Downeaster Yachts.com

My Most Recent ICW Experience

More and more lessons to be learned – dinghy towing can be hazardous

A passage from passage from Marathon FL to Fort Pierce

December 2009

I first became aware of Saffanah surfing E Bay and I first saw Saffanah at anchor in Boot Harbor in Marathon FL.  She is a 32 Downeast cutter built in the seventies in Costa Mesa CA, and definitely showed her age – weathered and crazed hull, sad canvas, lousy sails, no electronics, a busted motor and grungy water line.  But stepping aboard I immediately had the feeling she was a match for the West Sail 32 I had regretfully sold ten years ago.  And so once more I re-demonstrated the very first watery lesson learned (or very obviously never learned) – a fool and his money soon part.

A year later after having her hauled and stored at the Marathon Keys Marina and Boat Yard, and a few thousand dollars later, she was functionally ready to begin her trip to Jacksonville FL where I plan to address the cosmetic issues she so sorely needs.

So on the Day after Thanksgiving 2006 we motored out of Marathon circled the point and entered Hawk Channel.

We had planned to leave the Tuesday before Thanksgiving but a cold front blew through the Keys and even the task of provisioning for the trip was difficult with the wind and rain coming down in torrents.  I had never actually sailed Saffanah but knew in my heart she would handle as well as my West Sail.  But I did have a concern that the old Perkins, although very thoroughly reworked by the great diesel, David Brown, would be reliable.  David had cleaned the fuel tanks, replaced all hoses, rebuilt the water pump and alternator, and replaced the cutlass bearing.

I over the year’s period of time I had added new sails, new running rigging, new anchor gear, a new inverter charger, and a new Garmin 3210 with sounder.  So functionally Saffanah was well prepared.  But Tuesday and Wednesday and a large part of Thanksgiving day was consumed completing a punch list ranging from making certain we had running lights and an operable head, to checking out the refrigeration and installing the Garmin.  On Tuesday night a severe thunderstorm hit Boot Key Harbor, with a reported waterspout and 112 mph winds that damaged a number of boats at anchor and made sleeping a little difficult on Saffanah.   The storm passed but for the next five days winds were be from the north at 15 – 25 knots and gusts up to 34 knots.  Hawk channel and traversing the Florida Bay ICW both looked a little unattractive.  But at the end of the day, my crew reluctantly agreed that at least starting out in Hawk channel would put us on the lee of the keys and we would take the least amount of pounding on our trip northward to Jacksonville.

In all of my years I never had a real dinghy of my own, and as a result never had to contend with stowing a dinghy on deck, towing on a tether, or using davits.  Since Saffanah now has an Aries wind vane attached to her stern, and I had no money or time for davits, we did not use davits.  Were I to single hand, the dinghy would be stowed,   My dinghy perspective is dinghies are a cost savings device, allowing one to freely anchor and yet conveniently reach shore.

Although I preferred to deflate the new dinghy, my crew, my brother-in-law adamantly stated that if we go off shore (Hawk Channel is not really off shore in my mind) we must have the dinghy ready to transport us to safety should Saffanah decide to unexpectedly sink – so the dinghy (aptly named Pee Wee) tagged along hanging on with a make shift tether constructed with a couple of floats and a old Genoa sheets.  The goal was to avoid, at all costs, catching the dinghy tether in the prop.

Drawing upon all of my lessons learned over the past thirty years, I do understand this fool and his money do continue to part.  But this time Saffanah and her repairs and up grades were completed far below market value.  In terms of crew compatibility, however, I forgot to read that lesson chapter in my lessons learned book.  My brother-in-law is an experience power boater and a pilot of sorts, but has never set foot on a sailboat.  He and I share different perspectives of watery traveling and so our passage was a mutual test of diplomacy regardless of the situation presented or the fundamental being addressed.

Friday morning we left the fuel dock and I decided that if I made Snake Creek by that evening, we could decide either to continue off shore sailing over night to reach Biscayne Bay in the morning or cut across Snake Creek and move up the ICW.  The decision would be made by the weather.  If wind was more northeasterly and we could sail close hauled we would continue with an overnight sail.  And if the wind came more from the north and continued at 20 knots, we would cut over to the ICW.   Snake Creek is about fourth miles northeast of Marathon – so roughly 8 hours of motor sailing would get us there just before dusk.

