Today they pulled the mast off our Adventure.

It took a couple hours to do all the work, to de-rig it, remove the boom and a few other things.
The mast is currently sitting on the hard and I went over it to check for problems.  Didn’t find any.  Tomorrow though, the surveyor is coming back to pull the boat out of the water to look for problems under the water line after the collision by the power boat the other day.

The wind gear was hosed badly.  Even though all the wires were cut at the bottom by a previous mast removal, we pulled in new wires today and new wing gear has been set up and will be put back in after the mast goes back up.

We are renting a car tomorrow and we’ll hit West Marine for a mast head light, spreader lights and a steaming light for the mast.  The guy doing the wiring has given me a list of things to get for him (it’s cheaper if I do it) and I want it all done by Monday.

I’m not sure that will be the case either.  I’ve authorized the work to start on the bow of the boat and since the mast is down it should be easier.  Hopefully Mr. Bailey will get on it right off.

The boat sure looks funny without her front mast.

Did a video and it can be found on FB.  So if you’re friends with me you can see it, if not, friend me.

Today is Tuesday, 27 October 2015.  JoAnne and I thought we’d be in Florida by now.

She and I have had a pretty rough time and at times we take it out on each other.  We yell sometimes and get mad over no reason.

Turns out though we still like each other a whole lot 🙂

We’ve been married over 38 years now and have known each other about 40 so as much as we get on each others nerves at times we still know we love one another.

My job, besides making this boat move, is to take care of her.  To keep her warm, to keep her dry, to keep her from getting seasick.  I’m a miserable failure in those things.  She’s gotten sick, drenched, dripped on, spray washed over her, and she’s been cold since August.  But, I keep trying.

Today the insurance surveyor is coming by to examine the damages on the boat, and I’ve completed my statement, collected names and numbers of witnesses, provided the police with information for their report, organized the paperwork and will email it to the insurance adjustor this afternoon.  I’ll let the surveyor do his job before I limit my options.

Tomorrow morning sometime they will pull Adventure up to the other dock, get the crane out and hoist our mast out of it’s traditional place on the foredeck, laying it down on the hard where I can inspect the upper mast and mast head, lighting, rigging and probably install a new halyard or three.  (I need a new main halyard, and at least one on the spreader for things like courtesy flags and such.  I’ll add two or three because I see there are places to add them).

I’ve asked the boat builder in email if he can start work almost immediately.  I’m not waiting for the insurance agent to say “ok”, because I want the front repaired so we can get out of here.  I’ll let him and the insurance guy worry the small stuff.  Not my circus, not my monkeys….  The damage is obvious, the work is clear, the guy that hit us admitted he did it, the insurances have been notified.  So, get ‘er done….

Sunday morning Dave from USA Fuel Services came by and “polished” the fuel.  He ate through 5-6 filters on the coarse pump out which at first I considered surprising.  Then I thought about it.

Dick Stapleton, the former owner had met with us on August 5th for dinner at Sheerans, in Stony Point NY area, and we went over a lot of things on the boat.  He had said he’d cleaned one of the tanks.  Wasn’t 100% sure which.  The other tank he was unsure of the quality of the fuel.

When we started out, we began using the forward tank, starboard side filler.  Neither fuel gauge worked so we never knew how much fuel there was.  When we got here, towed in, because the engine shut off, it was due to the fuel having gunk in it. Water, bacteria, and who knows what else.

Dave discovered a LOT of crap in the forward fuel tank and cleaned it out.

Dave also found that the back tank was clean.  In other words, that tank would never have done what the front tank did had we been using it.

He pumped out close to 25 gallons of bad fuel and we’re down that much.  But we have roughly 55 or 60 gallons at the moment, and I’ll top off the tanks before we leave for the ICW (soon I hope).

A mechanic is coming down to check the engine, help me replace the filters, drain the fuel lines and get the engine started today as well.

Things are coming together (again) and with luck we will get the mast back on in a couple days, rigging adjusted properly, engine running, JoAnne happy, warm and dry and us on the move again.

We decided to take the boat south ourselves after that rough day on the Bay.  It was a long conversation and various “What Ifs” bandied about, various options, ideas like JoAnne going on to Florida by plane and me bringing the boat down alone, getting a delivery skipper, me travelling with a delivery skipper to learn and other things from selling the boat and giving up to trading for something different.

None of those options except sticking together and travelling down the ICW, together, worked.  Or will work.  We do this together, or not at all at this point. (I won’t rule out a delivery skipper later if this becomes any more ridiculous though).

