10-29-11 0955 Dulles Intl Airport Gate B70. So, do I really prefer underground trains to those loveable dinosaurian mobile lounges that used to lumber out into the combat zone of the airfield itself, bravely dodging 747's and Cessna alike, and carrying a bunch of us nervous passengers, already subdued after being hydraulically lowered to bug level before being transported out to where I am now? Maybe not. The whole experience of Dulles is kind of emblematic of The Man’s foreign policy..Industrial grade concrete blocks and metal girders interspersed with seemingly random curves. Vast vertical spaces traversed by escalators. A whole airplane ('Daedalus’, the MiT human powered airplane), and of course us bugs, scurrying along in response to directives displayed by international style yellow black and white signage and voiced, if you wander off course, by chunky uniformed TSA employees. The trains that now take the place of the lounges are one step further away from a human touch. No operator in evidence and the tone of the gendered voice telling us assume battle stations make no pretense of Hal's gentle early communications. This is way beyond ‘Mind the Gap!!’ My favorite verbal was programmed into the last message warning of arrival at Gates B..'This train is now out of service'. A part of me hoped the power would be cut and our whole granfaloon would be left in the electronic twilight...halfway between heaven and hell..
But no, it all worked perfectly, with a hiss and a clunk, and the escalators escalated, the power consumption remained at...hmmm...about 10 Megawatts? Outside, DC is enjoying perhaps its first real winter tantrum...snow possible in some areas.
I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Reston for Thursday and Friday, here to meet people involved in simulations and medical practice management. Reston is a bedroom suburb (aka New City) dreamed up by a man of initials RES, whose still alive and also represented by a life size bronze statue sitting on a bench alongside is beloved Lake Anne. The rest of Reston was planned starting in 1961, and the Hyatt seems to date from then. So the elevators have a 15th floor, and my room card said 1510. I stood there pushing the button and needing to get to my room for a matter of urological urgency. Nothing happening. I got off and tried the stairs; locked at the top. Apparently, as a holdover from a now defunct ‘Regency Club’, you have to insert your card in an unmarked slot in the brass plate of the elevator to get to the 15th floor. That I found out by going back down and asking, fighting against a tide of teenagers who were talking and texting in the lobby and twittering on the carpeted stairs. . Turns out this is an annual event involving dramatic arts try outs on this particular weekend. So the 60's style dramatic lobbies and stairs were fully occupied by teens. The usual amazing mix of spindly thirteen year olds in t shirts and tennis shoes, and fully formed adults, also 13, in high fashion. Talking with them, however, is a great leveler; a 13 year old brain is a 13 year old brain. Not an un-interesting one in the bunch, however.
This was a working visit for me as well as for the teens, meeting people and things mostly. The people were of all sizes, shapes, ethnicities and mostly young. The things were of two sorts; a corporation created to offer medical practice management, based on several decades of successful practice in Maryland, and a corporation that develops simulations for training..both military and civilian.
The simulation center, in the Cointelpro building off Connecticut Ave was definitely an eye opener. I had seen earlier versions of all the components, and yet it was impressive to see them all assembled, and in a space more like a sound stage than the usual low ceilinged hospital space. I examined an avatar pregnant patient arriving in the emergency room. I used an X box to perform a virtual bronchoscopy, with coaching on how to find the important landmarks. I manipulated laparoscopic instruments to make a mess out of a gall bladder removal… the spreading red stuff in the simulation was, to me at least, alarming enough to get the adrenaline pumping as it would doing the real thing. Then there are the simulations of cardiac arrests, of massive head trauma, of operations under way when something unexpected happens...in a word, pretty much any simulation you could want. Except for group process…which I don’t expect them to have much of a problem doing.
"They still ask for pigs feet", said our young engineering graduate host. “We have lots of synthetics, and more on the way, but the older surgeons who teach suturing just say 'Give me pigs feet". And so, the simulation lab has all the electronics, and also has a freezer full of pig’s trotters and chicken breasts (to simulate abscesses).
Why simulation? Well, for me it’s an appropriate technology to help people train with less risk to humans or animals. We used to teach physiology by sacrificing dogs. We used to teach intubation by standing next to students when they attempted their first intubation. Now the dog labs are gone, and the students, by using simulators first, at least have the basic hand eye coordination running when they perform their first procedure on a human. Same for drawing blood, starting an IV, or performing a gall bladder surgery.
The weather stayed wonderful through Friday afternoon, although I saw most of it through a car window. Still, it was good to see the various iterations of Old Glory waving over the memorials to George and Thomas and Abraham. The Occupy movement in Wall Street and Frank Ogawa Plaza (aka Oscar Grant Plaza, to remember the black Oakland teen that was shot dead while restrained by police after being confronted for being black while riding rapid transit) seemed distant from the places I was visiting. As they really are, I guess.
We drove an hour down through Maryland and visited a very well designed two story health center in a rural farming and fishing community, a representative sample of what the organization I was there to meet with can do. If they can do this in Palm County Florida, it will make my job of figuring out how to teach clinical medicine without a hospital based academic staff a whole lot easier! I left in a good mood, but no time for local seafood.
And so now its winter in the East Coast, and the Occupy organizers have to rethink their campaigns, as Napoleon should have rethought his march on Moscow. The news says that Scott Olson, with a head injury as a result of police action in Oakland last two days ago, is awake after spending some time unconscious in an ICU. Hopefully, the police are rethinking their winter campaigns as well.