So off we went, Pee Wee happily following perfectly on our bow wave, just like the “Annapolis Book or Seamanship” suggests.  The Garman was working impressively, and both the new Garmin sounder as well as the old Standard Horizon sounder seemed to synchronize. The engine purred (thank you David) and Saffanah took to the three to five foot seas just like I expected her to do.  We were enough off the wind that I raised the staysail in the twenty knot breeze but only after a very strenuous exercise as my crew kept falling off the wind and heading into the lumpy sea.  But ultimately I was able to get the staysail up, come into the wind and get both a little power and a little stability out of it,

We watched the Garmin, now named Einstein, as Saffanah held steady at five to five and half knots, a good rate for a little 32 foot, 19,000 pound full keel off-shore boat pounding into a head wind and heavy seas.  About three hours into our run our speed suddenly dropped to 2 knots.  The engine was doing its job, the staysail was full and my heart skipped a few beats.  Had we not tightened the prop nut? Oh brother – at least I have towing insurance.  Then my brother-in-law looked back at Pee Wee and shouted “Pee Wee has snagged a crab trap!”  Sure enough, there about twenty feet behind Pee Wee floated a crab trap and the traps buoy very clearly had become entangled in my perfectly fabricated vee shaped tether with the floats attached.

Thankfully, the skies were clear, the temperature of the air and water were both close to eighty degrees and at 68 in shape enough to jump into Pee Wee, fight with the snagged crab trap float and free both the trap and Pee Wee after struggling for an hour or so.   But in the haste to free Pee Wee Saffanah turned to the South and the staysail did its job of retracing our previous path.  So we ended up losing two hours or better.  By the way I did not open the trap to see if there was a crab that we could later enjoy.

As my brother-in-law pointed out the rest of the day, the season for crabs is November to April in the keys and boaters should be aware of snagging crab traps.  Sometimes “me thinks the water way guide sometimes passes out a little too much information”.  So the rest of the day we switched roles as helmsman and crab trap spotter, a taxing activity in three to five foot seas.

Pee Wee’s adventure cost us some time to say the least so in addition to sweating crab traps I began to develop my anxiety of reaching Snake Creek before dusk.  I knew that sailing at night up Hawk Channel with crab traps galore was not going to work and the winds were not going to die down for another few days. Thus ICW become our route for the next day, and putting a marina or anchoring in for the night was a logical decision.

Also at about five o’clock in the evening Saffanah’s engine seemed to have a very slight seizure, taking a very uncomfortable deep breath before recovering and returning to her normal reassuring hum.  She did that about thirty minutes later and once again as we headed into port.  So my confidence was a little on the shaky side as we headed up the channel and I immediately began the search for marinas.

Unfortunately my search quickly reveled a problem, and one I should have recognized long before ever leaving port.  The problem was that the ocean side marinas in the keys struggled to handle drafts of four feet, and Saffanah drew four foot nine inches.  So as dusk approached and I called various marinas south of Snake Creek, each resisted accommodating us since we would enter their channels at low tide.  As the sun set and darkness took over, we radioed Paradise Isle Resort, and thankfully they could accommodate us as long as we stayed in their channel. So with the help of Einstein and my brother-in-law waving a hand flash light, we anxiously but without incident entered Paradise Isle at about 8 PM.

The next morning, we motored out the Paradise Island channel, and about a mile later we crossed over at Snake Creek and to my brother-in-laws disgruntlement headed up the ICW to Biscayne Bay.  The same route I had covered in a power boat about 10 years ago.  I like this route because there are long stretches of open water but the mangroves add a great deal of character. The wind had dropped to 10 knots or less because we remained in the lee of most of the mangroves and Einstein advised us of every bend in the road and every marker along the way.

In the afternoon we entered Biscayne Bay and about four PM we began to see the skyline of Miami.  I had forgotten just how wide Biscayne Bay is, and so as we assessed our position, we scrapped our decision to head into a marina on the west side of the bay and decided that because Einstein had done such a great job the night before, we would carry on and stop over at the Coral Gables City Marina.  But we would arrive after seven, and on that day sunset was 5:36 PM. As we had done the night before,  we would have to spot markers with a light and rely fully on Einstein – not the smartest thing to do in a strange port.

As we near Miami in the dusk Saffanah’s engine took another hair raising deep breath, and recovered only to do so a few minutes later.  But this time I took a stab analyzing the problem. Saffanah had been constructed with two fuel tanks, a sixty gallon tank directly beneath the galley sole and a 17 gallon tank in the cockpit locker.  David, a great mechanic in Marathon, had installed a three way valve in Saffanah’s fuel line that would allow us to switch between tanks.  He was concerned about the larger tank initially, and so we had been drawing from the smaller tank rather than the larger one.  So when engine took yet a third deep breath, I rotated the valve and whoopee no more engine seizures.  Thank goodness because by this time it was getting pretty dark.

With the engine once again purring smoothly, and with only a little anxiety we slowly motored in to the marina, and quietly tied up at our previously reserved slip, the Coral Gables skyline well lit in the background. Pretty, pretty place! Nice marina, loud band at the local tike bar.