Speaking of ridiculous.  We’re in a place we came for minor repairs.  We ended up getting hit.  We’ve had the engine shut down because of fuel problems (because we were TRYING to get here after they called us and rushed us, and then didn’t even bother to really help us until a week later) and it’s getting cold, it’s raining today, and I’m still working my ass off.

Yesterday, I tore apart the binnacle, galley, electrical panel and the radio shelf over the navigation station searching for wiring that was causing the short, and subsequently taking out the chart plotter.

I never found the actual short, but I found the wire and where it disappears into the wall someplace over behind the electrical panel and nav station.  I cut it loose and reconnected the stuff I have to have working.  I know forward, there’s no power being supplied to the auto bilge pump and toilet.  So, I suspect that is the problem somehow.  I have repaired the bilge pump by rerouting power from another location and adding a switch to make sure the two pumps don’t power up at the same time.

—

1315: Surveyor is here.  More in a minute.

13:45:  Surveyor, Rick Milner was here.  He went over the damage and checked it all out.  His assessment pretty much agrees with mine, except he wants a rigger out to check the rake on the mast, the stays from the bowsprit, and a few other things.  Time to email my statement and pictures over to the insurance adjustor.

Looks like it’s gonna be awhile before we get out of here.  If we get out of here.

If anyone out there has a Formosa, specifically we’re looking for the 41 center cockpit version, we’d like you to get in touch.

You can write me at Adventure.Rick.JoAnne@gmail.com and let us know. We’re on Facebook in a group started by Kurt Seastead for the Formosa.

Kurt has done an awesome job of pulling together people who own the TW Formosa and we’ve been helping each other with information, pictures and stories.

Kurt is also a fun guy. He likes to make memes too.

So if you see pictures of me with a meme, you can be sure he made it. 🙂

Yesterday about 4 PM, JoAnne and I were sitting about 3 blocks away having a burger and beer when the phone rang. It was Peggy from Cobb’s Marina. Peggy is the marina manager.

She said, “I take it you’re not on your boat, right?”

I told her we were having lunch. She then told me my boat had been hit by another boat. Instead of freaking out, I asked “Anyone injured, and how bad is the boat hurt?”

She said a 55′ power boat had hit us pretty hard. We returned to the marina and checked in with Peggy. They provided the insurance information for the power boat operator and we heard several witnesses accounts of what they saw. All of them matched.

Big boat, one engine out, trying to turn around in a tight area, wind caught him, out of control, bam…

The damage to the boat pulpit is pretty significant. However, the bowsprit was my biggest concern. It holds the main mast (and by default through a triatic backstay, the mizzen). It also allows the jib to furl and unfurl. Without the bowsprit the boats functions would have to moved backward and be less efficient. You can lose your entire rigging if something goes wrong. So it is imperative the bowsprit be solid.

I examined it this morning and to my untrained eye I saw cracks. I assumed they were all new. I’ve taken pictures of the whole thing, all the damages and that I think might be damages caused by the hit.

This morning I put any work on the boat on temporary pause until I could get a good determination of the status of the bowsprit. Speaking to some of the marina folks, other sailors and a special couple who stopped in to visit us today (Tom and Barb Björkholm of s/v Mörsan), we were considering fixing the fuel issues and heading south under engine alone. I truly want to be out of here before the cold sets in which is the reason I stopped work.

This afternoon a carpenter from Howdy Bailey come over to examine the boat a few minutes ago. He stated clearly that the bow sprit was NOT damaged in the attack of the evil power boat (lol) but is suffering some aging issues, and aren’t we all.

He recommended against having it pulled and “fixed” and that there is no structural damage to the boat, fiberglass or the sprit itself. The stainless steel is another story and it must be repaired, along with the platform/walkway. The pulpit supports a couple of pulleys in a block and tackle used to haul in the jib sail, therefore it could not in its weakened condition function without possibly damaging the pulpit further. He suggested getting that fixed.

Howdy Bailey (http://http://www.howdybailey.com/ Howdy is a boat designer I understand and a pretty famous one in these parts, though I’d not heard of him before a few days ago) is coming by personally to look over getting a wind generator installed and giving me an estimate. I’ll ask him to look over the steel at the same time and give me an estimate of repairs for that as well, since I need it for the insurance company.

Bob from Trident Marine Electronics is going to rewire my mast.

Monday I’m having the mast removed and placed on the hard to do the work. I’ll inspect the rigging at the head then, along with lighting and wiring connections before Bob gets to it. I’ll replace bulbs and connectors and inspect the lines going up there, and so forth myself.

If this all works well, we ought to be on our way sooner, rather than later.

