Cold and Stormy

After a couple of days working from the boat, I was eager to get sailing this weekend.   

Eager, but not willing - at least on Saturday... it was tooooo coooolllllldddd!!!

I woke up Saturday to temps in the low 50s.  Winds were brisk, the water on Swan Creek was stirred up and after poking my head up out of the companionway like a prairie dog, I went back inside.  

After watching a Raymarine seminar on YouTube, I decided it was time for breakfast and headed over to Java Rock Cafe... this place looks great and the bagel I got was... well OK.  (Maryland bagels just can't hold a candle to the ones from NJ - especially from people who learned to make them in NYC).

After another Raymarine seminar (with the heat pumps going full blast), I decided to go out for lunch and drove around the beautiful farmland on the DelMarVa.  As I was returning, I saw some scary clouds and realized there would be no sailing this afternoon.

This one had lightening off in the distance.

As I arrived back at Osprey Point, the squall was coming in from the bay.

It was quick and not too intense, and soon I settled down to more YouTube.  I noticed the light outside brightening and was thinking about going out for a late afternoon sail, when it suddenly got dark (and you could hear the wind picking up outside).  I went outside to find these conditions.

Click here for the video

(Remember this is a protected creek!)

I turned on the electronics to measure the wind speed... 27
(Less than the other day when a friend recorded 47.)

After this squall ended, conditions improved, but there was no way I was going to go out... you could still see darkness in the distance.

I had a quick fish sandwich at Anchor and Plow, but I can't say that I recommend it.  They do seem to do a brisk take out business.  

After dinner, it was back to more Raymarine seminars.  (Not all YouTube rabbit-holes are time wasters.)

Sunday morning I decided I'd just cook my own breakfast... spam and veggie hash with a banana chip muffin!

With breakfast out of the way, I completed two projects.  First, using my newfound Raymarine knowledge, I updated my Navionics card for the MFD.  Second, I replaced "Vicky's" dock line with a longer line... this allows me to drop it over the rope separating the two slips and in turn allows me to take care of this dock line before departure.  By draping it over the other line like shown, it's easier for me to snag it with the boat hook... so I'm now pretty self-sufficient for single-handing.

And yes, this is a sailing blog... 

I FINALLY managed to get out Sunday morning.  It was the warmer of the two weekend days, but it was still COLD.

I've been having trouble trimming my jib (headsail) so these next few photos were taken so a few friends can  give me some pointers.

I'm having trouble trimming my jib...

I got back in time for a late lunch from Rock Hall Liquors.  They had apple dumplings, so I celebrated Mother's Day with an apple dumpling.  Sorry... I was so excited I forgot to take the photo before stirring it all up.

Following lunch it was time to be lazy... I just lounged in the cockpit for an hour before heading below for a nap.  This guy was out sailing on Swan Creek and I liked his intense blue sails.

After the nap, I filled the water and added the start of year shock treatment.  While it was filling, I double checked the mast and rigging (input for the friends helping me with my jib).

And that was it!  It was a fun few days.  

Working From the Boat

This week I headed down to Rock Hall during lunch on Thursday to work from the boat Thursday afternoon and Friday.  This sounds wonderful (and it is) -- set up, get everything completed you would at home or at work and then as quitting time arrives, you're instantly in vacation mode -- no packing/traffic/stress.

I saw a strategic hole in my schedule around lunch on Thursday so I packed all I could on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning and then made my escape, stopping for gas and a quick sandwich along the way.  

My workspace has changed drastically lately.  First, a few years ago when I took a job that moved me from the private offices I've enjoyed for the first part of my career to a cubicle.  Of course, COVID had me working from home for a year and there I share desk space with all the personal filing & finance as well as my photography hobby.  So I have become used to thriving at work with a lot less monitors.  I normally set up at this side table shown above, but I can move to the main table if I need to spread out (just like at home).

After work, I was a mere 150 yds from a pleasant seat to enjoy being near the water.

On Friday I had a nice walk and a light breakfast.  While working, I had to hold a virtual meeting or two, work on a presentation and some spreadsheets... fairly typical stuff.  Since it was a very calm day and relatively pleasant, I spent some time mid-afternoon working from the cockpit.  

Later in the afternoon, it got too cool and when the rain started, I headed back inside to finish for the week.

I celebrated the arrival of the weekend with dinner at the Osprey Point Inn.  It was FABULOUS as usual, and great to be back eating at this wonderful restaurant that's only 150 yards from my boat.   

But even a fabulous dinner eaten alone lacks something, and that something is the presence of The Admiral.  She's working hard to close a key deal and thus is delayed a few weeks.  So this was just a one-time thing until she can return in a few more weeks.

Stuffed mushroom appetizer

Braised Pork Shank

Bread pudding!!!

Despite the wine and the brandy, I was able to make it back to the boat.  (Fortunately, there were no WUI checkpoints along the dock!)  

The rest of the evening was YouTube videos (pipe organ demos seem to be the rabbit hole of the day) and planning the weekend's sailing.

Wind Storm, No Water and First Day Out on the Bay!

 

This weekend was crazy!

The plan was to go down Thursday night... finish the move-in and clean up the interior a bit so I could work from the boat on Friday before a weekend of sailing with friends.