Next day the weather forecast was great – a large high pressure area had become stationary over south Florida and winds would be steady out of the north at 15 mph.  Not so great for heading out of Governors Channel but perfect to go up the bridge laden ICW – so once again against the wishes of my crew, we headed up the ICW, watch in hand, hoping for the hour and the half our or the quarter past and quarter till.  There are a lot of bridges! I mean a lot of bridges! While my brother-in-law was a trooper, he did repeatedly remind me as we waited for every bridge to open the time lost had we not gone off shore.

Light house Point was once again a night entrance after seven in the evening and after clearing umpteen bridges.  But the bridge angst was well off set with a dinner at a local island speakeasy only accessible by boat.  The next day after tightening an alternator belt, freeing a seized fitting on the pump out and filling the galley tank, we headed out for the next twenty or so bridges, arriving in Palm Beach about four thirty.

The day started out ok, but at the North Palm Beach – Parker Bridge, we just missed the opening and had to circle for a half hour.  Just as the bridge opened for us, Pee Wee’s tether decided that it had enough of avoiding the prop and bang just as we started to enter the bridge, we had no power.  We were about 200 yards on the south side in six feet of water. So the anchor went over, I stripped down to bare bones, and the next hour was spent cutting loose the half inch halyard that I had used to manufacture the tether.  Thankfully, I had previously purchased a prescription diving mask, since in my old age everything is just a blur without my glasses, and in the murky water I could clearly see the tangle and use a knife to once again free Pee Wee.  Needless to say, Pee Wee is now deflated and stowed on the foredeck of Saffanah regardless of my brother-in-laws admonitions.

Clearing the bridge an hour later, we decided that an early evening was in store and I began to obsess over the potential of a 30 minute hot shower

In all my years of traveling the ICW, I have rarely been disappointed in a marina.  In the early years, some were not appointed very well, but, if so, the service and the welcome more than offset the lack of amenity or aesthetics.   But in Palm Beach, the marinas must definitely accommodate Wall Street millionaires and certainly behave with an equivalent level of arrogance.  After being advised that most marinas would not accommodate anything fewer than fifty feet, the Palm Harbor Marina, MM1023, welcomed us with open arms. Great ad in the water way guide, showers, fuel, restaurant.  As we pulled in we noticed few boats at what appeared to be brand new floating docks.  The dock master greeted us and as we tied up apologized that he had to charge for a fifty foot slip and by the way the restrooms and showers had not yet been constructed, the restaurant had not been constructed, and there was no fuel.  And if we wanted power we would have to rent his 50 to 30 amp splitter for fifty bucks.

It was late, and I did not want to go on another 15 miles so we stayed, the harbor master did cut me a $10 dollar break on the slip and finally rented the splitter for only $10 additional. However, I do have some advice to the owner of the marina, who by the way lives on 125 footer in the unfinished marina.  You can clip a man’s hair all of his life but you can scalp him only once.  Even if I do hit the lottery and my next boat costs 20 million bucks it will be a cold day in you know where before I ever put in to the Palm Harbor Marina at MM1023 again!

On Tuesday we made it to Nettles Island just before the forecast thirty to forty knot southerly wind began to blow with all of its might.  Tied up broad side to a fixed dock, the night was likely one of the most unpleasant nights I have ever spent on a boat.  The boat tossed and turned, the waves slapped the beam of the boat with astounding bangs and we spent every hour or so adjusting the lines and fenders.

My brother-in-law had to return to Atlanta the next day and Fort Pierce seemed a likely stopping point that would allow me to return to our business for a few days, and then set off for Jacksonville after Christmas.

So at 6 AM we designed a clever little spring line and in spite of the 30 knot breeze holding us against the dock, we pulled off just like a power boat pro would do it. With that feisty breeze now at our backs the ride up the Indian River past the Ft. Pierce Inlet took only a couple hours, and today Saffanah is safely snuggled into a slip in Harbor town Marina.

Next week I will change fuel filters and do few little things to make ready to head to head up right after the Christmas Holiday.

Twenty years after my first ICW Experience

Are there yet more lessons to be learned?

Fog is not fun!

A passage from Daytona Beach to St Petersburg FL

St Lucie Canal/Okeechobee/Caloosahatchee/Gulf Coast ICW

For a few years I kept my boat in Daytona Beach.  While Daytona Beach offers Bike Week, NASCAR, a great beach with hard bodies, and the World Series of Softball, for a sailor the place has a big limitation.  St Augustine and Ponce Inlets offer the closest access to the Atlantic Ocean and in either direction several bascule bridges and an hour or two of motoring must be addressed before an inlet is reached.  So for several years Threshold was more of a floating condominium than a sailboat, and I stayed on board a couple days a week.