JoAnne and I had a rough few days. Yesterday, after the delivery skipper wrote us back and told us he’d have to beg off, because he had family commitments we discussed our situation.

She is cold a lot. She gets cold in the summer time.

She got seasick in the pounding surf, but loves roller coasters (I do not).

I got worried, but mostly for her. I knew the boat could handle what was happening.

I wasn’t scared, I didn’t have time to be frightened.

After a long discussion we both came to the conclusion that we bought this boat, we are going to get it to Florida and beyond, we’re going to live aboard and we need to learn to handle it… which we’re doing pretty well actually. Seasickness is a terrible, but fleeting thing. Fear, except for spiders, is also only going to last a moment or two.

We contacted the “backup skipper’ who wrote me yesterday after the first one said no, and told her “We’re doing this on our own. We might have been over our heads at first, but we think we have this now”.

We decided that the ICW is the right way to go, until we get past Hatteras, and perhaps Frying Pan Shoals. Maybe.

So, once we get the engine, fuel and rigging repaired, we’re heading out of here. We’re shooting for Jacksonville. And doctors for JoAnne. After that, Marathon Key is calling to us.

We have several reasons to visit there, but it is a jumping off point to Tampa, Puerto Rico. the Virgin Islands and the Gulf of Mexico. Bahamas, not so much… but oh well. There are also “jobs” there, so I hear. And we’ve been offered a kind of “floating boat broker” job of sorts already. And I have my electronics skills (and people have asked me already several times if I would look at this or that, so far, I’ve turned them down because I’m not ABCY certified yet…. I’m considering that though).

Not that either of us want jobs. It’s something to consider though.

Anyway, we’re shooting for 1-10 November to be out of here. Today is “Back to the Future” day, 21 October 2015, and I love science fiction. That means the future is not yet written, and we make our own.

I plan, along with JoAnne, to make our own future come true, where ever and whenever it happens to be.

Yesterday morning we woke up and it was downright cold. It was in the high 30s or low 40s and JoAnne was cold and complaining about it. I hate when she’s cold, I feel sorry for her because I can’t keep her warm enough.

At about 10:45 we received a phone call from Cobbs Marina in Norfolk area and told me if I could get there on Sunday evening they could look at the boat first thing on Monday morning (today is Monday) so we made a dumb decision.

We decided to go late in the day without doing a major weather check. We did a cursory check on the winds and such and it looked fine to leave.

And it was.

To leave that is.

Getting there was going to be quite another thing.

It was so chilly and windy that JoAnne couldn’t remain in the cockpit so I told her to go below and stay warm. We used the ham radios to talk to each other until her’s died.

I actually raised the main for a bit but kept jibing so it was not a good situation alone. I finally took down all sail and motored. But the swell was coming in from the fetch the wind had over the water.

I did NOT know about the cold front moving through or the wind speeds at 18-20. Then I measured 18.8 knots and it wasn’t slacking.

I knew the wind was going to cause bigger and bigger waves over the next few hours and I was 5 hours-plus at 5 knots away from the destination. It was going to get rough before it got better.

I warned JoAnne it was going to get choppy, and I expected it. What I didn’t expect was that the swells would be as much as four feet every so often, hitting us on the stern quarter.

It was getting pretty bad.

Finally, about 5 miles out of our destination to Cobb’s Marina, we got hit pretty hard. The boat got picked up and slammed hard tossing anything lose about the cabin. The things I use to navigate, like my binocs, my calipers, my charts and my pencils got shipped to the floor. Followed by me.

JoAnne was dealing with crap flying in the cabin below, including her. She was so sick she couldn’t really function well.

On top of ALL of the incessant pounding the swell is doing to us, even with me trying to change course to take it on the stern, we get slammed again, and my chart plotter goes out. Dead, blowing the breaker. I go below, grab my hand held to get my exact position to plot on the chart (mostly because I’m driving the boat near to markers and have a good idea, but not exactly where I am and now I want to be dead on accurate).

I got the lat/long, find the spot on the chart, find a buoy and start looking for it. Then the boat starts going up and down in the swell and the engine is freaking out.

I am concentrating on not getting killed, thrown from the cockpit and checking on JoAnne below, who is now puking her poor heart out. I felt bad for her but I couldn’t help right then.

So, we’re getting our asses kicked, I’m working on getting my precise location because the chart plotter is out, but at least the depth finder it working and I know the direction the wind is blowing – from dead behind me at the moment.