I loaded the remaining boat items and headed down right after work.  I'll spare you the typical messy boat photos but I will show some nice shots as dusk approached as I finished getting items stowed.  I knew it was going to get a bit windy that evening but I had not checked the weather for a few days.  THAT turned out to be a mistake.

Looking out to C & D docks from the parking lot.

All ready to work from boat (on the right).

Yes, you can assume the spaces I'm not showing were still a mess.

I watched some YouTube and went to bed, noticing that it was beginning to get a bit breezy.  As the night wore on, the wind HOWLED  through the rigging and dock lines groaned.  The motion of the boat picked up around midnight, so I got up and put on two seasickness wrist bands just in case.  (Sometimes when it's rocking below, I'm fine, other times it bothers me... why take the chance?)

In the morning, I awoke and found this weather report and this storm warning (which eventually became a gale warning).  The wind was high - high 20s to low 30s, and I guessed and Seas The Day was leaning maybe 5 degrees or so straining agains the dock-lines keeping her tied to the dock.  

Seeing that this was going to go through the night and realizing that I had a lot of fine detail to review for work, I decided I had enough time to head home (stopping at Waffle House) and make use of a flat, non-moving desk.

It was basically like a hurricane passing off the coast in terms of what we experience at Osprey Pt.   Davis from Shardana clocked 42kts at one point in the evening on Friday.  As I left Friday morning, this was the view from the deck.

I took my computer and a bag or two and headed to the car and there I experienced a really interesting photographic moment.  

You may recall Ansel Adam's photo "Sunrise" and the associated story he told about realizing that a unique moment was happening and rushing to set up (and having to guess at exposure) before the light was lost from the crosses in the photo's cemetery.

OK... I'm not Ansel, but as I approached the car I saw the the sun was about to rise... it was rim-lighting the clouds and I thought to myself "You should drop everything and capture this".  But I'm not Ansel and I took a few seconds to put the bags on the back seat and turned to see the sun had risen (washing out the neat scene I just saw)... the moment had passed.

I started to get in the car when I looked just a bit to the left and really liked how the sun played across the natural frame posed by a few pine branches... so I took a few steps and quickly captured it with my iPhone.  I wanted to get started at work so there was no time for playing... one or two quick exposures was it.  I processed it in lightroom during lunch and came up with this (which I think I may enter in my company's photo contest).

Sunrise in Rock Hall

I worked all day Friday at home until the power went out (if I had stayed on the boat I could have started the generator), and stayed at home that night.

I went back down early on Saturday.  It was still windy and there were small white caps in swan creek, but more importantly, there was no water!

White caps on Swan Creek.

This was high tide!  Depth should be reading 8' or so.
(My keel is 4'11" deep)

I've been told about this phenomena... it's called a "Blowout Tide"  The high winds blowing from NNW the past few days has blown water out of the Chesapeake Bay, resulting in abnormally low water levels.  

If it was high tide now... and if my friend came and we tried to leave (we probably would not have been able to get out), we would surely have problems getting back, so I postponed his visit until Sunday.

By mid-afternoon, the water levels were way below normal.
On a typical day the rocks on the left are at the edge of the creek.

With no guests coming, I decided to use the time on Saturday productively and swabbed the deck, getting Seas The Day spic and span for the next day.

After I finished cleaning, I was quite hungry so I went to Harbor Shack for a quick meal and ended up eating with some dock mates who were there for an early meal as well.

I was lounging around back onboard when I suddenly realized that the AC/heat had cut off.  I was reading about this possibility just the other day on the 425 group and opened the bilge and checked the AC strainer... my fear was the low water levels caused it to suck up some gunk (a technical term).

But the strainer was clean....

I checked the circuit breakers... they were on... but no 120 voltage... so now I focused on checking the breakers in the transom... they were off... no blue lights on the smart cables, so it must be the pedestal.

That's when I noticed... hmmm... the pedestals weren't lit up.  I looked over at the Inn... it was dark.  We were clearly experiencing a power failure - which was a bit surreal because my TV was still running and I had lights on (they run off the house batteries... AC runs off... well... AC).

It was so dark that I should have done some star-gazing.  Since I had already had my bourbon for the evening I didn't want to walk out on the docks.  Instead, with the TV working I watched Maryland Public TV which was having their pledge drive (these are much easier to tolerate with some bourbon).

If anyone else besides me has read to this point, I'm truly impressed... leave a comment if you have.

In the morning, breakfast preparations had to wait for me to do the yearly propane test... to make sure the system doesn't leak.  Once everything was safe, I had soft boiled eggs and toast.

While having breakfast, I received a cancellation from my friend, so after cleaning up, I FINALLY set off.  

...

...

And THIS, my friends, is what it is all about.  After all this preparation... the SECOND I untied the last dock-line and stepped aboard it was like all the tension from the last few months just melted away.  All was right with the world as I glided out Swan Creek.   

Once I rounded the #3 buoy, I set the sails.  The windspeed was around 15 to 17 kts and Seas The Day instantly embraced that wind, leaning over slightly and finally feeling free after a winter on the hard, effortlessly came up to 7 kts SOG.  It was breezy and cool.  I just sat back listening to the sound of gliding through the water and feeling the breeze on my face.

Life is good!

Sails are out!

7 kts across the bay without even trying.

Checking out the traffic

Contented?

My track for the day.