Sailing with George and Vicky: First Time Singlehanding & End of the Season

Nov 2nd.

Vicky flew back to China a couple of days after our last day of sailing together this season. But there's still a couple of weekends left before our marina shuts off the water for the winter. (Note, we could winter in the water - and even go out sailing if the creek hasn't frozen - but without water at the dock, we figured it would only be quick day trips. Besides... I wanted to inspect Seas The Day's bottom while the warranty was still in effect.)

I had lined up a guest, but that fell through at the last minute so I had to face the music... it was time to try single-handing. The winds were going to be light, but cold, so it seemed like an OK time to try.

I headed down to Rock Hall. Notice that dinners drop a lot in quality once Vicky leaves... so does the conversation quality. I try talking to myself, but I hate when I lose the argument when doing that.

Breakfast was similarly... um... filling. I always keep a few Mountain House meals onboard (from my prepping activities - if anything happens you can no longer count on the government to do more than toss some paper towels to you). So I had a "Breakfast Skillet" from Mountain House.

One thing I noticed is that the fuel tank seemed lower than it should be. That made me realize that the problem with the fuel tank vent might be bigger than first thought. Photos aren't shown, but I went to Gratitude to refuel, but fuel spit out the vent while refueling so we stopped that. I had enough for the day, but we would have to get that looked at.

With fuel on board, I headed out. It... was... COLD! Not many photos here because my fingers stung when I tried to take a selfie. I motored halfway across the bay, then decided that I didn't want to go too far out as I'd have to then come all the way back once I finally admitted it was too cold. So I then motored a bit south... back and forth around the area north of Kent island. That way I was never more than 30 to 40 minutes from the dock.

I made another Mountain House lunch. It was soothingly warm. It tasted reasonable. If I had to go without food for a couple of weeks (because of let's say... mutant biker zombies), I could work with this until paper towels were tossed in my direction.

One nice thing about single-handing this time of year is there were very few crab traps out there. The one or two boats seemed to be bringing them in rather than "working the line".

As I headed in, my plan of attack to get back to the dock and tied up was to use Caribbean coils for all the lines and bringing the starboard bow line back to midship. I figured I could get to the dock and then run off and reach everything.

I shouldn't have worried... I'm on B-dock. Long before my stern kissed the bumper, a compatriot had the bowline in hand. But my placing it thusly made it easy for them to reach.

And I was even able to figure out how to reach "Vicky's" bowline on the port side.

Back in the dock, I had 44.2 engine hours. I may make my 50-hour goal this season. In any event, I'm close enough. (I would like to have the 50-hour service completed over the winter.)

Nov. 9

I didn't capture the weather report, but predictions were that temps would be in the mid-20s to mid-30s in the morning... perhaps raising to high 30s/low 40s by the end of the day.

So I called it.

There was nothing to be gained by freezing again, so today was just a quick trip down to pull the final items off the boat. The first stop was the land side of Gratitude Marina to meet Wade and arrange for Seas The Day to be pulled on Tuesday. There is a big event going on at work tomorrow and I can't be present for the lift. In fact, I've never seen one of my boats being pulled out of (or put back into) the water.