Aloha, Alan
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Error #7
10-8-11 0705 West End Beach, Naushon, Cape Cod. Sunup , the wind is now blowing 20 for sure, and there are whitecapped waves breaking all over Buzzards Bay. It’s clear as the proverbial bell, with a cloudless sky, quite warm. I am not going to try landing to look for new coyote tracks. Instead, I cook up another bacon and eggs, this time without fireball (less fuel worked!), put in a double reef , which should make the sail manageable in up to 25 mph winds, pull out the stern anchor (satisfactorily difficult) and start the mighty 6 HP engine. By 0800 we are under motor, and after a few hundred yards of safety from the lee shore, I hoist up the double reefed sail and whoa, we are careening along, downwind, back towards Woods Hole.
No thought of trying to go upwind. Instead, I’ll ride the wind along the Buzzards Bay shore to places like West Falmouth, that I go by at about mile 7 on the bike path on the way to work. A perfect day to go, and even with an ebb tide against, we seem to be making good time. There’s a big sea running, waves over 5 feet seems like, but Susie P slides happily along, with little DR, now loaded with flotsam lobster bouys, scampering behind.
As we hit the rip on a point just East NE of Kettle Cove, as Susie P has just reached the bottom of one of those ‘over 5 feet waves’, there is a whole new hisssss kind of sound, and I look back to check DR. No, not down where she should be; now DR is up ABOVE the level of Susie P’s amply chubby and quite high stern, and that ‘hisssss’ is the sound of surfing!!. This is yet another boating error (#5, I think), not restricted to solo sailing, in which the line towing the tender behind is not long enough to keep the tender off a large following sea. And DR, bouys and all, is apparently a pretty good surfer, because it comes hissing right down the wave and smashes into Susie P’s bum , actually getting its bow over the transom, before losing momentum, wallowing in the wake, and then being violently jerked around by the tow line.
I carefully tie in a longer piece of line, using the prescribed knots. There, now DR is on a longer leash; problem solved.
We come up level with Wee Peckets. The wind seems lighter now, maybe we could sail faster with only a single reef, and it’s a good time to practice reefing without using the motor to stabilize the boat. I do a couple of these maneuvers with a lot of slop, and then one good enough to get the sail down. Hove to, Susie P seems content, but DR is kiting around on the end of the long tow line, so I pull it in and re-fasten up short. I take out the second reef, leaving one in, and hoist up the throat and gaff halyards (ropes fastened to the front and back of the piece that supports the top of a gaff rigged sail and passing over pulleys at the top of the mast). Whoa, hmmm, maybe I should have stayed with two reefs. But with more power, it’s easier to come about to a new tack direction. Its only after the second practice tack that I look downwind and see a skiff that someone must have lost floating all by itself about half a mile away. Looks a lot like… Well, apparently that last ‘fasten up short’ I didn’t make two bights on the cleat…or something… Error # 6 maybe, but who’s keeping count? It’s time to practice ‘recovering lost skiff on high seas while sailing single handed”. But at least, having lost DR before, I have a pretty good plan for this, and in a gratifyingly short time we recapture the little runaway and her load of buoys.
With more sail, the restful part of the day turns out to be over. About 10 we pass by Woods Hole, and come in closer near my home beach, Gansett, watching for rocks, and looking for new vistas. The relationship of points that I usually only reach at the end of woodsy roads is quite striking. Things are much closer together than I conjectured. Some houses are much grander that I thought, and some beaches look much prettier from the sea. Sippewissett, which we loved for it’s long rockfree gently shelving white sand and spartina crested sand dunes is, if anything, even more beautiful than my memories. Racing Beach has rocks offshore that would make any race pretty exciting. Gunning Point, which I remember as being desolate, turns out to be full of mansions now.
West Falmouth Harbor has a narrow entrance, kept open by rock jetties on both sides, and is well marked by channel buoys. Full of confidence from the ride downwind, and the rolling waves, I start the motor but keep the sail up. Once inside, the wind is blocked, and with both motor and sail we pick our way down a very narrow winding channel, and then drop the sail and use a lead line to sound out the channel. I like doing this, because electronic depth sounders have made lead lines archaic, but I don’t have a depth sounder, and I like the atavistic image I must be making. However, there aren’t many people around to be reactive. Several small boys are scratching for clams, and a couple of adults are doing things on their boats. I think of hooking up to someone else’s mooring, and actually snag a mooring line with the boathook, but think better of it, and put the boathook down, heave over the Danforth, and anchor. It’s good to rest after the downhill. I admire the harbor full of small boats; lots of fellow catboats, lots of sailboats generally, and someone has lost a boathook, it's floating away. It looks a lot like….. Well, I did put it down, didn’t I? Another error(#7); things are not to be put down in single handed sailing, they are to be PUT BACK!. I guess Sala would be happier if I applied this lesson in shore based life as well. Well, maybe rowing after a runaway boathook in a previously run away dinghy/skiff will finally larn me.
Marmelade, a 25 foot wooden catboat arrives, having sailed from Hyannis..about the same distance but at least half upwind. It would be nice to gam for a while, but actually, if I want to get back in time for dinner, I should get moving.
