Boat Journal

Chronicling a love affair with sailing

First Voyage

Up until today, the coldest sailing adventure I’d ever taken was one New Year’s Day.

New Year’s Day weather in this area is unpredictable. You can have fairly nice, warm weather, or it can be miserably cold. The day I’m thinking of was a New Year’s Day race that was one of the latter.

As I said, it was the coldest I’d ever spent on a sailboat, until today.

Today …. was ….. miserable!

My two companions, Saint Steven and Saint David, and I left Willoughby Spit, on the Norfolk side of the Chesapeake Bay, at about 10 a.m. this morning. The prediction for the day was small craft advisory (winds over 15 MPH) until 10, then tapering off towards afternoon. Highs were expected in the mid-50’s. But, as St. Steve so aptly put it later to Erik, the temperature may have been in the 50’s. But then you have to subtract 10 degrees because you’re on the water, and 10 degrees for wind chill…. and, by the time you’re done, it’s about zero.

Well, at least that’s how it felt!

So why did we go? Well, the guy who said it would take him two weeks to finish the repairs on my boat actually finished them in a week. And, rather than paying two slip fees, one at the old place and one at the new, I was anxious to get the boat moved. Besides, I’d had it for two weeks and hadn’t even been out on in but the one ‘trial’ run before purchase.

So, the weather was against us.

On top of that, the batteries on the boat were going. I knew that. So I went to the boat on Saturday to pay the technician and to find out what batteries I needed, then go back to the marina store and pick up a couple of new ones. But the marina store was closed. So was the battery outlet store. And West Marine’s prices were almost 2/3rd’s more than those other places. But the engine had turned over when I was looking over the repairs, so I figured we might be okay.

Wrong.

Luckily, I still had the outboard, and I had brought extra gas for it, just in case we’d need it. We did.

So, we leave Willoughby spit, and we head over to the channel. We’re following the buoys as we should, to avoid the shallow places. And I’m watching the depth gauge. Depth gauge says 8′ below us a WHUMP! We hit a sand bar. Not 30 seconds later, the depth gauge catches up with us and my boat, which draws 4-1/2′, is sitting at 3-1/2 feet.

St. Dave comes to the rescue and directs us out of the sand bar and we’re on our way!

We unfurl the jib. But the wind isn’t quite right to put up the main. It never really is the entire voyage. This sailing vessel makes it to its new home under power the whole way. :no:

Not only that, the engine tried to die the first time we took off the choke, so we left it on, and forgot it was on, until we were in the York River, near the end of our journey. Luckily, we didn’t run out of gas on the way!

So, how cold was it? Well, you know that feeling your get when your mouth has be novacained? Where your speech is slurred and you really can’t taste anything? I got so cold a few times that that’s how I felt.

Most of the rest of the 5 hour journey was uneventful, and cold. Did I mention that it was cold?

But we made it there safely. And the smarter member of the group, Erik, who had stayed in the nice warm house, came to pick us up so we could get warm and back to cars on the other side of the bay.

I didn’t get as many pictures as I had hoped. But what I did get are online.

Only saints would have come with me on such a journey. So my public thanks to St. Steve and St. Dave!