluffs flea market on today's bus and that's that. She's my Margot and I've learned to listen to her sage advice. Too bad about a missed opportunity, but a man's gotta do . . .

Friday, August 3, 2012

Pleasant Surprise

The next morning we were still anchored
 in Cuttyhunk outer harbor
This has been a day of surprises. We didn't go aground twice. Can you imagine?

It started when we awoke to find that we hadn't dragged anchor and hadn't landed on the beach at Cuttyhunk. The night before Anita asked, "Why are we the only ones anchored and everyone else is on a mooring?" Actually, almost everyone else -- several boats were at anchor on the far shore -- but still it was enough to make me pause. Why indeed? What did they know that we didn't?

Instead of sampling the pleasures of inner harbor we had anchored where recommended by the cruising guide: between Pease Ledge and Whale Rock. I'm usually loath to follow advice like where to anchor because everyone else is reading the same book and the herd ends up grazing in front of, on both sides of, and behind where we drop our hook. In this instance we were oddly shunned. The guide does contain the caveat that one should make sure the anchor is set, but that's always good practice, so nothing unusual in that. Still, why would everyone else cling to a $45 mooring when there's plenty of room to anchor?

As for Cuttyhunk inner harbor, it was jammed like a shopping mall parking lot just before the holidays, looking like one of those RV parks you see in the Florida Keys where trailers and campers are packed together like a school of minnows. Those moorings in Cuttyhunk Pond are reputed to be quite close together, leading to bumps in the night and hasty introductions while fending off and wondering whether you remembered to tug on a pair of pants before bolting topsides.

Chasing the Baileys twenty years later
It is true that Anthony Bailey, in The Coast of Summer, describes anchoring in exactly this spot and then awaking when they thumped onto the beach around midnight. It is true that getting the plow to set required gentling its point into the eel grass and nudging it down rather than giving it a good chain-stretching back down. Plus, there is a startling fetch to the north, where the distant Massachusetts shoreline is dim in the haze, so a good thunderstorm would create quite a rollicking chop.

Our evening was disturbed only by the rattle of chain when a schooner ghosted in and anchored near by. This was music to my ears since those schooner skippers know all the tricks. Or they read the guide book. Or they read Anthony Bailey. Whatever the reason, the lead cow had arrived and I felt so much better. Cruisers suppose themselves to be wily individualists but I wonder whether we are really just part of a herd.

As I say, we awoke to find Sweet Pea in the same spot, which was a pleasant surprise. As a bookend to that uneventful start, today ended with another pleasant surprise when we followed another sailboat into Lake Tashmoo and didn't go hard aground on a falling tide. Sometimes this happens.

The model is bumfuzzled by Buzzards Bay currents.
We had departed Cuttyhunk, expecting to ride a favorable current along the Buzzards Bay side of the Elizabeth Islands to Hadley Harbor. I have a nifty online tidal current model called SailFlow that displays a movie depicting the current direction and speed for the next 12 hours. I love watching how the water surges into and out of the various places. Actually it only shows colored arrows that jitter around on a chart. You have to imagine the water. The plot is fairly predictable. Still, I find it fascinating.

My smart phone's tide model told me we would be flung toward Woods Hole and Hadley Harbor. Too bad it was absolutely wrong. Rather than riding those fancy colored arrows east we found ourselves dodging them as the water surged the opposite way, turning a joy ride into a long plod in light airs.

Nailed Buzzards Bay currents
back in 1875
As we poked along, I was reading aloud from The Coast of Summer -- we Joneses like to keep up with the Baileys, comparing notes and looking for a chance for a little one-up-man-ship -- when Anthony casually mentioned that the tide in Buzzards Bay runs opposite that in Vineyard Sound. Astounding, simply astounding. There must be a giant whirlpool circling around the Elizabeth Islands. I had never heard of such a thing and apparently neither had my tide model.

Normally I would consult my Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book to see how the currents vary throughout the tidal cycle. No one cruises these waters without the maps drawn by Captain George W. Eldridge in 1875. They are the real smart-model though their arrows are only in black and white. Unfortunately, I offloaded the previous year's Eldridge before buying a 2012 copy. I must have been thinking that those maps changed this year despite being the same for the last century. Unfortunately none of our stops have included a store that sells it, which is odd since every little place seemed to have a yellow pile stacked by the cash register when I didn't need a copy.