I’m not going to describe in detail my learning experience of problem #8, which is tying off the halyards to prevent their making clanging noises while you eat lunch and then forgetting it and trying to hoist the sail with same halyards, thus creating complex rope jam while maneuvering around other boats sitting innocently at their moorings. But I can definitely check off that as a lesson practiced, if not learned.
And the trip back was great..not as in great for Fuji, who doesn’t like pots and pans leaping off the stove as the boat comes onto starboard tack, and then the sleeping bag she is snuggling into leaping off onto the pots and pans when the boat comes about onto port. But Fuji isn’t here, and although Sala has emphatic reservations about sailing with the lee rail in the water, I don’t. Because Susie P is short, she’s not fast upwind in a rolling chop, but she’s amazingly predictable. Because she’s fat as well as short, she pitches a lot, kind of like a short roller coaster ride really. And the day is still bright, the air is sparkling and full of the smells of ocean and seaweed, and Mama N has thrown in just enough gull cries and other boats under sail to make it memorable.
By 4 o’clock, we go onto starboard tack off Penzance, and head for The Hole. The solar charger has finally caught up with the iphone, and I checked the current chart during the lunch break, and confirmed the current changed at about 3:45. Meanwhile, the wind has actually INCREASED a bit; later I will find out it was logged at 25 mph. So the single reef is becoming problematic.
What happens when Susie P is carrying too much sail is that it becomes harder and harder to manage her ‘weather helm’. This is the saving grace of the catboat breed; when the wind blows too hard, rather than capsizing, the boat heads up into the wind, thus decreasing pressure on the sail. It’s what makes them so safe.
However, in order to get through The Hole with the current, we need to head downwind now, and that’s NOT something that Susie P is in a mood to let me do. If the wind keeps up like this, as I come into the channel where the current is probably running 3 mph, I will have to jibe the sail, meaning move it from starboard tack to port tack. If I do nothing, the wind itself could cause the jibe, which means the sail, still pretty big with only one reef, will be blown suddenly around the mast, ending with a crunch as it hits the end of the sheet rope, and putting a lot of pressure on the mast itself. This error is called ‘jibe all standing’, and is regarded as one of the basic No-No’s of catboating.
We are making 6 mph, hull speed, and the current adds another several mph, so decisions have to be made. Well, Uncatena island should create a wind shadow over this Western end of The Hole, so with the motor going, and much less wind, I should be OK. Meanwhile, it’s taking all of my strength to pull the tiller against the ‘weather helm’ and even get to The Hole.
At least two of the boats approaching at the same time seem to be under power, but so am I, so right of way is an issue. But look, they are holding back, perhaps out of horror, perhaps courtesy for small fat overpowered sailboats.
The waves have gone away, and just on time, the wind drops. Hooray. With only one medium sized power boat coming the other direction, I jibe the sail, head across the current, and actually make the out of channel but more direct route into Great Harbor.
Well, I think the total error score for this voyage is ONLY 7!, and this time it didn’t include missing the mooring (got it!!) or losing the skiff (two bights on the cleat) or getting hit with the swinging boom (duck!!) or even leaving my shoes on the boat(check twice). Back in time for dinner, with the unexpected lesson from error number #7: put things back, not down, when you have finished using them.
Alan
No thought of trying to go upwind. Instead, I’ll ride the wind along the Buzzards Bay shore to places like West Falmouth, that I go by at about mile 7 on the bike path on the way to work. A perfect day to go, and even with an ebb tide against, we seem to be making good time. There’s a big sea running, waves over 5 feet seems like, but Susie P slides happily along, with little DR, now loaded with flotsam lobster bouys, scampering behind.
As we hit the rip on a point just East NE of Kettle Cove, as Susie P has just reached the bottom of one of those ‘over 5 feet waves’, there is a whole new hisssss kind of sound, and I look back to check DR. No, not down where she should be; now DR is up ABOVE the level of Susie P’s amply chubby and quite high stern, and that ‘hisssss’ is the sound of surfing!!. This is yet another boating error (#5, I think), not restricted to solo sailing, in which the line towing the tender behind is not long enough to keep the tender off a large following sea. And DR, bouys and all, is apparently a pretty good surfer, because it comes hissing right down the wave and smashes into Susie P’s bum , actually getting its bow over the transom, before losing momentum, wallowing in the wake, and then being violently jerked around by the tow line.
I carefully tie in a longer piece of line, using the prescribed knots. There, now DR is on a longer leash; problem solved.
We come up level with Wee Peckets. The wind seems lighter now, maybe we could sail faster with only a single reef, and it’s a good time to practice reefing without using the motor to stabilize the boat. I do a couple of these maneuvers with a lot of slop, and then one good enough to get the sail down. Hove to, Susie P seems content, but DR is kiting around on the end of the long tow line, so I pull it in and re-fasten up short. I take out the second reef, leaving one in, and hoist up the throat and gaff halyards (ropes fastened to the front and back of the piece that supports the top of a gaff rigged sail and passing over pulleys at the top of the mast). Whoa, hmmm, maybe I should have stayed with two reefs. But with more power, it’s easier to come about to a new tack direction. Its only after the second practice tack that I look downwind and see a skiff that someone must have lost floating all by itself about half a mile away. Looks a lot like… Well, apparently that last ‘fasten up short’ I didn’t make two bights on the cleat…or something… Error # 6 maybe, but who’s keeping count? It’s time to practice ‘recovering lost skiff on high seas while sailing single handed”. But at least, having lost DR before, I have a pretty good plan for this, and in a gratifyingly short time we recapture the little runaway and her load of buoys.
