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