Finally I spot the buoy I’m looking for, and now I can get a pretty good idea on the chart where I really am. By the way, the little Gamin hand held is cool, but it sucks at trying to find your course and a few other things. I can ascertain my location, but not necessarily which way I am going at the same time, or for that matter the bearing on an object. Or much else. I don’t know why I even have it now.

Anyway, it did help verify my location. I was two miles from the shore, and way too far to the east for getting into the entrance of the marina (and Naval station and other marinas, etc) without a lot of trouble.

I tell JoAnne “It’s about to get really rough for a few minutes, I need to change course!” I shouted.

She can’t hear me, she’s sitting below, door mostly closed, engine roaring, wind howling. Damn, the sun is shining and it should be a beautiful day, but other than my poor wife whom is the only beauty I see around me at the moment, and she’s throwing up, I can’t figure out what the HELL I am doing there.

I turn to my starboard and head for a compass heading that ought to bring us close to the entrance of the marina. Hell, Warships go in and out, I can’t miss it!

I make a 35 degree change, and get hit once, twice then three times by breaking waves on my starboard side and the engine roars once, coughs and quits.

I hear JoAnne yell, “What happened!”

“Engine died” I mutter.

“What?”

I respond with trying to start the engine. Nope. I’m looking a mile off at the shoreline. I look at the water depth, 30 feet. I glance at the gps, 2 knots over ground. South. Right at the shore line.

Yikes.

“JoAnne! Get BoatUS on the phone as fast as you can!”

She begins working on that. I look up at the rigging. The back stay is pretty loose but I decide this is it. In less than 30 minutes we’ll be sitting ON the shore, not looking at it if I don’t do something.

I debate internally what to do. So, I do what any sailor would do. I grab the outhaul on the main (ours is a Seldon in-mast furling system) and I crank out about 4 or 5 square feet of sail. Tighten the boom to dead center and watch as the wind grabs the tiny amount of sail and we take off at five knots. I slowly turn the boat to starboard, the direction I want to go, and we start doing almost six knots.

Wow. Now we’re sailing. Not quite what I envisioned when I took this job on. I measure the wind. 18.9 knots.

JoAnne has the BoatUS people on the phone, hands me the phone and goes to try to fix up things below. I give my coordinates, tell them we’re in a bit of trouble, and I don’t think I can sail us in with the rigging issues, we have no engine and they connect me with a Tow boat driver.

He tells me “Get an anchor out, asap”. So I tell him I will, turn the boat into the wind, drop the sail and tell JoAnne I’m going forward. The boat is pitching like a bucking bronco, up about four feet, then back down.

I hook my tether to my makeshift jackline and head forward. I note the only boats I see now around me are giant ships, one is passing just past a marker buoy I’d passed minutes before. Where he came from, I’m not sure, but I had not seen him before. Either that or I was so preoccupied with my predicament, I failed to see him previously.

Now I am crawling forward, grabbing bold as the swell comes in and back out. Three more times before I can get there.

I untie the line on the anchor, remove the windlass wrench from the slot by the windlass, loosen the clutch and kick for the anchor… and miss as the boat makes a nose dive into a wave. The wave drenches my feet all the way to my waist. My face takes a lot of it. My ears are ringing from the water that hit me so hard it was like a cold punch in the face.

When the boat settles I regain my feet, grab the stanchions knowing they will throw me overboard if I get hit like that again, and I kick the release. Out goes the 50 lb CQR and chain. Lots and lots of chain.

In 30 feet of water my math told me I needed 150 feet of rode. The other night, we dragged our anchor in lesser winds than this, 300 yards and I didn’t catch it until it was almost to late.

Not today, Mother Nature, not today.

I let out 280 feet of chain before it bound up under the deck in the locker. I grabbed my snubber line and tied it off and cranked 30 feet back in, then connected the hook and was hit by another swell, but this time, we yanked to a sudden stop by the chain.

I sat down and slowly let out the snubber line with my feet braced against the windlass. When it was nearly out, I tied off the last of the line, and let out some more chain to give us a little bit of slack.

The wind howled, and the swell kept coming, but the bouncing was lessen a lot.

I made my way back to the cockpit and called out that I was still alive. She acknowledge I was there, but was busy being sick again.

And I waited. The driver said “an hour, at least”. This was going to be a long, long hour.

I turned the rudder to the swell which was no longer coming directly from the wind now, to help guide us into the swell.

True to his word, the tow driver, Captain Byron, called me and said he was there to start pulling the anchor. I looked but did not see him. We communicated back and forth several times and even through binoculars I could not spot him.