With more sail, the restful part of the day turns out to be over. About 10 we pass by Woods Hole, and come in closer near my home beach, Gansett, watching for rocks, and looking for new vistas. The relationship of points that I usually only reach at the end of woodsy roads is quite striking. Things are much closer together than I conjectured. Some houses are much grander that I thought, and some beaches look much prettier from the sea. Sippewissett, which we loved for it’s long rockfree gently shelving white sand and spartina crested sand dunes is, if anything, even more beautiful than my memories. Racing Beach has rocks offshore that would make any race pretty exciting. Gunning Point, which I remember as being desolate, turns out to be full of mansions now.
West Falmouth Harbor has a narrow entrance, kept open by rock jetties on both sides, and is well marked by channel buoys. Full of confidence from the ride downwind, and the rolling waves, I start the motor but keep the sail up. Once inside, the wind is blocked, and with both motor and sail we pick our way down a very narrow winding channel, and then drop the sail and use a lead line to sound out the channel. I like doing this, because electronic depth sounders have made lead lines archaic, but I don’t have a depth sounder, and I like the atavistic image I must be making. However, there aren’t many people around to be reactive. Several small boys are scratching for clams, and a couple of adults are doing things on their boats. I think of hooking up to someone else’s mooring, and actually snag a mooring line with the boathook, but think better of it, and put the boathook down, heave over the Danforth, and anchor. It’s good to rest after the downhill. I admire the harbor full of small boats; lots of fellow catboats, lots of sailboats generally, and someone has lost a boathook, it's floating away. It looks a lot like….. Well, I did put it down, didn’t I? Another error(#7); things are not to be put down in single handed sailing, they are to be PUT BACK!. I guess Sala would be happier if I applied this lesson in shore based life as well. Well, maybe rowing after a runaway boathook in a previously run away dinghy/skiff will finally larn me.
Marmelade, a 25 foot wooden catboat arrives, having sailed from Hyannis..about the same distance but at least half upwind. It would be nice to gam for a while, but actually, if I want to get back in time for dinner, I should get moving.
I’m not going to describe in detail my learning experience of problem #8, which is tying off the halyards to prevent their making clanging noises while you eat lunch and then forgetting it and trying to hoist the sail with same halyards, thus creating complex rope jam while maneuvering around other boats sitting innocently at their moorings. But I can definitely check off that as a lesson practiced, if not learned.
And the trip back was great..not as in great for Fuji, who doesn’t like pots and pans leaping off the stove as the boat comes onto starboard tack, and then the sleeping bag she is snuggling into leaping off onto the pots and pans when the boat comes about onto port. But Fuji isn’t here, and although Sala has emphatic reservations about sailing with the lee rail in the water, I don’t. Because Susie P is short, she’s not fast upwind in a rolling chop, but she’s amazingly predictable. Because she’s fat as well as short, she pitches a lot, kind of like a short roller coaster ride really. And the day is still bright, the air is sparkling and full of the smells of ocean and seaweed, and Mama N has thrown in just enough gull cries and other boats under sail to make it memorable.
By 4 o’clock, we go onto starboard tack off Penzance, and head for The Hole. The solar charger has finally caught up with the iphone, and I checked the current chart during the lunch break, and confirmed the current changed at about 3:45. Meanwhile, the wind has actually INCREASED a bit; later I will find out it was logged at 25 mph. So the single reef is becoming problematic.
What happens when Susie P is carrying too much sail is that it becomes harder and harder to manage her ‘weather helm’. This is the saving grace of the catboat breed; when the wind blows too hard, rather than capsizing, the boat heads up into the wind, thus decreasing pressure on the sail. It’s what makes them so safe.
However, in order to get through The Hole with the current, we need to head downwind now, and that’s NOT something that Susie P is in a mood to let me do. If the wind keeps up like this, as I come into the channel where the current is probably running 3 mph, I will have to jibe the sail, meaning move it from starboard tack to port tack. If I do nothing, the wind itself could cause the jibe, which means the sail, still pretty big with only one reef, will be blown suddenly around the mast, ending with a crunch as it hits the end of the sheet rope, and putting a lot of pressure on the mast itself. This error is called ‘jibe all standing’, and is regarded as one of the basic No-No’s of catboating.
We are making 6 mph, hull speed, and the current adds another several mph, so decisions have to be made. Well, Uncatena island should create a wind shadow over this Western end of The Hole, so with the motor going, and much less wind, I should be OK. Meanwhile, it’s taking all of my strength to pull the tiller against the ‘weather helm’ and even get to The Hole.
At least two of the boats approaching at the same time seem to be under power, but so am I, so right of way is an issue. But look, they are holding back, perhaps out of horror, perhaps courtesy for small fat overpowered sailboats.
The waves have gone away, and just on time, the wind drops. Hooray. With only one medium sized power boat coming the other direction, I jibe the sail, head across the current, and actually make the out of channel but more direct route into Great Harbor.
Well, I think the total error score for this voyage is ONLY 7!, and this time it didn’t include missing the mooring (got it!!) or losing the skiff (two bights on the cleat) or getting hit with the swinging boom (duck!!) or even leaving my shoes on the boat(check twice). Back in time for dinner, with the unexpected lesson from error number #7: put things back, not down, when you have finished using them.
