Halloween Saturday:
“That bathroom is for customers. It’s not a public restroom.” says a dark-hearted Rite-Aid manager pushing a cart of merchandise past.
“Well I was going to be a customer but I guess not.”, I reply, departing without purchasing the planned $30 of goods, not even the whiskey.
In a baggy raincoat, damp of drizzle, some people just don’t consider you a human being. You could be one of “them”, some worthless “street person”, some “transient”, undeserving even to perform bodily functions with the rest of society.
Teri walks under an umbrella, carrying a big leather handbag towards the boat ramp.
“You don’t happen to be Garth and Sarah? Do you?”, she asks, the reporter from the Capital who has come to interview us.
“Can we see your boat from here?”, peering across Weems Creek through the foggy mist. Gonzo is elusive, barely visible, won’t even face us, aimed bow-to.
Teri snaps some photos with an aging little Canon Powershot.
“It’s hard to take notes in the rain. Can we go up to my car?”
Thirty-minute interview ensues. Teri takes several pages of notes, personally amused by our recollection of events.
“The story should run on Monday.”, she says in conclusion.
Departure south delayed once again. Twenty-five mile-per-hour wind and rain forecast overnight, wind that’s not in the right direction. Worth waiting just one more day.
The delay offers the opportunity to clean Internet house. The websites are sure to see a spike in traffic if the article does indeed go to print. Spruce things up a bit using City Dock coffee shop wifi. A hundred uniformed Spiffballs pass by along the damp walk downtown, all headed in mass to the big Spiffball event down at Navy Stadium. Rain nor shine it’s Spiffball time! Last Saturday ecstatic Spiffball cheers could even be heard a mile away through torrential downpours. These are some serious Spiffballs!
We take advantage of an early evening rain break to walk home, stopping along the way for one last hot meal, delicious $5 cheesesteak platters from Acme Bar and Grill on Main Street. Passing by the Rite Aid where the offending manager works, two signs hand printed in large block letters had appeared on both sets of automatic doors, “NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS”.
Rain beats Gonzo’s deck all night, nonstop.
Sunday: 11-1-09
Rain continues. Temps only in the 50’s. But north winds mean go! The 32 days in Annapolis have now come to an end! Made $2500. Spent $1000 of it. Money well spent however. Gonzo is so much better equipped than before, at least well equipped as far as we’re concerned, but still ill-equipped as far as any other sailor is concerned.
Despite the miserable weather, Annapolis Harbor is still full of sailboats, some with 20 people on deck, passing within 20 feet of Gonzo at high speeds. These are racing boats with massive spinakers, a kind of sail the shape of a half-bubble that grabs wind from behind. Gonzo is a turtle in comparison with her moldy little sails. Yes, our jib actually did mold, a fact that was noticed for the first time today. Got to put that thing away dry when not in daily use.
Sarah and I both scramble to take pictures of the sailing scenes in Annapolis Harbor, taking turns at the helm while the other snaps. Coffee spilled in cockpit, two hands not enough.
The constant rain turns to frequent showers as we enter the Bay, begin the journey south. A whole team of racing boats plays chicken with Gonzo. I spin the helm to port at the last second, aiming the bow east as the team flies by.
“Thank You!”, three or four of the dozen-or-so sailors on board each boat yell over the roar of splashing water.
“The sun!”, Sarah cries in glee from the helm. But she had been punked. The sun immediately disappears, replaced by dark clouds that send the hardest rain of the day down upon her.
We sail through a page on the charts, then another! Five miles per hour feels like 100!
Dinner: whiskey with coke, rice mixed with chili, corn and Vienna sausage.
Daylight savings time finally upon us, dark just after 5PM. I take the first night watch, it flies by in an instant, 5:30-7:30PM while Sarah attempts sleep in the heavily rocking v-berth. Wind has increased, waves have increased.
‘Come on six miles per hour…..six miles per hour’, I think to myself, watching the speed on the GPS, taking Gonzo into a direct beam reach.
‘7 miles per hour!’, Gonzo isn’t a turtle after all! The attempt at speed probably sent Sarah involuntarily rolling around the v-berth.
And you may wonder, why am I listing speeds in MPH instead of knots? That’s because our GPS is a TomTom, designed for roads. Don’t call Gonzo ghetto. Gonzo aint’ ghetto.
White water can be seen through the darkness around Gonzo’s hull as she crashes through the still-increasing waves. Pitch black ten story buildings slide by, the shadows of tankers and freighters. Most of those monsters only have four lights visible; a white light low on the bow, a white light high on the stern, a red light on the port side and a green light on the starboard side, each light just a spec. This is how nighttime mariners tell what direction other ships are headed.