Orlando is centered between Daytona and Tampa/St Petersburg and I had debated both options heavily with the decision to put my name on the St Petersburg City Marina waiting list hoping for a slip to open.

My mother always admonished me, “be careful about what you ask for – you may get it” and true to form one day I received the unexpected telephone call from the St Petersburg City Marina, “you have a slip next month if you want it.”   Without out question this marina is one of the most appealing locations along the east coast; similar to ones in downtown Baltimore or in Miami and Ft Lauderdale’

Located in the refurbished sections of downtown St Petersburg one can enjoy the ambiance of a beautiful city and yet have a great bay or harbor to day-sail with little restriction – direct access to Tampa Bay and unrestricted access to the Gulf of Mexico.  So Threshold had only a month to get from Daytona to St Petersburg otherwise no day sailing in Daytona.

One can very easily see there are several routes that can be chosen for such a passage.  Go to the Keys and then take a hard right turn or take the across Florida route and the Gulf ICW up to Tampa Bay.  I wanted to see Lake Okeechobee and I was not certain that my weather windows would allow enough time for me to travel off shore to Key West and then up to St Petersburg, Also I did have to work so if I traveled the ICW and the canal across Florida, I could always tie up in a local marina and return to Orlando for a few days, then return to pick up the next leg.

So the route was determined and in April of 2001 Threshold moved from Daytona to Titusville and ultimately arriving at Indian town on the St Lucie Canal.  Outside of the fact we had a strong northerly breeze that allowed us to sail downwind the entire stretch of the Indian River at five plus knots using the engine only to maneuver bridges.

The trip to Indiantown was uneventful with the exception my crew this time included my oldest daughter who had very profound recollections of Captain’s Bligh and Ahab adventures in Charleston Harbor twenty years earlier.   But for her this time she admitted that Captains Bligh and Ahab were not in charge of Threshold – and that did make her much happier.

And along the way we were able to repay the debt I owed to the amorous captain and his mate twenty years earlier off the beach of St John’s Island in Charleston South Carolina.

As we passed Titusville and headed down the Indian River we came up on a small power boat stranded in the channel tied to a day beacon.  The boat included a frantic dad, a crying mom and a couple of little children.  The engine would not start, it was getting dark and they were worried.  One of my crew members was a mechanic who had come along for the day. He had grown up on the Indian River and new every detail that needed to be known about channels spoils and thin spots in the water.  So we began to tow the stranded boat to a marina he knew, and he jumped into the powerless boat.  By the time we were within a mile of our destination, he had the stalled engine running; all ended with the little boat heading into port and Threshold continuing down the ICW.

I guess sooner or later “what goes around comes around”.

The spring weather ran warm and cool and the evening we arrived in Indiantown a fog began to set within an hour after we tied up to the transient dock.  The St Lucie canal is exactly that, relatively narrow and high banks define the shoreline.  There was no need for day beacons because you could not stray from the channel.  So with that in mind, early the next morning we cast off our lines and motored out of the marina and into the canal although the fog had not lifted and seeing the bow of the boat was difficult.   But I knew all would be ok.   After all what was the worst that could happen?  We run into a bank?

My crew at the time was a very sweet lady I had married in the early 1980’s so she had been with me for twenty years and knew my personally very well.  But even with such wifely understanding she would repeatedly question me saying “Is it safe out her with the heavy fog?  How can you see anything?  Would it not have been smart to stay a little longer in the marina and let the fog lift?”    Rest assured, I reassured her that no one else would be out her and what is the worst that can happen? We turn left instead of right and we bounce off the bank.

But somewhere around the third or fourth reassurance, she asked “do you hear that motor, what is that noise?’  The question did register in my mind and thankfully the fog broke just enough for me to see a big, black, undefined lump heading directly toward us – a commercial barge.  Who would have thought that a commercial barge would be in the St Lucie canal?  Or better yet, who in their right mind would have not stopped to read about the barge traffic on the St Lucie canal before entering the canal in a heavy fog?

There are now many volumes to the Lessons Learned Book – obviously I am a very prolific writer to have created such a thick book with so many chapters and anecdotes.

Once again the barge captain was way ahead of my game and made a slight starboard turn while I did the same. We cleared port to port with little room to spare.  But the rest of the trip and the rest of all my future trips will certainly remind me that the ICW can allow lull even the most experienced captain into a cavalier state of mind and a sense of entitlement and over confidence.