Alan
A Few Errors on a Calm Day
10-7-11 1045 last Friday, sailing *Susie P* out of Great Harbor towards
Vineyard Sound. No, I am not writing this sitting on the boat, although I
might; the Latitude 2110 runs fine off 12 V DC, charges from a little solar
panel or the 6 horsepower motor. But this trip, I was wavering between kayak
and sailboat all through the morning. 5-10 mph winds were predicted for
today and Saturday, but it was dead calm earlier in the day. Then, sure
enough, some wind waves appeared in Buzzards Bay to the west of the Woods
Hole peninsula. Wind is not that fun in a kayak. And so I bicycled back
home, left the kayak specific camping mattress and the +20 degree sleeping
bag, shoved the bacon, eggs and milk in a bag, (forgetting the tea and the
butter), and biked back to John’s boathouse .
Entrances into familiar places are important to me; I remember a kind of
fear and loathing that developed about going in the door of the Life
Sciences building during my last year as a basic scientist..the work was
technically difficult, hard to reconcile with what I wanted to do as a
teacher, and not as immediate as the bombing of Cambodia. As my bike wheels
bump onto the edge of the wooden ramp leading out to John’s boathouse, my
reaction is antipodean... anticipation and pleasure before anything has even
happened. A corollary of consciousness?
The day is all lit up in sunlight and clarity. The *Diaper Rash*, a tiny
tippy little fiberglass pram, is waiting, and I pile the food and the
supplies into it, along with my kayaking PFD. Since it’s clear that I am
working my way through all the possible errors in single handed sailing, I
don’t want to fall overboard with no life jacket; error #1 in most books. I
cleat the painter (tie on the rope connected to the bow of the boat) of the
*DR* to *Susie P*, unload the stuff, and shake out the single reef in the
big catboat sail..need the full 250 sq ft in light air. Sparkling sunlight,
and clear enough to see houses on Martha’s Vineyard. No Fuji..the little dog
is out West with Sala. Just me, now noodling along in the ebbing current
heading SW along the Vineyard Sound side of Nonamessett. And even with light
winds, a current of 2-3 mph helps, and we are soon past Lackeys Bay and
alongside Naushon. The Laurentian glacier moraine that is the basis of all
these islands is about 40 feet above the tide on the Vineyard side of the
Elizabeth Islands, so the shore is a narrow band of rocks with an eroding
sand bank behind it. There are dips, depressions in the sand bar, and
Tarpaulin Cove was probably where a big hunk of ice melted later than the
rest. On the way there, the boat sails into a place where the current
suddenly reverses. It’s not on the tide charts, but it sure does slow down
progress...as in sometimes sailing backwards. There are also places where
the current boils up due to a change in depth..shoals causing tide rips.
Lots of ‘funny fish’..so called because it’s funny to watch fishermen
chasing them, let along catching them. Unlike schools of bluefish, who
create a carnage of bait body parts and attract gulls and terns from miles,
small tuna (bonita, ‘false’ albacore) are fastidious predators, slashing
into the bait for only a few seconds, and then sounding deep to reappear a
hundred yards away in a seemingly random direction. I’ve never caught one…I
did have one on for a few intense moments years ago, but it broke off. And
today, I am fishing only by eye.
It’s getting on, and the fair tide in Robinsons Hole between Naushon and
Pasque will change at three according to my on-line information about on
Woods Hole. It should be about the same, methinks. So, I bypass Tarpaulin,
sailing right on by the picture perfect white lighthouse with it’s little
red roofed white stucco service building snuggled up alongside. It’s still
lit at night, but I think is privately maintained rather than part of the
Coast Guard system. On summer on a day like today there would be a dozen
boats in with families spread out on the long curving white sand beach.
Today, one boat, with one couple walking slowly along the shore.
The current picks up again in the right direction, and *Susie P* bobs and
burbles along about 200 safe yards off shore. There are occasional solitary
rocks, which generally create a boil in the smooth water that lets you spot
where they are. And because we are running before the wind and with the
current, I have the centerboard ¾ up. Still, I haven’t forgotten the sound
and feel of hitting that rock off Cuttyhunk..another lesson about sailing
that I hope I *have* learned. Now I can see the channel bouy marking the
entrance to Robinsons Hole, and its only 1:30 so I scan the shore, looking
for interesting flotsam, and sail in towards a rocky stretch littered with
stuff. In among the large submerged rocks, looming like elephants or whales
under the boat through the clear water, there’s almost no current; easy to
anchor and row ashore in *DR*. Immediately there are lots of small very
painful flies..no mayflies these, perhaps related to those blackflies in
Alaska, or sandflies on South Island NZ. Swatting pre-emptively, I stay to
take pictures of a great spontaneous sea sculpture composed of 4 or 5
lobster pots hammered together, along with their ropes and bouys, by the
winter storms. And collect some flotsam bright painted bouys for Sala, who
has expressed regret I never bring any home. This time, I fill *DR* with
their damaged and often beautifully oceanized bodies.
It’s warm enough to swim; did I mention that it got down to low 50’s last
night, and the morning started cold? The weather report, in predicting 5-10
mph winds for three days also predicted warmer temperatures tomorrow. That
will be nice.