The professionals can get very upset at a little sailboat not following the rules, as the captain of the cruise ship Carnival Pride did at Gonzo for not having her red and green navigation lights on in the shipping channel.
“This is Carnival Pride calling the small southbound sailing vessel between (some geographical point) and (another geographical point).”
“Yes, this is sailing vessel Gonzo’s Flying Dog, come in.”
“Yeah skipper, you’re in stealth mode, we came right up on you. I just didn’t see you pal. You need to get some lights on”.
“Thanks. Will do. Thanks.”
Carnival Pride oozes past through the black bulging waters, her veritable city of lights illuminating white breaking crests.
Sarah says, “Easy for him to say, somebody with enough electricity to run 1000 lights.”
“Yes, this is the Carnival Pride calling the small southbound sailing vessel again.”
“Yes, this is Gonzo’s Flying Dog, come in.”
“Yeah, skipper, I never saw a red or green on you, just some white lights. You’re gonna get yourself killed out here.”
“Sorry about that. We’re low on batteries. Next time a ship comes up on us I’ll turn something on.”
“Well you’ve got a death wish being out here at night without nav lights on.”
“10-4”
“Carnival Pride out.”
Captain was dramatizing things a bit, as he was never actually on a collision course. We had already known from watching his lights before the radio call that his ship would pass by. And a ship like that would have every piece of expensive radar gear to avoid collisions, hence how he already knew from a half-mile away that Gonzo was southbound. He was just pissed off we weren’t following the red light-green light rule. Gonzo’s recharchable yard lights, which I’d just put new batteries in to make them brighter, are visible for a couple miles out on the open water. (Still though, you should always assume that all bigger boats can’t see you. No matter what the rules of navigation are, the bigger boat always has the right of way.)
Still, though, we did put on nav lights the rest of the evening anytime a large ship passed by, and I shined a small LED flashlight onto the sails. The Coast Guard puts on an anti-terrorism pamphlet listing “no nav lights on at night” as a sign of terrorist activity, and we didn’t want the Coast Guard coming to hunt us terrorists down in the middle of the night.
One other ship did call us on the radio and shine a spotlight, a tow boat pulling what appeared to be an entire freighter. However, the ship was silent after the initial call, saying nothing more after I responded, “Yes, this is Gonzo’s Flying Dog.” Maybe the name offended them.
Anyway, the tow boat was the most confusing thing we encountered on the water all night because we couldn’t determine what direction it was going, having forgotten that a stack with three white lights means that it’s a tow boat. The red and green nav lights were located on the object being towed, both of which were visible at the same time. Had we remembered the tow boat lighting configuration, then we would have instantly known that the vessel was approaching. There are dozens of different lighting configurations for different kinds of vessels, but only a few are common, and a tow boat is an important one to remember.
Sarah is feeling ill in the late night-early morning hours, doesn’t appear for her midnight watch. Arrives in the cockpit at 2AM thinking she’s only been gone for two hours instead of 4 hours. Then tries to get me back into the cockpit after just an hour and a half, thinking her two hours have already passed. She is quite a good sailor but was a bit confused during the adjustment period. Even many experienced sailors will tell you that they still go through an adjustment period after having not been on the water for some weeks, often feeling ill for the first day or so.
Monday: 11-2-09
Six-foot rollers by dawn, the average waves 2 to 3 feet. The Bay runs north-south, and as we learned today, sustained winds in those directions builds up huge waves over time. The big ones only come every few minutes, just two or three at a time, but oh are they big, much larger than anticipated. Gonzo however handled beautifully, leading us to believe that the wind gust which knocked us over last month must have been well over 30 knots. On the side of a six foot wave in 15 knots of wind Gonzo has no problems whatsoever. Everything not bolted down inside the cabin will fly everywhere, but Gonzo is quite stable. An ocean in light stormy weather would not present a problem. Good to know, although we don’t plan on taking Gonzo through any ocean storm intentionally.
Salt spray keeps the deck continually moist. Waves periodically smack the hull instead of sliding underneath it, violent encounters that even throw the Coleman stove out of the galley, a stove that had been fastened down with a bungee cord. The cabin floor is full our possessions by the morning’s end, everything from dirty dishes to a spilled gallon of bleach. Gonzo now has the cleanest bilge on the East Coast.
I decide to take down the jib after the Coleman incident, waves still growing larger, never even a slight pause in the 15 knot wind. The time to reduce sail area had come, and running on the main sail alone also meant that it was much easier to run with the wind, straight south rather than slightly southwest. The waves always go in the direction of the wind, and going with the waves is generally much smoother of a ride.