We then came to the infamous railroad bridge – and the lake at the time was high. So our 52 foot mast would not clear the bridge.  We had earlier called the local “boat tipper” and with a handful of barrels on our starboard deck, a halyard attached to the Boat Tippers work barge, Threshold developed a sixteen degree starboard heel. Once heeled the “boat tippers” captain shouted “hit it with full power and do not hesitate”, Threshold and the “boat tippers” barge simultaneously powered under the bridge, neither arriving on the other side any worse for wear.  We paid our $75 “tipping fee”, the crew emptied and removed the barrels, handed us two, aluminum foil wrapped bacon and egg breakfasts and disappeared into the fog.

A couple hundred yards later we entered the lock to Lake Okeechobee with the fog now so heavy we could not see the gates at the end of the lock.  The lock master closed the entrance gate, and a few minutes later the lake side gate opened exposing a monolithic wall of grey despite all of my assurances to my now concerned crew “By the time we clear the lock the fog will have lifted and we can enjoy a nice ride across the lake”.  The lock master did graciously offer to allow us to tie up the some pilings a few yards into the lake, he too suggesting we wait until the fog lifted before we crossed the lake.

But I now had confidence in the little monochromatic Garmin GPS, and the fact the lake was above normal depths, so my ego just could not accept the lock masters offer, and the little Perkins began to hum at 1800 rpm and Threshold ran on at 5 knots toward the little electronic dot displayed on the monochromatic Garmin screen.

At five knots a passage across the lake will take a few hours – five to seven depending upon your ability to spot day beacons. So we likely averaged three or four because if I felt lost or concerned I could not visually spot the marker shown on the Garmin screen I would cut the speed in half and navigate using the depth sounder.

Every twenty minutes I would deliberately make the pronouncement “the fog will lift shortly” – that is at least three times per hour for those not so mathematically inclined.  And every hour passed with increasing frustration that the fog had not lifted.  We could hear power boats pass by us and feel their wake but we could not see them.  The GPS worked great and we found every day beacon even though we could see the less than 100 feet away.

We entered the lake somewhere around 10 AM and the fog finally lifted at about 2:30 PM, just in enough time for us to see the rim of the lake and get a sense of the environment that I wanted to so badly see.  We locked down into the Caloosahatchee River around 5PM and tied up to the first marina in sight – it might have been the only one in Moorehaven at the time.

For some reason that escapes me, I seem to write new chapters in my Lessons Learned Book, only to then not practice what I preached in the old chapters.  Overconfidence, a misplaced sense of skill, a cavalier attitude, or just plain stupidity seems to consistently erase many of my lessons learned.  Traveling in fog regardless of the level and sophistication of electronics and the crews experience should never be taken lightly.  Likewise traveling at night along lanes that have commercial traffic should be avoided – again regardless of the electronic sophistication or ability to interpret the blotches, dots and pings.  GPS, Radar, AIS and VHF definitely are great tools.  But electronics do not replace common sense and do not compensate for the boater who lacks both electronics and common sense a very easy lesson to be overlooked or ignored.

The next day was idyllic traveling down the Caloosahatchee River through the sugar cane fields and large pastures of cattle.  Few navigation skills were necessary until arriving in Ft Meyers and the trip from a seamanship perspective was simple, but once again the scenery and serenity did more than offset the lack of nautical challenges.  One note – sugar cane fields are set afire after the cane is harvested and by the time we arrived in Ft Meyers Threshold was covered with ashes.

We left the boat in a Ft Meyers marina and two weeks later Threshold was setting in her new slip at the St Petersburg marina. Her crew spent many evening watching the sun set through the St Petersburg skyline and many weekends day sailing Tampa Bay.   The passage up the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway was little different than that of the ICW south of St. Lucie, narrow channels, some congestion and many beautiful homes.  No particular events stand out in my mind outside of the continuum of the previous 1,200 miles or so of this endearing watery highway

A couple of years later someone walked up to Threshold’s slip made an unsolicited offer to buy her at a price that was hard to resist, and to this day I miss Threshold much more than I miss my ex wife.  But new chapters begin where old ones quit and there remain many more lessons to be learned.

Twenty years after my first ICW Experience

Are there yet more lessons to be learned?

A passage from Baltimore MD to Norfolk VA

1999 once again gave me the opportunity to revisit the very first watery lesson that I had learned – a fool and his money soon part.  Another windfall bonus, a great Annapolis yacht broker, and a West Sail 32, which this time was a real “sail away’ package, all came together in the back yard of “Threshold’s owner.  I was commuting from Atlanta to Washington DC, and any reasonable pragmatist could see the economics of living on a sailboat at the Shem Creek Marina in Annapolis and traveling back home on the weekends.  Pretty doggone logical decision in my mind.  And, God forbid, should the job transfer me someplace else, good ol’ Threshold could easily move with me.  Sweet!