Now there’s almost no wind, and I’ll be late for the tide at Robinsons. As I
approach this relatively narrow Hole, it’s clear that the tide actually
turns here earlier than at Woods Hole, and is already against me. (Error #2:
get the specific tide for the specific current). So I crank up the 6 HP
Tohatsu, and motor past the people fishing the tide change. There’s West End
Farm on the right, at the end of Naushon. In the late 50’s, it was neglected
and I stealthily explored, and even spent a night on a mousey moldy sofa in
the then disused living room. Now it’s all spiffed up with a deck and
perhaps residents. I sail closer to snap a picture, and then think about
heading SW down Buzzards Bay towards Cuttyhunk.
Now there is really almost no wind. It’s glass calm, and the current is
flooding against a trip the trip I had planned. Over the stern, West End
Beach looks very pleasant as an alternative. Who said sailing has to be
strenuous? It’s generally an error when sailing to set your mind on a
specific place (racing is different, of course). It takes over an hour to
sail/drift the ¾ mile back East to Naushon. Due to the miracle of a cell
phone, I can decline a dinner invitation and work on a patients medical
issues, while accomplishing this. Anchoring off West End, I follow the
suggestion of a fellow catboater, dropping the anchor while sailing
downwind, dragging it briefly to set it in the sand, and then dropping the
sail. Whoo Hoo; error free anchoring!! Anything is possible in light winds.
Just behind most beaches around here, and intimately related to their
existence, there is usually a brackish pond, sometimes fed by springs or a
small creek. This time of year, the reeds and grass are changing to fall
colors, and in the fading sunlight the color variations really require a
painting. Nevertheless, I use up most of the remaining juice in my iphone
for a photo. On the still chilly white sand beach beach, I try to decipher
from the tracks whether it was a dog or a coyote that was running, and
suddenly putting on the brakes to swerve towards the dunes. Maybe coyote;
the tracks don’t leave the beach with the only other human prints.
There’s a little more wind as I light up the alcohol stove, and so I stop to
set a second anchor off the stern, which I hope will prevent some of the
rolling that happened last time I spent the night anchored. Back to lighting
the stove, I create exactly the scary fireball that I did last time. How do
I manage this exciting piece of stage craft? In Ladakh, when this happened
as I was sitting inside the front of our tent with a snowstorm going on
outside, I could just heave the offending stove out into the snow. But here,
any heaving would probably spray burning fuel around the cabin, and also
require diving for the stove afterwards. Luckily, alcohol burns without ash,
and the flame isn’t hot enough to singe the cabin over the stove. Error #3,
is it?
I have better luck with more pumping and less alcohol, and have my
delightful and unhealthy meal of bacon and eggs with NO VEGETABLES, washed
down with neat Jameson’s, and followed by 1/3 of a butterscotch power bar
(sucrose, glucose, fructose and fat flavored with oatmeal). And now I have
time for only a few of A. Damasio’s well written remarks about the nature of
consciousness (‘*Self comes to Mind*’) complete with Sala’s highlighting,
then it’s too dark to read, with a spectacular ¾ moon rising over the
island, and a coruscating multicolored sunset drowning it out to the West
over Rhode Island.
Ah, bliss; a cool evening, lots of sugar to digest along with the well
presented possibility that conscious emanates from sub cortical centers, and
NO ROLLING!!
Well, that lasts until about 11. Now, with the moon riding high
overhead, *Susie
P* is plunging as well as rolling. On deck, practicing how not to commit the
second or third most common solo boating error that causes male sailors to
fall suddenly overboard unzipped, I notice that the wind is definitely close
to or even over 10 mph. By 2:30 there is a new noise. I’ve chosen the “*
reeeeek-eeeeek*” of a rudder straining against a tied off tiller to the” *
bluuunkCLUNK*” of the same rudder bashing its untied self against the
hull…gotten used to that. I am accustomed to the “*burblegurblemurbleburble*”
of the water flowing along the fiberglass soundboard of the hull. But now
there’s something new, a hissing noise followed by a smash! This turns out
to mean the incoming waves driven by the increasing West wind (thus coming
right in on the beach, West End Beach, remember??) are now big enough to
break BEFORE they reach the boat. Will that “smash” be enough to dislodge
the anchor?
In case you wonder, yes; this is another form of the familiar ‘Lee Shore’
error. I can’t check the internet; the phone is out of juice and the new
‘Freeloader’ solar recharger is not recharging fast enough, but I think
‘5-10 mph’ was suppose to be out of the SW, which would make this beach a
place of shelter. Now with the wind driving right in on the boat, if the bow
anchor drags out, *Susie P* will swing around on the stern anchor and
probably go aground. Hmm, let’s see…that will be on a falling tide, and then
if the wind increases we will be pushed on the beach, probably broadside.
Well, it could be worse..at least it’s just sand on this particular lee
shore, but still counts as #4 for this trip.
The moon sinks beyond the rest of the USA by 4 AM, and the rectangle of sky
visible from my bunk lights up with a pitching, rolling and quite beautiful
starscape. How many thousand light years did you say? It does provide a
perspective. Well, the Danforth anchor is known to do well in sand bottoms
like this. And that unknown constellation and high magnitude solitary star
next to it don’t seem to be moving. The “*hisssssssSMASH*” is blending in
with all the eeekingreeking and the other boat noises. And so, yes, I go to
sleep.
