Rough Stuff

The Shenandoah in Martha's Vineyard

I am such a weakling. It’s partly the musicians’ curse, always having to watch out for hands and fingers. What might seem like a minor injury for most people could mean the end of my career. But if I plan to do much more sailing in the future, I’m going to have to develop some useful musculature. This morning’s passage makes that clear.

Martha’s Vineyard to Onset and then Provincetown. This is a well worn path of familiar ports and waters. Rick has made this little trilogy of landings many times before, and this is the third time around for me as well.

Different winds and weather patterns make every voyage at least somewhat unique, of course. Still, I’m experiencing more than a little déjà vu when we leave Vineyard Haven and traverse the Vineyard Sound to Woods Hole. The wind is not exactly “blowing like snot,” as sailors like to say, but it’s blowing darned hard and in a direction exactly contrary to the current, creating what sailors call a “cross sea”. The boat is tossing and turning all over the place, just like it did two years ago when I was with Rick on Tortue, making this same passage my first time up the coast. I can’t deal with the camera to take any pictures – it’s just too wild of a ride.

We’re sailing with the headsail alone, yet we’re screaming along at eight and a half to nine knots, helped by the strong tidal current. The deck is getting washed with spray and I scramble below to shut all of the hatches. I think I’m real hot stuff now, no longer afraid of getting seasick by going below in a rocky sea. Once I’m down there, though, it becomes a major challenge to get back up on deck. We are heeled way over and with all the bouncing around, I’m having trouble climbing the companionway steps.

“Go slow, one handhold at a time!” Rick yells down to me. I try to follow his advice, but I’m hopelessly stuck on the next to last step. Imagine trying to balance yourself near the top of a ladder that is leaning to the side about forty-five degrees, and is bouncing atop a big rubber ball that is riding up and down waves of three or four feet. Now try and imagine climbing to stand on the top rung of that ladder. You need to be agile and have a good sense of balance of course. But you also need some pretty strong leg muscles to counterbalance the inertia that is at play.

I am not quite up to the task and I end up making it out of the companionway, but only after badly jamming my big toe (of course I am barefoot) and wrenching my shoulder. I have long been envious of Rick’s nimble-footed ease of movement under these conditions, and I have been assuming that he is just more self-assured and experienced on a boat than I am. That is certainly true to some extent. But I now see more clearly that one of the big reasons Rick is able to move around a bumpy boat while I tend to sit around like a big toad is that he’s simply a great deal stronger than I am.

Once we make it through Woods Hole and into Buzzards Bay the current runs differently so we are out of the cross sea. The wind remains really strong though, and we’re still making at least six and a half knots with only the headsail. Rick and I are both astonished that I am not seasick, but my foot and shoulder are aching and I retreat into the V-berth (our bedroom) to lie down. Rick stays up above and is able to get some footage of Valkyrie sailing in this still rolling but much calmer sea:

 http://youtu.be/w4HBnRFWUVU

The rest of our journey unfolds with all of the familiar sights and pleasures. Pizza and clams in Onset, party time in P-town. After a couple of days, my shoulder is as good as new, but my foot is still a bit swollen and tender. At least it won’t effect my violin playing. Rick tells me that the passage from Vineyard Haven up Buzzards Bay was some of the best sailing he’s had in a long time. His obvious enthusiasm for that kind of sailing contrasts greatly with my own fear and discomfort with it. But you know, I would never begrudge him the enjoyment of sport sailing if that’s what he really loves.

When we get back to Baltimore, I’m going to find a personal trainer.

 Sunset Over Provincetown

Pushing Towards Paradise

On our way, pushing relentlessly north. At least that’s what it feels like. Hardly a moment to catch our breath - or wash our hair or do laundry…

We make it to Cuttyhunk just in time to catch our friends Tim and Susan on their way south. They have spent the last year in Maine after having sailed up there last summer, and now they are more than a bit anxious to return to Baltimore and re-enter their lives. We raft up our boats and share stories and a meal together. Then we say our goodbyes and anchor our boat nearby.

When Rick and I arise late the next morning, Tim and Susan have already left in order to catch the favorable tides south. We decide to take the dinghy in to shore for breakfast at the Cuttyhunk Fishing Club – a homespun seaside cottage turned B&B we found last year that offers breakfast to the general public. We race over there just as they are starting to close up, but we make it onto their porch with one minute to spare and they graciously agree to serve us. Breakfast is fantastic, as is the panoramic view of Vineyard Sound.