I told him I would NOT pull the anchor until I could get a visual on him. Suddenly, like the cavalry in an old movie, there he was, flag flying and everything. Just not bugles.

I ran to the front and sat down and started trying to get the windlass to haul up almost three hundred feet of chain and a fifty pound anchor, a foot at a time.

It took me fifteen minutes. I signaled for him to drive in font and block the swell several times, but he wasn’t hearing me or understanding me at all. Finally, something clicked and he powered up hard, drove in front of me and the swell stopped.

I gave him a thumbs up and the last 50 feet came aboard in record time, but not without breaking something in the platform. He threw me a messenger line, and I hauled it in, then got the bridle and we were hooked together in a couple more minutes. The tow in took almost an hour.

But we’re alive tonight and that’s all I care about.

Tonight, I’ve gotten the electric working again, the chart plotter is back online, I know why the engine died (fuel and gunk in the fuel) and we’re having maintenance done on the mast, lights and rigging in a few days, the diesel “polished” and we have a plan to get JoAnne down to Florida to get her doctor check up she needs, us to have insurance for medical and I’m putting full coverage on the boat in the next day or two.

I’m also likely going to hire a delivery skipper to help me, and train me, to deliver this boat to Jacksonville, FL in the next month or so.

And, tonight we finally wandered away from the marina and got some food and beer outside.

This last part is for Kurt Seastead, who did the video the other day and likes making these little memes for me. The foregoing story is a true one, the meme is not. (But it IS funny!)

We left Solomons on 14 October early in the morning headed for Potomac River, with some place marked on the chart to stop. As we were getting close to the Potomac, we made the decision to go on to another area simply because we’d not gone too very far to begin with.

We ended up heading to the Great Wicomico River near Reedville area and anchoring in a bay behind something called Sandy Point, at Kurt Seastead’s suggestion. Not sure if he’d been there before but he seemed to know it so we stopped.

Turned out to be a very cool place with only one other sailboat there. We dropped anchor and spent a night there enjoying the silence. Location was in 18.5 feet of water at 37 degrees 49.346 mins North and 76 degrees 18.686 minutes West.

I’d noticed several issues over the past couple of days with the forward sail, not the least of which was the fact it was not working right and had changed to the genoa a few days prior to this. Well, turns out the car carrying the sail up is adjusted incorrectly (and I still need to fix it as of today) but also I couldn’t get everything working right. The sail is not going high enough, it’s not letting out all the way, the inhaul wasn’t doing it’s job correctly either. I needed to add more line around the drum… so I fixed all that stuff only to find out my line is now too short to let out the entire foresail. Grrrrr. I’ll have to change out the line on the drum soon.

The following morning (15 October 15) we sailed off the anchor, with the engine running just in case. Ended up needed it since we were leaving is a pretty narrow channel going out and didn’t have enough to room to tack back and forth. As usual, I ended up giving up on sails after we has very little wind.

The boat is literally so heavy that 6-10 knots of wind barely fill sails, let alone make the vessel move at one or two knots. With a time constraint, this is not good. So, engine power it is.

Our destination was Fishing Bay. We intended to catch up with Kurt (S/V Lo-Kee), and Barb and Tom Bjorkholm (S/V Morsan) – other Formosa 41 sailboats.

Arrived at 1445 and dropped anchor in 21 feet of water and put out what I thought was just enough scope to keep us situated in the same spot over night. I dropped just under 100 feet of chain. Because, you know, weather reports said “calm” and “5-6 mph winds”. No big deal. So, a little less than 5:1 scope.

It was almost our undoing that night. More on that later.

That evening Barb and Tom came by and picked us up, gave us a tour of their beautiful Formosa, Morsan and took us over to a small Mexican restaurant. Since JoAnne and I LOVE Mexican food, it was heaven. Ok, well, it was alright anyway! We went back to the boat that night and headed for bed.

Later in the evening, the wind picked up and began to whistle through the rigging. I wasn’t concerned. At midnight I was still checking things and we were fine. I finally dozed off and at 0400 the next morning, JoAnne awakened and told me to check things – which I did. Not one fraction of an intergalactic declination or sidereal hour had we moved, or a latitude and longitude either.

I fell back asleep. At 0630 I woke up and something didn’t “feel right”. I got one of those weird feelings, in the pit of my stomach that something was very wrong. I still can’t figure out what the feeling was or why I thought there was a problem but I opened the curtains by my head and looked out and saw a house. Closed the curtains and lay back down, then sat bolt upright.

I looked again. Yup, definitely a house, I wasn’t sleeping and dreaming either. Next to the house, or more accurately, next to US were several very large, very strong and sturdy telephone poles. Right outside my window.