Tomorrow, unexpected big wind and hitting the Hole.
aloha
Alan
Vineyard Sound. No, I am not writing this sitting on the boat, although I
might; the Latitude 2110 runs fine off 12 V DC, charges from a little solar
panel or the 6 horsepower motor. But this trip, I was wavering between kayak
and sailboat all through the morning. 5-10 mph winds were predicted for
today and Saturday, but it was dead calm earlier in the day. Then, sure
enough, some wind waves appeared in Buzzards Bay to the west of the Woods
Hole peninsula. Wind is not that fun in a kayak. And so I bicycled back
home, left the kayak specific camping mattress and the +20 degree sleeping
bag, shoved the bacon, eggs and milk in a bag, (forgetting the tea and the
butter), and biked back to John’s boathouse .
Entrances into familiar places are important to me; I remember a kind of
fear and loathing that developed about going in the door of the Life
Sciences building during my last year as a basic scientist..the work was
technically difficult, hard to reconcile with what I wanted to do as a
teacher, and not as immediate as the bombing of Cambodia. As my bike wheels
bump onto the edge of the wooden ramp leading out to John’s boathouse, my
reaction is antipodean... anticipation and pleasure before anything has even
happened. A corollary of consciousness?
The day is all lit up in sunlight and clarity. The *Diaper Rash*, a tiny
tippy little fiberglass pram, is waiting, and I pile the food and the
supplies into it, along with my kayaking PFD. Since it’s clear that I am
working my way through all the possible errors in single handed sailing, I
don’t want to fall overboard with no life jacket; error #1 in most books. I
cleat the painter (tie on the rope connected to the bow of the boat) of the
*DR* to *Susie P*, unload the stuff, and shake out the single reef in the
big catboat sail..need the full 250 sq ft in light air. Sparkling sunlight,
and clear enough to see houses on Martha’s Vineyard. No Fuji..the little dog
is out West with Sala. Just me, now noodling along in the ebbing current
heading SW along the Vineyard Sound side of Nonamessett. And even with light
winds, a current of 2-3 mph helps, and we are soon past Lackeys Bay and
alongside Naushon. The Laurentian glacier moraine that is the basis of all
these islands is about 40 feet above the tide on the Vineyard side of the
Elizabeth Islands, so the shore is a narrow band of rocks with an eroding
sand bank behind it. There are dips, depressions in the sand bar, and
Tarpaulin Cove was probably where a big hunk of ice melted later than the
rest. On the way there, the boat sails into a place where the current
suddenly reverses. It’s not on the tide charts, but it sure does slow down
progress...as in sometimes sailing backwards. There are also places where
the current boils up due to a change in depth..shoals causing tide rips.
Lots of ‘funny fish’..so called because it’s funny to watch fishermen
chasing them, let along catching them. Unlike schools of bluefish, who
create a carnage of bait body parts and attract gulls and terns from miles,
small tuna (bonita, ‘false’ albacore) are fastidious predators, slashing
into the bait for only a few seconds, and then sounding deep to reappear a
hundred yards away in a seemingly random direction. I’ve never caught one…I
did have one on for a few intense moments years ago, but it broke off. And
today, I am fishing only by eye.
It’s getting on, and the fair tide in Robinsons Hole between Naushon and
Pasque will change at three according to my on-line information about on
Woods Hole. It should be about the same, methinks. So, I bypass Tarpaulin,
sailing right on by the picture perfect white lighthouse with it’s little
red roofed white stucco service building snuggled up alongside. It’s still
lit at night, but I think is privately maintained rather than part of the
Coast Guard system. On summer on a day like today there would be a dozen
boats in with families spread out on the long curving white sand beach.
Today, one boat, with one couple walking slowly along the shore.
The current picks up again in the right direction, and *Susie P* bobs and
burbles along about 200 safe yards off shore. There are occasional solitary
rocks, which generally create a boil in the smooth water that lets you spot
where they are. And because we are running before the wind and with the
current, I have the centerboard ¾ up. Still, I haven’t forgotten the sound
and feel of hitting that rock off Cuttyhunk..another lesson about sailing
that I hope I *have* learned. Now I can see the channel bouy marking the
entrance to Robinsons Hole, and its only 1:30 so I scan the shore, looking
for interesting flotsam, and sail in towards a rocky stretch littered with
stuff. In among the large submerged rocks, looming like elephants or whales
under the boat through the clear water, there’s almost no current; easy to
anchor and row ashore in *DR*. Immediately there are lots of small very
painful flies..no mayflies these, perhaps related to those blackflies in
Alaska, or sandflies on South Island NZ. Swatting pre-emptively, I stay to
take pictures of a great spontaneous sea sculpture composed of 4 or 5
lobster pots hammered together, along with their ropes and bouys, by the
winter storms. And collect some flotsam bright painted bouys for Sala, who
has expressed regret I never bring any home. This time, I fill *DR* with
their damaged and often beautifully oceanized bodies.
It’s warm enough to swim; did I mention that it got down to low 50’s last
night, and the morning started cold? The weather report, in predicting 5-10
mph winds for three days also predicted warmer temperatures tomorrow. That
will be nice.
