Tangier Island

When we arrived at Tangier, we first went to the sand bar that extends off the southern tip of the island. The beach was covered with little sand pipers dancing with the surf as they searched for food to eat at the waters edge. We walked out to the point in search of a large flock of pelicans that is known to roost there, but as we were approaching, they all took flight and sat in the water just beyond the point.

Disappointed, we decided to head into the town and check out the locals!

Instead of walking from the sand bar, we decided to row through the marsh and head into the town. This was a mistake! The island is sinking into the marsh as the sea levels are rising. At present time, the streets supposedly go under at nigh tide and several parts of the island have been abandoned as the island has gone underwater!

We were, naturally, rowing in from the sinking side, and we were confused by all the abandoned looking buildings! Navigating a maze of marsh canals was tricky as there is no cell phone signal on the island, she we were unable to pull up an aerial photo of the place to plot a route. Instead, we had to choose which canal to row through and hope that it led to town and not to a dead end!

Me made landfall a few times, thinking we could simply walk through some grass and into the town until we hopped out of the dinghy and realized how much marsh existed between us and the town! So, back into the dinghy we went to prod deeper into the marsh maze. We eventually came across a bridge and saw golf carts traversing it! We made it to a road that would lead us into town!

We tied the dinghy to a sign post by the bridge and climbed up into the street! Some of the locals we came across were friendly and would wave or say hello, others would simply ignore you and speed on by.

We followed the road for a while as we made our way through neighborhoods and into the heart of town. The town was quite interesting, there were gift shops, ice cream shops, and a general store, along with a slew of cats and locals that had come out into the streets. The island has a ferry that comes and goes once a day, so during those hours the town is full of tourists. We had arrived much after the last boat had left, so we got to see the locals that had come out after the tourists had left.

As the sun began to get low on the horizon and the insects began to bite, we decided to head back to the dinghy and row our way out of the maze before nightfall. Leaving the island, the sunset was gorgeous! The air was completely becalmed and the water was like glass.

The colorful sky continued onto the water with only a faint silhouette from the low island. As we left the marsh, the sky went dark and the world around us became hazy! It was a good think I left the anchor light on when we left because the tiny star of our masthead light shined above the haze that surrounded us. It felt like we were transported to another world, where the stars and moon shined brightly on the waters surface, only disturbed by the lapping of the oars as we quietly approached our floating home.

Arriving in Tangier Island by Sail

After waiting for the two hurricanes (Hurricane Jose and Hurricane Maria) to pass by while anchored out in Reedville, VA, the time had finally come to sail to Tangier Island! Our planned route was only 16 miles long, but the weather was still of a concern to us. Hurricane Maria was still in relative proximity to us on this early morning, and we would be swept along with powerful winds from the North, followed by a wind shift with winds coming from the West. This wind shift was to occur as the hurricane moved further North of us, and the circulating winds would change direction from our perspective.

As the hurricane is East of us, we would feel winds from the North. As she moved more North of us, the winds we would feel would come from the West.

This wind pattern would be perfect for us, as we first needed to travel South to exit Reedville, and then East to get to Tangier Island.

As we left, the winds were rather powerful and we were glad to have reefed sails set. According to the forecast, the winds were going to shift and also get lighter as the day progressed, owing to the fact that the hurricane would be farther away from us as the day moved on.

Knowing this, I was less reefed than I would have liked to have been, granting me more speed (but a less comfortable ride) as we went along. I knew that the winds would get lighter and lighter as the day moved on, and the afternoon would be becalmed. Worse yet, early the next morning a powerful cold front was to move in, making it very uncomfortable to anchor midway if we did not make it in one day.

It is rather ridiculous to think that we would fear not making it to our anchorage that is only 16 miles away, especially when we are starting off with 20 knot winds in the right direction! Our speed at the beginning of the journey ranged between 5 and 6 knots, and we were slated to arrive in under 3 hours. The problem was that the winds were to be getting lighter each hour as the day moved on, and that would make our travel speed slower, and our elapsed time longer. When you depend on the wind, it is always a vicious cycle!

While swooshing along through heavy seas and leftover chop from the passed hurricane, the winds did begin to lessen. Instead of waiting forever like I usually do to let out the reef, I promptly let it out early to maximize our speed in the powerful, but diminishing winds.

We raised anchor at 7am in Reedville, and yet dropped anchor at 5pm in Tangier Island. A 16 mile trip took us a full 10 hours to make, owing to the constantly lessening winds. The worst part of the arrival was the tide. As we rounded the southern tip of Tangier to enter the Tangier Sound, we were confronted by a tidal current of nearly 1kn! We had light winds and were now giving up a knot of speed to the tide.

This led Maddie to ask "are we even moving? It feels like we have been looking at the town of Tangier for hours!" We were moving, but our speed over ground was pitiful! We practically held our position in the Sound until the tide went slack around 4pm and finally made our way in.

Entering the harbor was fun! I sailed farther to windward than where we needed to be so that we could come in on a run. At this point, Maddie had fallen asleep from boredom, so I knew I was sailing solo. I lowered the mainsail and sailed in under only the staysail. As we neared the anchorage, I went forward on the deck, dropped the staysail and then released the anchor with 100 feet of chain (in 8 feet of water).

The momentum of the boat kept us moving along at around 2 knots even though we had no sail up at this point until the anchor dug in! The bow stopped and the stern swung around quickly as we came to lay to the anchor.