(Note, these were pylons. not telephone poles, but my mind saw them as telephone poles because they were big, they were close and they should NOT have been there). I finally came to my senses and woke JoAnne telling her to get up, I needed her help. I pulled on my pants, rapidly climbed the ladder, removed the boards, the hatch and started the engine.

We were less than 40 feet from the shore and I was SURE, three feet of water at the edge. I ran forward and started pulling the anchor up. The windlass of course, was not on, so I yelled for JoAnne to enable it and ran forward again. She came up, took the wheel and I pulled the anchor up, as she drove us away from the dangers of the shore and the giant posts – and from what I am guessing, the kitchen of the folks that lived in the house whose yard we’d nearly invaded.

Somewhere in there is a lesson.

Never trust the weather report, never, EVER believe your anchor is secure, and ALWAYS drop a few extra feet of rode.

A few hours later I was dinghying up to the fuel docks and filling diesel cans, to fill my tanks and a couple from Canada and I started chatting. When he realized which boat I was driving he got agitated and said, “Oh my God, you must have missed me by less than 200 feet!”

I won’t repeat the entire conversation, he was not horribly mad, but was perhaps a little miffed at it all… 🙂 I did promise not to anchor anywhere near him if I saw him again though. haha

Actually, he was a pretty good sport about it and when I told him what amount of chain and so forth, he implied he didn’t have any more out than me and I could see his anchors were similar. So why’d I drag and he didn’t? Not sure.

But, we’ll get to more about anchoring later.

Fishing Bay, was a nice place. Enoguh room for about a dozen or so good sized sailboats, good holding if you have the right amount of rode out, and your anchor holds… 🙂 but still pretty. The showers (or rather use of the facilities) costs 10 bucks a person. Meaning, you can use shower, laundry, bathrooms, and the “Captains Lounge”. We paid our money and took our chances. Worked out pretty good because we got a total of FOUR SHOWERS (YES! We’re shower pirates, lol).

Over the course of the two days, we visited with both Barb and Tom and Kurt came down too. We gave Kurt a tour of the boat and he made a video. The video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KIv8m-VZo

We left on 17 October for Chisman Creek at 0930.

Left this morning at about 9:15.  No problem getting out of the harbor, except for the massive number of crab pots everywhere.  JoAnne was complaining at first then said something about “I shouldn’t complain, I really like crab!” lol

We tried to raise sails after we were out of the harbor but there was almost no wind, and what we did have was on our nose.  It was more efficient to motor (again).

About an hour or so in I checked the charging system.  It wasn’t.  Charging that is.

The damned alternator quit AGAIN.

We motored all the way down, for about 9 hours without worrying about it.

I hoped I wasn’t cooking the batteries, but they are holding up very well. I ran the generator when I arrived, after getting the anchor light up (another thing to be repaired).  As I was putting up the anchor light, JoAnne started screaming for me below. Sounded bad.  As I fell down the ladder into the companionway (I never make a quiet entrance it seems) she was screaming something about a leak.

And it was.  She’d turned on the water pump and water was spraying everywhere under the sink.  Fortunately, it was an easy fix.  For the faucet, not my back.  I had to reconnect the copper pipe to the sink (yep, copper pipes in this baby).  Anyone ever mention copper isn’t good in some things?  Boats for instance?  Anyway, 20 minutes later she could cook dinner, I could complete my clean up on the deck and finally sit for a few minutes.

We aren’t leaving first thing in the morning.

I have to replace the alternator.

Again.

The trip down was great until the last couple hours when the wind was doing 15 knots off my nose, I was down to 3 knots, so I started tacking (I had the mizzen out partially so I used it alone).  By the time I could actually USE the sails we were under the gun to get here before dark.

We barely made it onto anchor before it was so dark I couldn’t see.

A young man named Dan rowed over on his paddle board to ask me anchoring questions.

When we came in I circled the area once, slowed, asked him how the holding was and stopped the boat, kicked the anchor lock out and loosened the clutch and set the anchor in about 3 easy steps (I’m getting pretty good at it, along with ensuring it’s NOT going to drag me anywhere at night).

Dan apparently had trouble with his catamaran last night.  They drove to the boat show in a rental today and came back and found their boat a mere 10-15 feet from the pilings.  Bad.

They moved it back and dropped anchor again, but were unsure what was happening.  Apparently not enough rode after he said they had about 20 feet out.  So I explained to drop anchor, let it hit, add a couple of feet, maybe 5-10 MAX, back the boat down on the anchor to set it, then let out the rest of the rode.  I also told him 5:1 here would be fine, unless it gets really windy, then let out more.  Except I’m near so not so much he swings into me.