Now there’s almost no wind, and I’ll be late for the tide at Robinsons. As I
approach this relatively narrow Hole, it’s clear that the tide actually
turns here earlier than at Woods Hole, and is already against me. (Error #2:
get the specific tide for the specific current). So I crank up the 6 HP
Tohatsu, and motor past the people fishing the tide change. There’s West End
Farm on the right, at the end of Naushon. In the late 50’s, it was neglected
and I stealthily explored, and even spent a night on a mousey moldy sofa in
the then disused living room. Now it’s all spiffed up with a deck and
perhaps residents. I sail closer to snap a picture, and then think about
heading SW down Buzzards Bay towards Cuttyhunk.
Now there is really almost no wind. It’s glass calm, and the current is
flooding against a trip the trip I had planned. Over the stern, West End
Beach looks very pleasant as an alternative. Who said sailing has to be
strenuous? It’s generally an error when sailing to set your mind on a
specific place (racing is different, of course). It takes over an hour to
sail/drift the ¾ mile back East to Naushon. Due to the miracle of a cell
phone, I can decline a dinner invitation and work on a patients medical
issues, while accomplishing this. Anchoring off West End, I follow the
suggestion of a fellow catboater, dropping the anchor while sailing
downwind, dragging it briefly to set it in the sand, and then dropping the
sail. Whoo Hoo; error free anchoring!! Anything is possible in light winds.
Just behind most beaches around here, and intimately related to their
existence, there is usually a brackish pond, sometimes fed by springs or a
small creek. This time of year, the reeds and grass are changing to fall
colors, and in the fading sunlight the color variations really require a
painting. Nevertheless, I use up most of the remaining juice in my iphone
for a photo. On the still chilly white sand beach beach, I try to decipher
from the tracks whether it was a dog or a coyote that was running, and
suddenly putting on the brakes to swerve towards the dunes. Maybe coyote;
the tracks don’t leave the beach with the only other human prints.
There’s a little more wind as I light up the alcohol stove, and so I stop to
set a second anchor off the stern, which I hope will prevent some of the
rolling that happened last time I spent the night anchored. Back to lighting
the stove, I create exactly the scary fireball that I did last time. How do
I manage this exciting piece of stage craft? In Ladakh, when this happened
as I was sitting inside the front of our tent with a snowstorm going on
outside, I could just heave the offending stove out into the snow. But here,
any heaving would probably spray burning fuel around the cabin, and also
require diving for the stove afterwards. Luckily, alcohol burns without ash,
and the flame isn’t hot enough to singe the cabin over the stove. Error #3,
is it?
I have better luck with more pumping and less alcohol, and have my
delightful and unhealthy meal of bacon and eggs with NO VEGETABLES, washed
down with neat Jameson’s, and followed by 1/3 of a butterscotch power bar
(sucrose, glucose, fructose and fat flavored with oatmeal). And now I have
time for only a few of A. Damasio’s well written remarks about the nature of
consciousness (‘*Self comes to Mind*’) complete with Sala’s highlighting,
then it’s too dark to read, with a spectacular ¾ moon rising over the
island, and a coruscating multicolored sunset drowning it out to the West
over Rhode Island.
Ah, bliss; a cool evening, lots of sugar to digest along with the well
presented possibility that conscious emanates from sub cortical centers, and
NO ROLLING!!
Well, that lasts until about 11. Now, with the moon riding high
overhead, *Susie
P* is plunging as well as rolling. On deck, practicing how not to commit the
second or third most common solo boating error that causes male sailors to
fall suddenly overboard unzipped, I notice that the wind is definitely close
to or even over 10 mph. By 2:30 there is a new noise. I’ve chosen the “*
reeeeek-eeeeek*” of a rudder straining against a tied off tiller to the” *
bluuunkCLUNK*” of the same rudder bashing its untied self against the
hull…gotten used to that. I am accustomed to the “*burblegurblemurbleburble*”
of the water flowing along the fiberglass soundboard of the hull. But now
there’s something new, a hissing noise followed by a smash! This turns out
to mean the incoming waves driven by the increasing West wind (thus coming
right in on the beach, West End Beach, remember??) are now big enough to
break BEFORE they reach the boat. Will that “smash” be enough to dislodge
the anchor?
In case you wonder, yes; this is another form of the familiar ‘Lee Shore’
error. I can’t check the internet; the phone is out of juice and the new
‘Freeloader’ solar recharger is not recharging fast enough, but I think
‘5-10 mph’ was suppose to be out of the SW, which would make this beach a
place of shelter. Now with the wind driving right in on the boat, if the bow
anchor drags out, *Susie P* will swing around on the stern anchor and
probably go aground. Hmm, let’s see…that will be on a falling tide, and then
if the wind increases we will be pushed on the beach, probably broadside.
Well, it could be worse..at least it’s just sand on this particular lee
shore, but still counts as #4 for this trip.
The moon sinks beyond the rest of the USA by 4 AM, and the rectangle of sky
visible from my bunk lights up with a pitching, rolling and quite beautiful
starscape. How many thousand light years did you say? It does provide a
perspective. Well, the Danforth anchor is known to do well in sand bottoms
like this. And that unknown constellation and high magnitude solitary star
next to it don’t seem to be moving. The “*hisssssssSMASH*” is blending in
with all the eeekingreeking and the other boat noises. And so, yes, I go to
sleep.
Tomorrow, unexpected big wind and hitting the Hole.
aloha
Alan
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