I chose to anchor in this fashion because of the approaching cold front. I anchored in the direction that I anticipated we would be pointing tomorrow and wanted to be certain that the anchor would be well set. Once the anchor had been buried into the bottom, I then let out even more chain (totaling 180 feet of chain in 8 feet of water) that way we would have no risk of dragging as the cold front moved in over night.

With the anchor set, Maddie, Morty, and I, went to shore in our rowboat Tooth to check out the locals and the town.

Watching a Monster

Maddie and I are currently anchored in a tiny creek, next to a tiny town. There is deep enough water for our keel and enough room for us to swing, but that is about all there is to appreciate in this small town. 

Reedville has a few restaurants, a museum, and an ice cream shop. These locales are only open a few days a week, and are all closed by 9pm. When we asked what the locals do for entertainment, the answer is unanimous: get in their car and drive to the next town over which has everything! 

Being how we do not posses this luxury, we instead opted to stay on the boat and pass the time with projects that needed to get done. 

You might be wondering why we are anchored in such a random place, and why we don't just sail to a different town that has more activities and amenities? The answer is simple, Hurricane Jose has passed by and Hurricane Maria is close on his heels. We were in a completely protected anchorage for Hurricane Jose, but had no town to visit and explore.

Instead of heading out into the bay and risking getting caught with no wind to return to a safe anchorage, we chose to sail to Reedville and wait out the time. It was a full week between the storms. The winds were all in upheaval as the hurricanes disrupted their normal patterns, and we just waited at anchor. 

In a few days, we had explored the entire town, made a few friends, and had friends come visit us, but the reason we were staying here seemed to slip past our minds. We often wondered why we were anchored on such gorgeous days! The winds were steady and pleasant, on sunny yet cool cloudless days! We often completely forgot why we were here and almost raised the anchor when once again, we remembered that we were hiding from Hurricane Maria. 

After being here for over a week, we were both on the deck. Maddie was reading a book in the hammock while I was dissasembling our windlass to re-grease it. The winds had been building steadily as the storm was approaching. The day before, sky became completely covered by altostratus clouds, letting us know that severe weather was nearby. Today, the sky was completely clear, as the hurricane had drawn all the clouds back into it. Off in the distance, a giant mound of clouds sit. 

That mound of clouds was Hurricane Maria! It was passing a few hundred miles away but the towering storm reached up into the sky and we could see it from our protected anchorage. 

That giant monster of a storm had destroyed the homes of millions as it tore through the Caribbean, smashing islands that had just been devastated by a Hurricane Irma! This moment felt like in an action movie, when the superhero would leap out from the shadows and command the attention of the monster villain. Then they would duel and justice would prevail. 

Unlike in a movie, we simply sat quietly as the monster slowly lumbered on by. We sit quietly in our protected refuge hoping that it doesn't notice us, and instead passes on by.  

We are not superheroes, nay, we are merely extraordinary chickens. 

Flies!

I typically think of flies as an insect found at outside gatherings or around garbage cans, but not out at sea! Flies can transform a normal day into a fight against insanity. 

These little buzzing nuisances seem to come out of nowhere and for no reason. We will be sailing along, fly free, miles from any shoreline and then all of a sudden, the flies will appear! Almost out of thin air, flies will begin coming out of every part of the boat! We always first notice them in the cockpit, since that is where we are sitting while we cruise. We may find a few flies buzzing around us in the cockpit and think that the flies are really bad. Then when we anchor and go below deck, the number of flies is mind boggling! 

Having a parrot onboard denies us the ability to use all those wonderful chemicals that instantly handle the fly problem, and leaves us with only more passive methods of fly control: Fly paper. 

We currently have 3 of these ribbons hanging in various parts of the boat where the fly population seems most dense. While the paper becomes riddled with flies in a short matter of time, it doesn't seem to put a dent in the number of flies we have onboard. 

Naturally, our first thought in these situations is that they are coming from something we are carrying. This means that we will instantly do all the dishes, in hopes of removing a possible food source for the flies, and I check the composting toilet to make sure it is not a fly factory. After that, we begin searching through our provisions for any foods that may be spoiled and a spawning ground for flies. 

As always, none of these places turn up to be a source, and the flies seem to linger for a while. Talking with other cruisers, the going theory is that a mass of flies will get blown off the land and out to sea. When the flies hit the sails, they quickly dive down into the boat to hide from the wind and set up shop in the cabin where the wind is never as fierce as it is outside. This is why we only see a few flies in the cockpit, because they would easily get blow away. In the protection of the cabin however, the flies can live for a long time! 

Parrots have very sensitive respiratory systems, meaning that we can't use anything like spray bug killer or citronella candles. Instead, we have to set up fly tape and wait for them to get attached to the trap!  

Flies can really drive you crazy though, always buzzing around, and making you feel like you live in an actual trash can! While most of the flies we seem to house don't bite us, they do annoy the heck out of us! 

When we leave the pets with our parents as we head offshore towards Bermuda, we will certainly take full advantage of all the toxic fly killers we can find. Until then, the closest thing we have to sanity is a full fly ribbon! 

Waiting For the Hurricane to Pass

Hurricane Jose passed nearby our anchorage, but not close enough to cause any damage. At its closest, the eye was 200 miles from our position. Thanks to the protection we sought out in an anchorage, our experience was one of rest and relaxation. 

Today, the winds were finally light enough that we decided to venture out from the cabin. It has been two days since we stepped outside, and what a wonderful experience it was!

The calm waters lapping up on this sandy beach made this journey to shore for Morty very enjoyable! After two days of listening to the wind howl in the rigging, it is nice to now listen to the waves on the beach instead.