Summer Cruise Day 8

Today was a very special day! Today is the day I proposed to Maddie!

We raised anchor and set sail in very light airs, ghosting along on our Southbound heading. We ended up about 6 miles off of Tangier Island when we dropped the hook on a little mound in the bay. It was only 14 feet deep in an expanse over 20 feet

We were relaxing on the deck, snuggling up while staring off into the horizon at the little of Tangier Island we could see, when I ruined the moment by telling Maddie I needed to fix a line that had come loose. 

I made that up because I needed an excuse to go below deck to grab her ring! I had planned to propose to her on the trip when certain criteria had been met: A calm day of sailing, A calm afternoon with no big waves, Never be stuck windless, Be out in the Atlantic.

3 of the 4 criteria had been met, and I thought to myself: We might not have a day like that again on this trip!

I went below, grabbed the ring, came back up and got down on one knee and asked her to marry me! It was such a magical moment!

I keep getting asked what I would have done if she had said no? It would certainly have made the rest of the trip very awkward!

We were happily engaged with no way of telling anyone because there is no phone signal that far out in the bay. Maybe I should have thought that one through a bit more...

That night we slept well as the waters were calm as glass and the only suggestion of civilization was the faint glow over the horizon from city lights. Once again, the night sky was amazing!

Summer Cruise Day 7

After two sleepless nights, Maddie was starting to wear thin. She couldn't sleep because of the waves smacking the stern. In the morning I looked at the weather forecast and saw that they were calling for severe thunderstorms that night; this meant that it would be a night of waves smacking while being rocked around.

To appease the admiral, I decided to plot a course for somewhere nice where we could recharge our batteries, be protected from the winds and waves, and rest up! St. Mary's River was our destination!

Mind you this, we could have sailed South on a beam to broad reach and covered insane amounts of ground, but for the Admirals happiness, we tacked up the river towards our destination.

We sailed into the mouth of St. Mary's River until the winds died and the waves disappeared, which was right at the entrance! I didn't want to go too far in as this would make it harder to leave in the morning. We dropped anchor into a soft sandy bottom with excellent holding about 0.5 miles from shore.

Morty was the most excited of all, as this meant a trip to shore. He normally goes on the deck, but he will hold it all day hoping that we will take him to shore. When night falls and he accepts his fate, he will usually go up on the port bow and do his business. 

We were greeted by many birds upon our arrival, a pelican was the first to pass by. As we rowed to shore, we found so many more birds roosting along the way.

When we arrived at the white beach, we realized that it was not sand we were standing on, but in fact shells! Each grain of sand was a tiny complete shell, at most 3mm across. The entire beach was a giant gathering of shells! It made me feel so small and insignificant to think about each clam that once lived to make that shell, and how now they are all cast up onto each other to create a shoreline where we can beach our dinghy and walk along millions of memories of clams that once were, easily overlooking their existence as we passed by, just like every wave that rolls onto this shore. 

 

Zoom in and out to see the beach fades away into the bay, and think about how many other beaches are visible in the bay. Keep zooming out and see how everything fades away. What stands out to you? Let me know in the comments.

It made me wonder about our own existence. We live our lives, think we are important, admire our talents, work on our faults, all while trying to make something of our lives, and then we die. When you pick up one single shell, it seems so great and special; but then you pick up a few, and they kind of look similar to the next. When you pick up a handful, they just blend together; and when you drop it back onto the beach, each shell fades away into the landscape. Are we the same? If you zoom out on us, do we just blend into the city? Into the landscape? As you zoom out even further, we seem to disappear all together. What if this beach was the same as our planet? There is another beach that looks similar enough on the other shore. Would this make the river a solar system, the bay a galaxy, and the ocean the universe? If each grain of sand on this beach was a life, how significant and small is our own life in this world?

It's a shame none of the shells had awesome colors to stand out like Wisdom does with her tanbark sails in a sea of white sails! 

We cast off from this beach and made our way back to Wisdom for the night. The beach lay silent and alone, as the waves continued to meet it, as they did before we arrived, and as they will continue to do long after we are gone.

We did choose the perfect place to hide from the storm, as this is what the seas were as the storm raged up the bay that evening.

We settled in for a very calm night, grilled a wonderful dinner and relaxed! For the first time in the whole trip, I was able to sit back and read my book! I had always been working the sails to keep us on track that I couldn't divert my attention away to read and sail. When I would raise my head from my book, we would usually be about 5 to 10 degrees off course. This meant a good amount of distance lost when sailing to windward!