And this time I had charts and a monochromatic hand held Garmin GPS so getting from Baltimore to Shem Creek in Annapolis posed few navigational problems.  Only one bridge to pass – Shem Creek.  I picked up the boat at the local marina after the survey and paid for a fresh bottom job and with all of the confidence in the world, stepped into the cockpit, started the engine, cast off the lines and fifty yards later ran aground on the sand bark that the yard foreman had previously warned me about.

But Threshold was strong and had a powerful Perkins engine with a three blade prop and the twenty year old lessons learned from the ICW immediately returned to my mind. Simply turn the tiller full port, pointing the bow to what I thought to be deep water and gun the Perkins.  Thankfully, the marina had a little power boat with a tow line and shortly, after listening to the yard superintendent’s instructions for the second or third or fourth time, Threshold was now in 10 feet of water and heading to Annapolis, hopefully, with no further embarrassments to be levied upon her by her new Captain.

Six months later, I learned my company was going to relocate to Orlando FL, and I had a month to get settled in the Sunshine State.   Of course the news broke my heart, but then again there are many alligators and crocodiles in Florida and crocodile tears are of such a common occurrence that no one would take heed to my protestations.  But how to get Threshold to where she needed to be was a bit of a concern since I could not make the junket in one single leg, and I did not have my crew of twenty years ago.  Long ago I learned to appreciate the second hand to spell me at the helm, spot day beacons, and help me tie up or anchor at night and fix a welcome PBJ sandwich and a cup of hot coffee.

Also ICW mile marker 0 was still 140+ miles away and I was not familiar with the Chesapeake shore line.  Even then Daytona was another 830 statute miles after that.  Let me see, at 50 miles per day and a thousand miles to go, even that fellow in China would find a single handed trip a little daunting.  So it dawned upon me that I had a bunch of frequent flyer miles, a handful of college chums who had retired and had little on their work plates, and I had a need.

So the trip was planned. At Annapolis, Norfolk, Cape Fear, Charleston, and Daytona, a new crew would fly in and an old crew would depart.  I would cover the expenses (mostly frequent flyer passes), and the trip would be spread out over the course of a month to allow me to attend to work as well as pleasure.

On July 3 1998, Threshold left Shem Creek and headed to Norfolk – a passage of, give or take, one hundred thirty miles.  For the passage I had two crew, Jim and Jack, both of which had never been on an off shore sailboat, and, as I soon learned, were unequivocally incompatible with each other.  The concepts of port and starboard, tack and jibe, main sail and jib were foreign to both.  So I decided that before we made the trip down the Chesapeake we would have some early morning sailing and boat handling lessons.

The wind was brisk – 15 to 20 knots and Threshold was a cutter with hanked-on staysail and jib.  Jim had some experience sailing a West Wright Potter but Jack knew “jack little” about sail boats or any boats for that matter, and probably to this day has little regret about his lack of this kind of knowledge.  Regardless we did our thing, discussing sails and running rigging, and sheets and the like and before I realized it we were still sailing within four miles of Annapolis at three in the afternoon.

I had been watching the weather, and while I knew a Bermuda high was settling in off shore of Norfolk, there would be a significant possibility of a thunderstorm that evening.  So after having all of the fun we could have learning how to sail a heavy boat in 15 knot breezes we doused the sails, stowed the stowables, fixed a light dinner of pasta and I took the helm and pointed the bow toward Norfolk.

As the sun began to set we could see the fireworks of both Baltimore and Washington in the night sky, and while Jack and Jim were ogling at their splendor, we could also see the outline of the thunderheads in the same sky.  At that moment, I suddenly realized that this would be their first night time sailing experience and a shudder ran up my back.

Both were tired from working the sails that day so both sat in the cockpit, backs to the bow and watched the darkening horizon over the stern of the boat.  For a while I thought they were mesmerized by the moment, but suddenly both headed for the scuppers at the same moment, up chucking their pasta.

Seasickness is no joke.  It is a terrible feeling no matter who you are and it is debilitating. We were then thirty miles down the Chesapeake and it was dark, the wind and seas building into a nasty and sloppy chop.  I was raining and there was some lighting. I had not planned for an emergency port, and did not want to turn around and go back to Annapolis.  And I had not followed the precaution of knowing my crew properly.

So I did only what I could do.  I put on my foul weather gear; stowed Jack and Jim down below and sat at the helm for the next six hours.  No, Threshold did not have an autopilot or wind vane, and yes every ten minutes I checked the monochromatic GPS and watched the compass like a hawk watches for a field mouse and marked our position on a paper chart.