Running directly with the wind under both the main and jib is quite difficult in Gonzo, as even a slight mishandling of the helm will cause the jib to luff, and a major mishandling will cause the boom to swing back violently in the other direction, one of the most dangerous things that can happen on a sailboat. We have both had our close calls by now and are ever watchful for an angry boom.
Our general overnight direction had taken us slightly southeast, to the center of the Bay, then our morning heading had taken us slightly southwest, back towards the western side of the Bay. Continued running straight south through the afternoon, within a couple miles of the shore, then turned into Magothy Bay, a body of water wide enough that the other sides were not visible on this continually gloomy day. The plan was to get Gonzo into a small creek on the Magothy’s north side until we realized that there were plenty of other inlets on the Magothy’s south side. South meant that we could sail there rather than use the engine. (It would have been possible to tack straight north but that would have taken twice as long. We were tired.)
End up in the York River, home of the historic city of Yorktown where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, I think. Time for a bit of engine power to get Gonzo up into the Perrin River, a small body of water that branches off the York’s mouth. But the engine only runs for a minute, then sputters and dies! Not to be restarted again! I pull the cord so many times that my already sore hands, sore from hours at the helm are aching. But nobody home in the engine, not even a sputter.
Getting too dark to continue sailing further up the York River in search of calmer waters there. Some huge ships can be seen anchored up the river, and we don’t want to end up in a narrow channel without an engine where such ships are lurking. The wider of an area we anchor in, the less of a chance that something hits us. The York is over a mile wide at the mouth, and there’s almost no traffic. We are a bit too close to a marked channel for comfort, but it seems best to just drop the anchor for the night.
So, we get as close as possible to the York’s eastern shore and drop the hunk of metal in the chilly water. Still too close to the channel for comfort, but the wind only wants to blow us up the river or to the western shore, not where we want to go. The only problem with the western shore was that it was even further from the Perrin River, on the eastern shore, where protected waters and a small marina are located(says so in our cruising guide). Getting this engine fixed would require at least calm water, and maybe even a place to buy tools or parts, or worse, a place to find a mechanic if we couldn’t fix the problem ourselves.
The York’s mouth offers at least some protection from the Chesapeake. The wind still howls but the waves are quite diminished. We place all four yard lights out on deck, have a whiskey and coke, then pass out cold for 12 straight hours.
An experience I will never forget, riding the cold front all the way down the Chesapeake Bay, over 150 miles in just over 24 hours, ending up with a broken engine. All done in none other than Gonzo’s Flying Dog.
Tuesday: 11-3-09
Sun peeks over horizon as I peek out hatch. It’s a new day and the sky shows it. Perfectly clear except for a single line of clouds far to the eastern horizon. Wind is slight, but from the east now. Waves greatly diminished.
Must get somewhere even calmer to work on the engine. Just to the north lies the Perrin River, where we’d wanted to end up last night, but the wind still won’t have it. Examining the chart, we notice a shallow marked passage just to the south, between Goodwin Neck and the Goodwin Islands.
“Why do people in Virginia insist on calling things ‘necks’?”, Sarah asks as we ever-so-slowly sail Gonzo through the passage. A running turtle could have passed us. The marked depth is only three feet, so the potential of having to raise the keel existed, but the depth never turned out to be a problem. The several- hundred-meter-long passage leads to the mouth of Back Creek.
The immediate are is quite rural, but what appears to be a marina lies just inside Back Creek behind a commercial fishing operation. However, the already faint eastern wind suddenly fades to almost nothing, not enough to continue the beam reach required to enter the creek. Gonzo comes to a complete halt, now slower than even the unicellular organisms that surely are floating past her hull.
“The weather is so calm, maybe we could just tow Gonzo by rowing our dinghy.”, I ignorantly suggest.
“Yeah, that might actually work.”, Sarah ignorantly replies.
“Or maybe somebody will see it and feel sorry for us and offer us a tow.”, I wisely add..
We are actually able to pull Gonzo with the kayak, but are of course unable to control her heading. The plan fails. Plan B kicks in, run with the occasional light breezes into the little cove just to the east of Back Creek’s mouth, a tiny body of water named after somebody called Claxton, Claxton’s Creek. The Claxton’s must have liked to think of themselves as bigger than they actually were, probably even having their children address them as “Mr.” and “Mrs.”
Whatever kind of egotistical family the Claxtons were, their ‘creek’ turned out to be quite sufficient a place to undertake the task at hand, fixing the engine. The carburetor detaches with just two bolts, a fuel hose and two connecting rods. The chilly morning turns to an absolutely beautiful day. Sarah cooks and cleans in the cabin as I dismantle the carburetor in the cockpit, filling our gender roles nicely except for the fact that it’s all being done in a tiny sailboat in the middle of nowhere.