This is a really small place and there are a lot of boats, and three rivers converge here.  Cool place.

Tomorrow I’ll replace the alternator.  My back hurts tonight, and I’m tired.

We’ve been here eleven days, arriving 28 September. Had no intention of staying that long, but we go comfortable I suppose. The hurricane was coming, that never came. Then I was preparing to go last weekend and we found another engine issue with the same alternator.

So, finally, yesterday after messing with the marina here, and waiting again, for days on them, I took the old one in, found some one who fixed it, and the same place ordered me a spare.

We are planning to get out of here on Sunday if the weather holds a bit longer.

We will try to get to Deltaville for a day or so and visit with friends and after that, we’ll head for Florida, one day at a time.

Last night I put up the genoa and checked it. Awesome. We’ll be cruising with that sail for sure. The old one, the working jib is junky, and while it was ok, I couldn’t really coax much more out of it.

Between the main and genoa we should be able to pull 6 knots out of the boat without the engine. The mizzen sail is hopelessly stuck, and I’m going to need help getting it out of the mast. But, it is an ok sail.

I’m considering replacing both main and mizzen at some point in the future. Probably not new, but likely used sails. Then again, it will depend on the cost of new and used.

Refrigeration is not, and never has worked. JoAnne was good with that at first, now it’s a complaint. I guess that will be on our list to fix next or very, very soon.

With refrigeration we will need significantly more power than we have. That means more batteries, and a way to charge them. That means solar and a wind generator.

We have a small, 2kw gas powered Honda. It’s quiet, so it isn’t very noisy from a short distance from the boat. I had it running yesterday and couldn’t really detect the noise it made from a couple hundred feet away. So I can continue to use that as long as I can get gasoline.

The toilet in the back works. The Y valve is broken and everything always goes to the holding tank. That means pumpouts, docking, paying the costs, etc. The forward head toilet has a bad motor.

Electric toilets aren’t any fun. They are pretty new, but I’m either going to replace them, remove them, or make it so they can be both manual and electric or something. One more headache.

The former owner doesn’t know the size of the holding tank, but it seriously can’t be more than 20 gallons at most… if that. One more complaint JoAnne has.

Finally, there’s the bed.

The existing mattress is old and pretty much done for. It’s a closed cell foam of some kind. We bought a 3″ memory foam mattress I could modify to put in, and it worked. Now that is not so good. JoAnne spent the day at the boat show looking for some solution.

Priorities I guess.

Anyway, we will be moving on Sunday – I hope, or Monday at the latest.

We’ll figure out our plans for the boat as we go.

On the bright side, we met Linn Pardey today. She was nice and allowed us to have a picture taken with her.

We met Kurt Seastead – he’s the owner of the Facebook group for the Transworld Formosa 41s. Very nice man. We all walked around the boat show looking at things, kind of wandering around.

JoAnne and I had gotten there about an hour before him so we rushed over to purchase some headsets we need for anchoring. Neither of us can hear the other usually when trying to anchor the boat, so we got the headsets specifically for that job, though they are bluetooth and can be used on our tablets or computers for Skype too. They are charging now, we’ll test them before we actually need them.

Kurt went back into the show to look at boats. We moved on to get JoAnne out of the sun, and off her feet. We eventually came back to the area, stopped at Thursday’s for a beer, then came back to the boat.

Tomorrow I have to collect the new, spare alternator, get gas and diesel for the boat, prep a few things and take back the car we rented. Then we can leave.

That’s it for this update.

We arrived at Galesville, MD at the Hartge Yacht Harbor marina a few days ago to meet up with a friend of ours who took the time to drive up from Woodbridge, Va. It was much closer for us to stop here and him to drive than for us to head down to the Potomac and hope we could get far enough up river to make it convenient for him.

Instead, Phil went out of his way to drive up and deliver equipment we had left in his care, all intact and ready to go.

Thank you Phil!

In the mean time… a small tropical depression started developing off the coast of Africa, moving slowly westward, building in strength and speed until he was named Joaquin.

Personally, I feel the name is both ridiculous and laughable. In fact, I’m not even sure what the name means in whatever language from which it comes but it’s not even pronounced well in my opinion. But that’s just me I reckon. (Actually, none of that is terribly true, and I know that Joaquin is the Spanish version of a Hebrew name which has something to do with Jehovah – but none of that is here, nor there when I am writing.)