At about three AM after the storm had passed, Jack and Jim found their sea legs, and joined me in the cockpit.  Jim relieved me at the helm and Jack reluctantly spelled him every so often.  After a quick cup of coffee and confident that they could stay on course, I decided to jump into the quarter berth to grab a few winks, hoping to wake up at dawn and prepare to enter Norfolk that afternoon.

I dozed off only to wake up to hear Jack and Jim arguing.  “Should we go between them?”  “No, go around them” “No they are too close, we need to go between them” and the argument began to heat up with a lot of profanity thrown in just to spark excitement.  Needless to say, I went up on deck and looked forward only to see us heading straight for the beam of a north bound container ship.  I knocked the helm to starboard, gunned the engine and we missed the freighter by no more than 50 yards, its wake throwing Threshold every way conceivable a few seconds later.  Both had seen only the two white mast lights and nothing else and were heading for the gap in between.

Needless to say, I stayed in the cockpit the balance of the night and about 3:00 PM we tied up at a Marina in Norfolk.  Little was said about the incident twelve hours earlier, but a huge collection of lessons went into the lesson book.   Do not transit the Chesapeake at night in a small boat unless well equipped with VHF, GPS, AIS and Radar and then only if you know how to operate such equipment proficiently.  Know your crew and make certain all are compatible – incompatibility can lead to disaster not simply hurt feelings.  And plan your trip with an emergency port in mind.

Looking back, the trip was enjoyable and we felt a sense of accomplishment.  The one scary incident received little discussion and chagrin was contained within each individual.  But I did put my crew in danger, risked my boat, and if we were to have hit that freighter no one would have known our fate since I did not file a sail plan with anyone.

Traveling the coastal waterways in a pleasure boat requires a sense of responsibility and I was not responsible that evening.  It could have cost us our lives; a big lesson to learned by all taking such a trip.

A Beginners Sailor’s Lessons Learned

Another dozen or so lessons learned

A passage from Charleston SC to St Augustine FL

On March 15, 1979 I prepared for my first trip in S/V Paramour.

Unexpectedly a new job required us to relocate from Charleston SC to Jacksonville FL and the S/V Paramour and I could not stand a hundred and sixty miles separation.  So the decision – off shore or ICW –  had to be made and a new St Augustine marina just under construction was selected to become Paramour’s new home.

And, the one hundred sixty miles to be traveled? I will admit it today. I did get a quote to truck the boat to Jacksonville.  But once my now ex-wife saw the quote; I quickly reconsidered that thought.  After all, as she put it to me, was I not prepared and confident enough to move the boat myself?  Obviously that answer had to be yes – although quite privately, I had never looked at any chart outside of the one I had for the Charleston Harbor.  And despite all of the weekend harbor sailing, I had never actually passed between the Charleston Harbor’s jetties, and I had no clue where the ICW entered or exited the Charleston Harbor.  But I did know a lot of stuff.  I mean, after all, it is red right returning – right? – But, does that mean right retuning to the sea or from the sea?  Day beacons, mile markers, bridges, currents and tides?  Well all can be learned just as I had learned about anchoring a few months ago.

Thankfully, my nervous marina neighbor next to me was a reasonable man and a good listener and offered a couple of suggestions, after hearing that I planned to single handedly sail off shore to St. Augustine.  His first, but diplomatically phrased, suggestion was that I needed at least one crew member to travel with me – and in light of my previous anchoring experience it was a reasonable assumption that my now ex-wife and children would not fill that position.  Luckily, the day before he had noticed a young man wondering around the marina who was seeking passage south.  My marina neighbor explained that the young man professed to have traveled from Norfolk on various boats, was a writer and artist, and was working his way to Key West.

His second suggestion took into light my limited experience sailing off shore and posed a trip down the ICW as a more appropriate path to St. Augustine.

So in one little brief conversation a multiplicity of problems was simultaneously solved and the decision to travel the ICW was made.  The young man had a way to get to Jacksonville for free – that was especially important when I realized later he had no money on his person whatsoever and “working his way” had a different meaning in his vocabulary than my interpretation of the word.  I had a crew with experience.  The marina diplomatically removed an unwelcomed vagabond from their docks.  My marina neighbor managed to move a boating hazard far, far away from his boat.  My now ex-wife would not have to renege on her promise never to step aboard that !@#$ boat again.  And Paramour and I would reunite once again in St. Augustine.  A win-win for all.  Wow!

As an owner and captain of Paramour, I believed there was an unwritten law of the sea that states the owner/captain must know everything – even if he does not know anything at all.  I truly believed that “fake it until you can make it” is a very important rule of seamanship.  Fortunately my new crew was very cognizant of this rule and had refined the unique skill and art of finessing a captain who stringently adhered to this rule.

