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 […]
If you are going to travel the ICW or sail anywhere in the world, anchoring knowledge is a big deal. And by the time I was ready to make my first trip I did know a lot about anchoring before heading for St Augustine. Let me explain. A few months earlier, I made an attempt to renew my boating bond with my crew promising a very tranquil afternoon on a remote St, Johns Island beach – no authoritative command shouting, no raising the sails, simply motoring through a local knowledge cut and anchoring just off the beach and a short dinghy ride to where we could have a picnic lunch and enjoy serenity and privacy. Pretty clever way of selling the sailing life and re-bonding with my crew, huh? What could go wrong? Thankfully an anchor and rode was a part of the sail-away package.
The day did start out pretty well – we found the “local knowledge cut” in the Charleston Harbor jetty just like the locals said and a couple miles later, I dropped the anchor, and Captain and crew went happily ashore. For a while it was bliss until suddenly my littlest daughter innocently asked “where is the boat daddy”. Well the boat was in sight but about a half mile from where it should be – obviously a case of anchor dragging. But what to do about the problem was a bit of a quandary.
As I ran down the beach I thought about the Annapolis Book of Seamanship laying next to the couch in my house and vowed, once the present crises was resolved, I would diligently re-read each of the […]
Before I can share my first trip, I must explain how I became the gained the basic knowledge I think necessary to make a first trip of a couple thousand miles.
As a boy growing up in the cornfields of Indiana, visions of oceans and seas and rivers were ingrained in my mind by my grandfather – a Danish immigrant and a North Sea eel fisherman. Although I would have wait for college spring break in Ft Lauderdale to get my first glimpse of emerald and blue salt water, his stories of the sea and the transatlantic passage from Denmark on a wooden schooner gave me a leg up on all other wannabe sailors of the world. So in 1978 I found myself at the yacht brokerage dock in Charleston, South Carolina, writing a check for a brand new Hunter 30 – the FIRST and most primary of the many watery lessons I have learned – A FOOL AND HIS MONEY SOON PART.
Now mind you, I had never sailed before – no prior Sunfish experience, no prior Hobie Cat experience, no romantic, captained, chartered, sunset dinner cruise on a tranquil bay, not even one hour’s practice sailing a remote controlled boat on a little pond. But armed with my grandfather’s legacy, many evenings of arm chair sailing with the Hiscocks and Joshua Slocum, and the broker’s “personal assurance” that thirty footers are much, much easier and forgiving to sail than little sailboats like Hobie Cats and Snarks, I found it easy to part with the windfall bonus I had received from my company the day before.
After all the broker did promise that he would […]
April 8th we finally left Puerto Vallarta. Next stop the Marquesas Islands. We were treated to quite a send off with a dolphin show that “Sea World” could not have produced.
Factor in that immediatly after the show, the fishing reel started to whine and Phoebe called it, fish on! We had snaged a 65 pound marlin. Phoebe had been requesting one our entire time in Mexico and here it is. Normally we would not keep a marlin but we had a minor mishap with our freezer. We defrosted the freezer prior to reloading it with weeks of prepared and frozen food. The problem was that we forgot to turn the thermostat back up. Thus Emma and her Mom’s week of provisioning, preparation and pre-hard freezing went to waste. Thus the marlin was pure luck and we enjoyed every bite.A couple days later near the Socoro Islands, we were visited by the Mexican Navy. The Captain requested to send a boarding party over to examine our “papers” upon my respose that our papers are ready for his inspection, he kindly declined and wished us a pleasent voyage.
On our crossing we only saw two other ships. One was a Chinese tanker coming from New Orleans via the Panama Canal on to Korea. The other was a Chinese container ship coming from Austraila bound for Mexico. There were also a couple of Japanese long liner ships out for tuna, but the fear factor of a war ship or huge tanker/container ship vs. a fishing vessel is astronomical.
After the dolphin show and the Mexican Navy the Pacific Ocean did a strange thing. It turned into a placid lake. We were becalmed for nearly 6 days. The picture on the right […]
I wanted to take my parents out to the boat for a post-Christmas sail this previous Saturday. They have seen and been on Windsong, but haven’t been out for a ride yet. I had been following the weather conditions for Saturday all week and it looked to be a great day for sailing with 15 knot winds out of the North. That would allow us to beam reach all the way out of the channel so we could start sailing before we even got to the final channel marker. The only issue I really saw was that it would be a chilly day (for us Floridians) with highs in the 50’s. High tide would be in the morning when we would head out, but we would have to come back at low tide. However, it would be a +1 foot low tide, which I was told would be deep enough for Windsong to make it through the river with.
I typically have gotten nervous when it comes to taking Windsong out, rightfully so I might add. I am still a rookie with this boat and particularly the area it is in. Especially after breaking down the first time I took her out, I can’t help get nervous. But this time I wasn’t worried about the engine or anything particular about the boat. I’ve tuned the engine and performed all needed maintenance on it and it worked like a charm the last outing. But something was eating away inside me the few days leading up to Saturday and I didn’t understand it. Some sort of premonition told me it we shouldn’t go, but I ignored it and attributed it to my normal nerves. I should have listened.
So we took the 3 hour ride from St. Augustine to Inglis with my […]
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