The Way We Live Now

Slowly traveling up the coast… Having a whole summer off might be your dream vacation, but most people would probably have better ideas of how to spend it than bobbing around on a small boat. What exactly do you do with all of your time?

Well, we sort of have a routine. Morning is for writing, and in Rick’s world, that means silence. Rick works on his computer at the nav-station/desk, while I sit at the cabin table and web-surf. Basically, I’m wasting time, waiting until I’m allowed to talk. I haven’t always been good at this. For a while, I was banished to the v-berth (where we sleep) during “quiet time” because I just couldn’t stop talking.

Inspired by my latest self-improvement fantasy, I recorded the soundtrack from an exercise video onto my IPhone so that I could use it to get in shape on the boat. Of course there’s very limited space aboard to do much working out, but there’s a vaguely plausible spot on the foredeck if I’m willing to dodge all of the lines and sailing equipment. On the upside, balancing up there can be tricky, and those lines have come in handy as a quick safety grab when the boat gets hit by some wake. It takes some courage, though, to get up there and actually work through the routine. I’m sure I must look like a complete idiot. In Cape May we were anchored next to a big Coast Guard ship, and when I started gyrating around up there, the entire crew came up on deck to have a look. Maybe they thought I was signaling an S.O.S….?

What're YOU looking at?

When riding at anchor for the day, afternoons and evenings are often taken up with welcome trips ashore. Lately though, we’ve been using our afternoons to move the boat to a new spot. Rick handles most of the actual sailing duties, but once the sails are up and the self-steering is set, both of us are free to do other things.

Boat watching is a favorite activity, and we see all kinds of vessels when we’re underway. 

The Shenandoah in Martha's Vineyard

Mansion gawking is another favorite past time. We find it particularly satisfying to critique gorgeous, palatial homes that we could never afford.

A few days ago, my friend Igor, himself an enthusiastic sailor, posted a comment on this blog, innocently asking how my sail handling is coming along. I’m sure he assumed that I’ve been becoming quite the sailor, this being my fourth summer on a sailboat, to say nothing of having weathered that horrible windstorm last week and all.

Hey, I’m great with the engine! I can turn that key like the best of them, and steering with the big wheel – I’m an ace! I’ve learned how to read the chart plotter too (ok, I still have a little trouble figuring out how to turn it on). Actual sailing? Ummm…

I didn’t realize it until now, but I think Rick and I have kind of an unspoken agreement. I’ll come along, but I don’t want to have to actually DO anything. I want to be carried like a princess in a gilded sedan chair, while Rick toils with the halyards and sheets. All right Igor, you’ve shamed me into action!

OMG - I'm such a girl!

Ok, that's better.

Hey Igor, how 'bout that?

(My arms are still sore...)

Time Off

Ah, Block Island. I’ve always loved it, and after the dark and stormy night we went through to get here, we both could use a couple of days off in a vacationers’ paradise.

I’m in the mood for a day at the beach, and we learn from one of our anchoring neighbors that the main island beach is just a short walk from the pebbled dinghy landing. We had been to this beach before, but only by bicycle, never realizing how easy it was to get here straight from the boat.

The beach is gorgeous. We each stretch out on our pads and retreat into our respective books. Incidentally, Rick and I do not share the same taste in reading material. For instance, I spent one summer on the boat re-reading the entire Harry Potter series on my Kindle, mostly as a method of keeping my seasickness at bay. Right now I’m reading the latest novel by Elizabeth Gilbert, the Eat, Pray, Love author. At least I’ve graduated to literature for adults, if still not exactly high-brow.

Being an academic, Rick’s preferences run a bit more on the heavy side. He’s always got some writing project going too, and he guards his computer like it holds the crowned jewels. He even brings it with us to the beach, huddling over the screen with one of my sun umbrellas.

In the early evening, the Block Island Township has sponsored a concert on the beach, with an excellent New Orleans zydeco/blues band called Otis and the Hurricanes. A nice crowd gathers, and we join the dancing on the narrow boardwalk.