For example, when my new crew realized we had no charts or waterway guide on board, he quietly suggested we visit a local chandlery to see if there were anything HE needed for our trip and then very carefully managed to nudge me toward the chart cabinet and engaged the local salesman in a conversation espousing the benefits of a waterway guide and the necessity of having charts of the various South Carolina and Georgia harbors and sounds at the boats navigation station.   He also subtly surveyed Paramour to make certain the “sail away” package did not need to be supplemented, made sure the previously unused VHF really worked, and all of the Coast Guard required safety gear was aboard.  He even studied the galley offering suggestions, that, while he had little need for nourishment, I may not share his low metabolic rate, and proper provisioning on board would be a great enhancement should we be delayed before we could reach the local McDonalds along the way.

In 1979, loran and radio direction finders were the primary navigation tools of the coastal sailor and the sextant and dead reckoning were the tools of choice for the off shore sailor,  The only towing service was the US Coast Guard – no Towboat US and there were no clear plastic sleeves to protect paper charts.  But the Waterway Guide was published and definitely contained all the information one needed “to stay between the banks of the ICW” until your destination was reached.  I did not own a Loran or RDF at the time.  But thankfully the Sail-Away Package did include a depth finder.

So at 4:00 AM the crew and I awoke, allowed the diesel glow plug to do its thing, and by sun-up we were setting southbound in the ICW in a channel known as the Wappoo Cut.  At ebb tide and with no wind, the water was glassy and still.  I could hear on the VHF a barge coming from the south calling the Wappoo Bridge tender and I knew the barge was ready to enter the cut. How perfect!  All we had to do was wait for the barge to pass and we could go through the bridge without waiting for it to close and re-open – except Paramour’s Yanmar diesel engine suddenly sputtered and died – flat dead in the middle of a narrow cut known for rushing currents and a high tidal range and with a commercial tug heading our way.

Thankfully, the Charleston Coast Guard station is located about four hundred yards from the cut, Paramour’s VHF radio was working, and the Captain of the commercial barge was able to slow his speed.  With my sense of humility and chagrin fully engaged, the Coast Guard towed us back to the marina, where later a local mechanic shared the simple technique of bleeding air out of diesel fuel line and how to never allow air to get there in the first place.  High among lessons to be learned is an understanding of the mechanical and electrical knowledge of one’s boat and how to diagnose problems to avoid future lessons in humility and general chagrin avoidance.

The next morning, and with less bravado, my crew and I set the same course, but with no barges this time, a complete set of tools on board, and with a happy engine we passed the Wappoo Bridge and headed for what was to be the most beautiful and serine trip that would be replayed again and again in my mind for so many years to come.  The saltwater marshes, the Georgia and South Carolina sounds, the long uninhabited stretches of coastal wetlands, cut indelible lines in my mind.  The sound of the rush of millions of shrimp passing the boats hull, porpoise meandering beside us, birds and more birds and the sometimes onerous but distinctive smells of the tidal flats all remain in my mind as distinctively and rich as they did on those days of March 1979 when if first experience them.

With stops in Beaufort, Savannah, Fernandina Beach and Jacksonville, St Augustine proved to be a short leg which I easily single handed. But the memories of those five days seem to have spanned a lifetime.

And my crew?  He set the stage for me to get a grip on the seriousness but accompanying simplicity of ICW travel.  How to track progress on a chart, how to look for day beacons, where to expect cross currents and how to use the tide to an advantage – or at least how not become frustrated when the tide was not to an advantage.  How to time your passages and how to resist the urge to travel a night just to meet a schedule are fundamental to ICW travel.  I learned the rules of the road first hand, the need to line up with range markers.  And patience?  I remember the first day, after passing the Wappoo Cut Bridge, we had traveled almost four hours when suddenly I realized we were passing the road on which I had owned a house (Summerville SC).  A short commute by car but a four ride down the Intracoastal Waterway.  I thought of the Chinese proverb of a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step at a time and that it is going to take four days to travel the same distance that I traveled in my car in four hours.  We will never get to St. Augustine at this rate I thought.

As to my crew, I have long forgotten his name.  I often wondered if he were able to hitch the rest of the ride to Key West.  He maintained a diary and a sketch book – he seemed to be a great artist and truly appreciated the trip.   I hope he was successful and, if by some fluke of chance he were to read this blog, he would come to understand how much I appreciated and continue to treasure the gift he gave me at the time.  I hope he was successful in his endeavors and have a hunch that he was.

As for the S/V Paramour, she remains in the St Augustine Comanche Cove Marina to this day.  Ultimately my wife and I divorced and a part of the settlement was the sale of Paramour to a local in St Augustine.   I did have some chances to sail Paramour off shore – Bermuda and the Bahamas.  But my next experience on the ICW would have to wait nearly twenty years.