What Joaquin DOES mean to me is that it is currently a Category IV hurricane beating be the bejuzus out of the Bahamas at the moment. It’s also a storm that has been damned difficult for meteorologists and hurricane experts to tie down to any one particular path.

I’ve seen a dozen different models of the storm’s projected path and NONE of them coincide with a second one. This has been most unusual and strange for over the last few years I’ve been watching hurricanes with interest and studying them.

Apparently I missed the course on “stupid hurricanes with stupid names who won’t follow one stupid path”. Or something.

Joaquin, as of tonight is projected to slam into Bahamas some more tonight and tomorrow (and please keep those folks in your thoughts and prayers because the islands where it is centered are low islands and could be swept clean of life there…..)

Yesterday at 6pm the center of the storm was projected to come right up the center of the Chesapeake Bay and go right over our heads. Yikes. Eye and all. Tonight, as of the moment I copied and pasted that image above, it will miss us BY THAT MUCH.

Now, something you should all understand that cone is a cone of uncertainty actually. The eye can fall ANYWHERE within the cone. Including as far left as the edge. So, theoretically the eye/center could wind up coming to landfall anywhere from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia. Yuk.

Me not being an ancient mariner – ok, let me qualify that by saying my kids and grand kids think I am ancient, and technically I AM a mariner, but I’m not THE Ancient Mariner – I have little knowledge except book learnin’ about what to do in a hurricane. Most books say “Run like hell puny humans!”

Unfortunately, I’m both puny in comparison and stuck where I am sitting right now.

JoAnne is scared, a little bit. I’m calm, cool and collected and have faced many dangers in my life, but nothing quite like this. So, technically. I’m only “semi-petrified” at this point.

But to put things in perspective, JoAnne spent her day doing laundry, in a nice, warm, dry room up at the marina. Me, I stood or sat in the dinghy, sometimes with water over my ankles today (as it is raining like cats and dogs here) while I put rubber hose over all the lines connected to the mooring ball to prevent the lines from rubbing through.

I’ve added three lines to the ball in three different places, in the hopes that if one snaps, the other two will hang on for dear life, and if two go, that last one is the last, best hope for the boat.

I have two 50 pound anchors sitting there which, at a critical moment may be kicked off the boat into the water to hold us against a tidal surge.

That brings me to the critical moment. I’ll have to be on the boat for that.

I have rented a Jeep and JoAnne can flee. If it is looking bad, I’ll send her off to some place safe and I’ll stay here with a radio to run the engine if I have to drive it at a stand still against winds.

However, I do NOT foresee any of this happening.

When it comes right down to it I might chicken out, but I don’t think so. This boat is really all we have. I trust my luck (I dunno why, I’ve never won the big lotto….) to help the boat. The boat is our home. I can’t let the boat down and I can’t let JoAnne down.

I believe that John Casey once said of sailing that it is 90% boredom, 10% terror. Or words to that effect. So far, I’ve had my few moments of sheer terror when not one, but TWO ghost trawlers (not little ones mind you,. giant assed, Deadliest Catch boats with rigging extended to look like evil Transformer-Terminators who click on their lights after passing silently me 4 miles off the coast of New Jersey at 2 AM or so. I think they were being asses and saw me on radar and did what they did to scare me. They did.

My radar isn’t working…. what can I say.

This hurricane is not something that one can easily wrap their mind around. I’ve been in two before. Neither of them were that close, probably passing center about 90 nm distant. We got lots of rain, but not a lot of wind.

If we’re lucky, this will happen with Joaquin. If we’re not we get to experience sheer terror. Again.

I’m hoping for the former experience, not the latter.

So, this likely my last entry for a few days. The storm is due to be passing here about Tuesday now (was going to be Saturday, but it has slowed down and hasn’t yet turned this way).

We will be sitting on this mooring ball a few more days.

Saturday or Sunday I will begin removing the rest of the stuff topside. Any lines I can remove, all the canvas I can take down. I’m not going to worry about the safety lines because the boat has enough freeboard that a few wires aren’t going to make a bit of difference in the resistance.

And that my friends is that for now. I’ll be around Facebook on and off as I can, and my kids and family can reach either of on our phones or text messages as long as we have power to the surrounding area. When the power goes out, the cell towers will go dark not long after, so please be aware if we lose electricity to the local area we lose internet.

If we lose the cell towers, we’ll be out of communication until we can get a message out.

Remember this though, we’re hams and we’ll get a message out. One way or another.

When all else fails, Amateur Radio. 🙂

See you guys on the other side – unless I can publish before the hurricane hits. Oh. Expect pictures if I can get them safely.