What are your thoughts on the beach? Do you think it relates to the world we live in when viewed from an outsiders perspective? In the end, are we all but grains of sand on some beach? Leave a comment down below to let me know what you think!

Summer Cruise Day 6

Last night it rained a significant amount, and Tooth got filled with a lot of water! 

It was a cloudy day, the sun never came out and the air was cool; chilling you to the bone as you stood watch trying to stay warm. I began my day by pumping out Tooth, raising 180' of chain, and raising all three sails. It was a slow start at first, but then the winds came!

We covered even more ground than yesterday and with even better speed! This certainly helped boost morale on board, which was needed after the sleepless night Maddie had (I slept like a rock, as always).

We dropped anchor in the middle of the bay again, and I mean the middle! It was completely dark out there and the stars were amazing! We set up berths in the cockpit to sleep under the canopy of stars, which seemed romantic, but we couldn't fall asleep and then moved inside to our bed.

Once again, the tides and winds were opposite and we slept the night with the waves smacking the stern.

Summer Cruise Day 5

Today we had wonderful winds! It seemed like if mother nature was saying "Sorry for the lack of wind yesterday, here have some more!"

We met up with Tim (Marialo) on the North side of Sharps Island (which is underwater). We met up for a while and then set off again while the winds were still excellent. We sailed until sunset and then dropped the anchor out in the middle of the bay in very unprotected waters. 

It was calm when we dropped the hook, but then the weather picked up. The current and winds were opposite each other, causing our full keel sailboat to point to the current while the winds caused the boat to ride over the anchor rode and take all the seas on the stern. This led to a very annoying slapping sound as the 1 foot waves smacked the stern overhang all night long.

Sculling Oars Part 1

Sailing along without relying on the engine is nice, as long as there is wind. On calm days, this can present a problem. 

What Maddie and I do is we time the tides, so that they will help push us into rivers, or pull us out of them. So even if there is no wind, we still make a bit of distance over ground; albeit a very slow progression.

On board Wisdom, we have a small electric motor that we use for maneuvering around the marina. This motor can be used for very short distances if the wind dies and we are almost at our anchorage. The problem is since we opted for such a tiny battery bank, we can't use it to cover great distances.

On board Windpuff, we have no engine at all, so our only way to get around the marina is warping, or sailing. Sailing in and out of the slip is hard with a full keel and no room to tack. Warping is simply time consuming to do on a regular basis, since Windpuffs slip is so far into the marina. 

Our go to method for moving the sailboats when there is absolutely no wind is towing them with Tooth, our 13 foot row boat. We are able to tow Wisdom at speeds of 0.5kn to 0.8kn, and Windpuff through the marina, but only when there is absolutely no wind. A whisper of wind and the sailboat can start to drift and pull me along with it. Think about it, 300 pounds of rowboat and person or 5 tons with Windpuff or 17 tons with Wisdom. The other issue is the time it takes to set up and put everything back. You have to get in the row boat, move the painter from the stern cleat to the bow cleat, and then start pulling. When you are finished, you have to do it all in reverse. This doesn't sound like much of a problem, but it is.

Our new plan is to make use of a sculling oar! The set up would be much quicker, simply load the oar into its chock and secure it with a few lines. That's it! If wind picks up, or you need to steer, you're already on board in the cockpit! 

I don't know what speeds I will be able to achieve as I have not finished building them yet, but I will be happy with anything over 0.5kn. 

The dimensions for the oars are roughly based on the dimensions listed in the Pardey books. I measured the freeboard at the transom, and roughly stood where I wanted to be when sculling, and planned from there. 

The oars I'm making are 16 feet long for Wisdom, and 14 feet long for Windpuff. The stock wood I'm using is a 2x12 of Douglas Fir from Home Depot. Not the best wood for boat building purposes, but at $18 for a 16 foot plank of rift sawn, I figured this would be a great way to see if I even like sculling the boats without shelling out a lot of money for excellent clear grain wood.

I then ripped the board in half with a circular saw and proceeded to cut out the blanks for the two oars. This yielded two pieces with relatively vertical grain.

The oar blank is about 2.5" wide and only 1.5" tall, making it rather weak. One of the cut outs from the blanks was then used to make a top laminate to give the oar handle more strength.

From here, I will need to plane the stocks so that they can lay perfectly flush, glue them, clamp them, shape them, and finally seal them.

More will be posted as the build progresses