Nothing obviously wrong with the carb. I clean it all up with carb cleaner, reassemble, reattach. The float had been working fine and there was no blockage. Pumping the gas tank’s primer bulb revealed that gas was indeed getting to the carburetor, so what could be the problem……
The memory of a man weeks ago yelling at his dinghy engine in Weems Creek returned to me.
“What was the problem with that engine?” I’d asked him later.
“Water in the gas.”, he’d replied..
That must be it, water in the gas! The engine would briefly start each time carb cleaner was sprayed into the carb, so that meant the electrical system was working fine. And if both the fuel system and electrical system are working fine, then……..
I remove the carb again, drain out the gas. Attach the other gas tank. Use the primer bulb to pump all the gas out of the lines into an empty can that once held pineapple chunks. Drop socket into water while reattaching carb. Metric luckily works, good enough at least.
One pull of the starter cable…..
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
It runs!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s one of those great moments in life, so great that nobody but you and the people with you at the time could ever understand. Sarah has macaroni and cheese mixed with chili and Vienna sausage waiting. We sit in the cockpit filling our mouths, smiling at the humming engine as it recharges our dead batteries. Our first hot meal in over two days, and oh at what a great time it comes.
“Let’s go somewhere!”, I say.
Looking at the charts we realize that Norfolk is within the day’s reach, just around a point of land to the East. And that’s just where we want to go! Had we looked at the charts closer yesterday then we would have just sailed straight there rather than going into the York River, which is located on the western side of the Bay.
Water like glass, what a difference a day makes. Not even a breeze till late afternoon. Norfolk and Hampton Roads come into view. Hampton Roads is the huge harbor where the mouths of multiple rivers converge, apparently one of the largest natural harbors in the world. The waters of the Chesapeake take one final stab at Gonzo as we depart them for the last time. A chaotic pattern of big waves from speeding superyachts throws us around like a toy for our last 30 minutes on the Bay.
We pass over the Hampton Roads Tunnel, hundreds of cars speeding into the ground on either side. And at that moment we’re officially free of the Chesapeake!!!!!! Six months after purchasing Gonzo and we are free at last!
Just inside Hampton Roads, on its east side, is the Hampton River, on the banks of which lies the beautiful suburban town of Hampton, Virginia, big red brick buildings with stately green lawns. We drop anchor just south of the Route 60 bridge, a few hundred meters up the narrow river, sailboat masts rising from marinas all around.
A fellow mariner cruising from Maine in a trawler hands us a Hampton visitor’s pamplet as we pass by his boat in our dinghy. “It was snowing when we left”, he says.
A young man from the harbormaster’s office comes to the dock as we tie up Gonzo, tells us that the dinghy dock is further down, gives us the code to the shower room. The cost is $1 each but we don’t have any change so I let him keep a $5 bill. We may be here for a couple days and his assistance could be useful.
Showers are below Annapolis standards, but they are hot, and the cost is right.
“Let’s walk towards that McDonald’s sign we passed up the river.”, I suggest.
She agrees.
We cross the Route 60 bridge, finding a Burger King just on the other side with a sign in the window, “Free wifi”. Turns out that the wifi is a bust, but double cheeseburgers are $1, real double-cheeseburgers, not the ones that every other fast food chain is selling for a dollar now, the wanna-be double cheeseburgers that only have one piece of cheese. There must be a cheese shortage. It must be the Chinese! They must have discovered cheese! Bomb them now! Steal their cheese! Enslave them in dairies. Rename their country to Cheese. They shouldn’t complain because it sounds almost the same.
Return to Gonzo under almost full moon. Drink the last of our whiskey.
Wednesday: 11-4-09
A work day. There’s a good story to be told and it must be told, the story of Gonzo’s escape from the Chesapeake.
Library required. Hampton has a beautiful two-story red brick one with sweet smelling bathrooms and wide open spaces. And private cubicles! Yes cubicles! Like a real office, we put in a 9-6 shift. That’s how much time it takes to write 3200 words, post ?? pictures and 12 minutes of video. Another story told!
Sarah’s shift ends on a sour note as she looses two hours worth of photo editing work. The open source program we use, Jalbum, has a nasty habit of allowing users to create files with names that Windows doesn’t approve of. As was the case with Sarah, sometimes the bad filename goes unnoticed till the work is lost.
A gas station Subway sandwich cheered her up. “I’m callin’ Obama”, a drunken old man screams at the cashier upon being asked to leave the restrooms. The gas station has a sterile hard little dining room with a “Free wifi” sign on the window. While consuming my half of the footlong sandwich I notice that almost every single customer, and every employee, is black. Just a few blocks away, downtown where all the huge yachts and luxury office buildings are located, almost everyone is white.
Hmmmmm. I’m callin’ Obama.