We took a Vineyard Sound sleigh ride through Quicks Hole to Lake Tashmoo.
Abandoning the Hadley Harbor plan and Buzzards Bay, we shot through Quicks Hole, well named since the current was slucing through at 4 knots, and hopped on the Vineyard Sound's people mover. It really was like stepping on one of those things at the airport when you just zing along in comparison to those walking. Most exhilarating, in a sailor sort of way. When top speed is a slow jogging pace, every half knot is cause for major celebration.

We didn't go aground in Lake Tashmoo channel.
We zipped up the Sound and arrived at the entrance to Lake Tashmoo way too early. The tide was still falling and I had little confidence in the channel. Our guide book said that depths had shoaled to 3 feet. While it was well out of date, nothing we could call up on the smart phone contradicted this gloomy assessment. As I write this I'm wondering about that term, smart phone.

We hove to just off the entrance channel and ate lunch, thinking to wait six hours for the tide to reverse. Half-tide falling and half-tide rising produce the same depths but are worlds apart when poking into a channel that may have already shoaled shut. My boat and I have served as a cautionary marker more than once and I didn't want to be the object of curious stares and clever remarks, yet again. So we waited, eyeing the sailing vessels that came charging out but didn't answer our hails on the radio. If they were so confident surely we could have made it. They might have been center boarders rather than keel boats -- well, you just never know.

Years prior we had been sailing the low country north of Charleston in a narrow ICW ditch when a tug pushing an oil barge about the size of Houston two-whistled us so it could pass. I was the stand-on vessel but that tug and barge was mighty wide. There was no way we were going to argue about rights since he would have won hands down and Sweet Pea would have been a bug on his windshield. I figured that following the 8-foot contour would keep us out of trouble even when his suction dropped the depth a couple of feet as he went by.

The suction didn't get us but the mud he stirred up blinded our depth sounder. It started bleeping in alarm and counted down the feet while I eyed the channel, wondering where to find deeper water. When we slid up on the bank it turned out that the depth sounder was seeing just fine. Four feet is six inches too short for Sweet Pea. The tide was falling like a barometer in a hurricane and had four more feet to go.

As we heeled on the mud bank, a skiff putted over, piloted by a local who was clasping a bottle of Southern Comfort. He struck up a slurred conversation -- we were truely a captive audience and he was only one of many bystanders who commented on our plight in a soft southern drawl -- and in the end offered me a shot to "tide me over". Southern Comfort, indeed. He might have been making a deliberate pun, but given his thoroughly inebriated state, I had my doubts. After a long day of listening to things clatter out of lockers as the tilt increased and then finally started reversing, we finally floated off around dark, truely understanding the difference between half-tide falling and half-tide rising.

As we hovered off Lake Tashmoo a sailing vessel eventually came within shouting distance. They probably wandered by wondering why our sails were arranged in such a bizarre way and why we were sailing so slowly. Well, she is an Island Packet so not too much surprise about our making only a knot in ten knots of wind, but that doesn't explain why I had back-winded the jib. That, they probably assumed, was how we did it in Georgia.

They assured us that there's plenty of water. We let them go first and, to our amazement, there was.

The entrance carried seven feet, so for Sweet Pea it was no sweat. At one point we were nearly brushing the rocks lining the port side of the channel but the fishermen kindly dipped their lines for us. Inside there was plenty of room to anchor and several other anchored vessels, assuring us that it was the right place to be. We let out a hearty moo of relief.

Tendril joins the local dinghys.
So here we are. It is really quite wonderful. There's a free town dock with enough depth to come alongside for unloading our bikes. Plus there is a water hose and a dumpster and a floating dinghy dock so we won't have to wade ashore. It's a 5-minute bike ride to Vineyard Haven, we hear -- and the bus is said to have an all-day geezer pass. Heaven.

 Big winds are in the forecast for this weekend and we don't intend to move an inch. Things are looking up. If only Anthony Bailey had anchored here we could compare notes. I'm sure my spot is better than his.