The next day, we take the dinghy in and enjoy a nice walk into town instead of our usual ride on rented bikes. I grew up in a tourist town on the shores of Lake Michigan, and the similarities are striking. The shingled Victorian cottages, quirky little curio shops, vacationing families, all of it graced by the ever-present sight of open water. Everywhere I’m reminded of my childhood summers. There are some very notable differences, however. Many of the tourists who come to Block can have a snooty, hoity-toity air about them that I don’t remember from my home town. The women are tanned, beautifully coiffed, and wearing casual, but obviously expensive designer resort wear. I, on the other hand, am wearing my typical boating outfit, a ten-year-old t-shirt and shorts from Target along with my trusty baseball cap.

I also have a new addition to my appearance this year: orthodontia. Not the most welcome development. I had had braces as a kid, and I was perfectly happy with my smile, thank you very much. But I’ve been suffering recently from some pain in my jaw, and after seeing a TMJ and facial pain doctor, it was determined that my treatment had to include a modified bite, accomplished with another round of metal mouth.

Maybe I should see my braces as a fashion accessory. Apparently, gold or silver “grills” are all the rage, a trend started by hip-hop artists in the ‘80’s. Why it is making a resurgence now is anyone's guess, but I’m clearly in the fashion fast-lane. Here’s Madonna showing off her grill:

Katy Perry has a set of tiger teeth – I think they say “Roar”, turning her teeth into a smiling advertisement for her single of the same name:

Of course, anyone looking to copy this celebrity trend runs the risk of looking like that guy from James Bond films:

We end up at the Spring House, our favorite restaurant on Block. Sitting out on the lawn chairs, overlooking the beautiful blue water of Rhode Island Sound, it’s difficult to think that this was the same ocean that kicked us around so violently the other night.

It was the worst of times...

As wonderful as our last sail turned out to be, we had no idea what was yet in store for us. Rick always pays very close attention to the marine weather reports, and a thirty-six hour off-shore trip from Cape May to Block Island looked promising. The wind forecast was favorable, although Rick had some fear that the waves might be kicked up a bit in the aftermath of hurricane Arthur. Not sure how I would handle the motion with a sea like that, our plan was to head in to Barnegat if we needed to bail.

We head out fairly late in the day, which means we won’t reach our destination until after midnight tomorrow night. This might have been a mistake in the end. But so far, things are pretty ok. The wind, as predicted, is moderately strong, and the waves are indeed choppy, measuring three to five feet.  This kind of a sea would normally be worrisome for someone like me, but I have put on a scopolamine patch and so far, not a hint of queasiness. We congratulate ourselves for having hatched a plan that gets us up north quicker, bypassing the flies that are ever-present in the Long Island Sound. Heh heh, we’re so clever.

 The passage is so far uneventful, and frankly, kind of dull. I know that I can’t really get away with reading anything when we’re underway with a rolling boat, and there’s just not that much to see once we’re off-shore. I end up going to bed, leaving Rick to catnap as best he can through the night. The next day is pretty much the same, although perhaps a bit more desolate. We have left the distant outline of the New Jersey coastline and are now completely out of sight of land.

At about seven or eight o’clock in the evening, about thirty-five miles out from Block Island, we encounter a pod of harbor porpoises, following along with our boat. They are a smaller, somewhat darker version of the more familiar “Flipper” dolphin. They seem to be accompanying us on our journey, swimming along side us for quite a distance. Rick took some video of them. You will need to watch very closely, as they break the surface for only a split second, and in different parts of the water. You can see it here .

I go to bed, thinking that Rick will wake me up in about five hours or so when we arrive at Block. Instead, it’s only about an hour later that he comes to get me. “The wind has come up,” he says, “and I need you to help me take the main sail down.” I notice that the boat is knocking around a bit more than before I fell asleep. Ok, fine. I follow him up on deck.

Holy shit.

It’s dark out, except for the light of the almost full moon. The wind is screaming in a high-pitched howl through the rigging, the waves are running eight to ten feet now, and the boat is pitching all over the place. I feel like I’ve been dropped into the worst scene from The Perfect Storm. I know you’ll think I’m exaggerating for dramatic effect, but I’m really, really not.