After blissfully stuffing ourselves, we are able to take a much more leisurely walk back to the dinghy dock. Take time to smell the roses, I always say. Actually, there are wild roses here in abundance and they grow some equally beautiful rose hips.

 

It is an exceptionally hot day – I think the entire east coast is under the broiler right now. We re-anchor the boat beside the nearby Nashawena Island and take a swim to cool off. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones to get this bright idea; the shaggy long-horned cows who live on this treeless island have found the one place at their disposal to escape the heat.

We pull up anchor and head for Martha’s Vineyard. I am forever craving salty foods with this heat, so I make popcorn and we sit up on the foredeck with our chairs and our drinks, frantically trying to keep the wind from blowing all of our popcorn away.

While underway, we come across a couple of sea turtles and I manage to get a pretty bad close-up of one before he disappears below the surface. We also see a number of the now familiar floating balloons, along with a few Portuguese Man-o-Wars. I’ve been told that one of the reasons balloons and plastic bags are so bad for the ocean environment is that sea turtles eat them. What kind of an idiot turtle would try and eat a balloon? Well, the turtles eat jellyfish – they’re actually the only natural predator of jellyfish, I’m guessing because turtles don’t get stung through their shells. From a turtle’s point of view, a lot of these balloons look pretty similar to a Portuguese Man-o-War. In fact, those Man-o-Wars look pretty fake to me – I could swear they are made of plastic too.

(Balloon)

Internet legend has it that there is a floating plastic island in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas. Something about the currents collecting trash and debris into one giant mass. The veracity of this story is in some question. No one debates that there is an absolutely massive amount of trash out there, but no one can agree on how much density constitutes a floating island.

Perhaps of even greater concern is the presence of microplastics (tiny particles of plastic) in the marine environment. These can be caused by the breaking down of large pieces of plastic like cups, bags, and of course balloons, but they can also come from the machine washing of clothing made from synthetic materials, or even from additives to cosmetics and other products, sending these micro particles into sewer systems and eventually to the ocean. They then get eaten by animals near the bottom of the food chain. Not much is known yet about the long-term effects of these infinitely long lasting microplastics, either on simple organisms or on the larger animals (like us) who eat them, but really, it’s difficult to imagine that anything good could come of it.

We pull in to the harbor at Vineyard Haven – the main town on Martha’s Vineyard – and find a place to anchor. It’s great to watch the vast array of boats that parade by in this sailor’s paradise. We hail the rowing crew of a long boat, and they stop for a brief chat. The coxswain (the guy who calls out the stroke to the rowers) gives us a brief but informative history of these pilot boats, and the crew seems happy to receive our compliments on their rowing style.

As we are all saying our goodbyes, one of the crewmembers points to the nearby (conspicuously low) bridge and says, “Don’t try to go under that bridge!” What, do we have “Low Bridge Lovers” written across our foreheads? Maybe more people are reading my blog than I thought…

Around the Block

I’ve always loved Block Island. We’ve been here in good weather and in bad, it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s just so pleasant here.

All of the familiar sights are still in evidence; the tugboat that someone lives on, Aldo the bakery delivery man (with a new spiffy boat), that yellow house on the shore that I love so much. 

This year the Amistad is anchored here in Great Salt Pond and it makes a nice addition to the scenery.

After the two-day offshore trip from Cape May, we are looking for a day off from traveling. On our past two stops here, we rented bikes and explored the island, but it’s exceptionally hot this time around and all we really feel like doing is relaxing out at the boat. We are short of supplies though, so we take a very sweaty walk into town and stock up on a few groceries. We spy a heron in a pretty little pond on the way.

The rest of our time is spent swimming, reading and basically lolling around. Yeah, I know, it’s a hard life. Our next-door neighbor has a very droopy dinghy and it presents a great opportunity for endless saggy dink jokes. I think the boat life has a way of reducing us to adolescence.

We make popcorn and watch the sun go down from the deck of the boat. It’s been a week since we left Baltimore Harbor, and about a month and a half since all of the disasters started happening – the refrigeration meltdown, of course the now infamous bridge/mast episode, and then the annoying hatch debacle. This day on Block Island has helped to put some of that stress and angst behind us, a reminder of what it was all for (saggy dink jokes and all).