The wind is so strong, that it’s dangerous to have the sail up. The engine is on, and Rick needs me to point the boat straight into the wind and hold it there while he goes up on deck and takes down the sail. I’m completely at wits’ end here, but I do understand the task and do as I’m told, shouting out swear words at every plunge of this damned boat we’re on. The wheel doesn’t want to stay stationary, and it takes all of my strength to hold on to our position. I’m scared out of my gourd that Rick will fall off. I keep going over in my mind what I would do if that were to happen. It doesn’t take me long to realize that Rick would be toast. There is no way I would be able to find him in the dark, and if I turned the boat around to get him I would be just as likely to run right over him as to save him.

I admit, most of my fears were somewhat irrational. Rick is a very responsible sailor, and he had snapped himself into a safety harness before stepping up there on the cabin top. It would be very unlikely that he would actually fall completely off and into the water. But the possibility of a serious injury is real enough. I would have a very tough time getting the boat and us to safety if Rick were to become incapacitated.

After what seems an eternity, Rick has the sail down and comes back to relieve me at the wheel. He knows I am very likely to get seasick now, so he tries to reassure me, sending me down below and telling me to go to sleep. He’ll motor us into Block Island. Well, I do go down below, but I don’t sleep. I cry.

I spend the next hours concentrating on keeping my eyes closed and trying not to get sick while the boat bounces up and down and all around.

At last, the crazy rocking and pitching abates. It’s three in the morning and we’ve pulled into the Great Salt Pond of Block Island. Rick tells me later that the wind strengthened and the waves grew even higher after we managed to get the sail down. The challenge, he tells me, was keeping the boat from broaching, i.e. violently fishtailing to one side with the passing of a big wave.  To prevent broaching, you need to correct immediately for every deviation of the course.  But to do that, you can’t rely on the computerized chart plotter to keep yourself on track because there is a slight delay before a sudden course change appears on the screen. By then you’ve missed the moment in which to correct. He literally ended up steering by the stars, looking almost straight up and aligning the mast with some fixed points. The tough thing was keeping that up for another four hours, and I’m particularly impressed that he managed to do all of this on very little sleep. I, on the other hand, fearless mariner that I am, spent those last four hours down below, trying not to barf. 

It was the best of times...

I have learned to dread that long slog down the Delaware Bay to Cape May. I have made this leg of our Baltimore/Maine trip four times before (once on the way back), and each time it was exactly the same; hot, long, windless, and boring, with the accompanying scenery of that ugly nuclear plant. This time, though, the air is actually moving. Instead of that sickening static heat, we get a warm pleasant breeze.  Once past our old friend the nuclear plant, the wind comes up nicely and we can actually sail!

Usually by this late in the summer, the Delaware is full of jellyfish, ghostly apparitions, gently but ominously pulsing by the side of the boat. Perhaps the late spring has set them back a bit, but whatever the reason, we don’t see a single jellyfish. This is great because now we can swim without the worry of jellyfish stings. We slow the boat down and do some controlled dragging, being pulled along behind the boat at the end of a well cleated piece of line. I’m not sure there is an official name for this activity, but it’s kind of like water skiing, albeit very slow and sans skis.

Aprés drag, we set the auto-helm and lounge around on the foredeck, reading, napping, snacking and joking. Rick likes to make sport of sailing very close to obstacles in the water and it always scares me, particularly if we’re on the auto-helm.  I think by now he does it on purpose so he can hear me say, as casually as I can muster, “We don’t want to hit that buoy do we?”

The end of the day is even lovelier than the beginning, as the wind rises beautifully from the southwest, driving the boat even more sweetly through the water as the sun sets behind us. It is now July fifth, as we spent the fourth in the Bohemia River, avoiding some pretty big winds. But apparently we haven’t missed the fireworks after all. As we approach the Cape May canal in the dark, we get treated to the town’s delayed celebration, and this time we get to see the show right up close. The only downside of the Grand Finale is afterwards finding ourselves caught in a crazy melée of drunken boaters, all clamoring to re-enter the canal at the same time.