My first trip to sail Quietly
was for the Christmas Holidays after just purchasing her and the trip from Vail
to
Florida could not have been easier! With the winter ski season, Vail
has many daily flights directly from our “local” airport which is just across
the road from my office. With all the new security measures, I was great
to leave home 45 minutes before my flight and still have to sit in the waiting
area for the flight to board! Contrast that to flying out of
Denver where I
would have had to leave home five hours before the flight!!! The flight
from Vail to
Miami was a direct no-stop flight that takes slightly less than four
hours which made it very nice. But after arriving in
Miami, it took
almost two hour for the rental-car company driver to find me! I kept
telling them that I arrived on American, but what I did not understand was that
because the terminal was busy, our flight had arrived
at the International Terminal rather than at the normal American
Terminal. So I was on the opposite end of the airport from where they
were looking for me!!!
After that and getting the rental car, it was
only a 45 minute drive up to Fort Lauderdale and to Brian and Teri’s house to
find Quietly tied up at their private dock. I can not describe the feeling
of going on board the first time when I knew that Quietly
was MY sailboat! The first thing I did was to unpack the boxes of
clothes, sheets, towels and things that I had shipped ahead. Then I made
up the aft cabin before driving into downtown for dinner at “The
Riverfront”. Following dinner, I crawled into my new bed and read for a
few hours before turning off the light and falling
asleep.
I awoke to the sound of ducks swimming by at
about
9:30 EST (7:30 to me) and prepared for a friend and her son to come over to go
sailing. They arrive shortly after
10:30 and the first order
of business was to turn quietly around. This is no simple task as Quietly is 43 Feet 10 Inches long and she is docked in a 50
Foot wide canal! As we started the process, all of the neighbors came out
to protect their boats. It must have been plainly obviously that we were
rank amateurs at this! It took us most of 30 minutes to manage to get
Quietly pointed out the canal and to the relief of the neighbors, we did no damage,
after which we sat on the grass and talked about what we had learned and
devised a better plan for when we would sail back that afternoon.
As a pilot who has flown for over 30 years, most
of that time in planes that have wheels that retract into the aircraft when in
flight, there is an old saying among retractable gear air plane pilots;
“There are those who have and there are those who will” … land with the wheels
up. There is another saying; “Flying is a series of learning experiences
spread among hours of routine flying, and when you have the opportunity to
learn, you carefully file the information in your experience bag of
tricks.”
During my Sailing Expedition this summer sailing
for 17 days in the
North Sea, in August of 2001, I filled away
many experiences in my experience bag. One evening when coming into dock
in
Rine,
Norway last summer, the Mahina Tari came to an abrupt stop. Tom and Amanda (our two
instructors) were given the opportunity to show the six students on board what
to do when you find the bottom with your keel. We were carefully entering
the harbor at Rine with one evening at low
tide. Tom had tow of us students with led lines constantly calling the
depths at both the bow and stern and a third student calling the depth from the
depth sounder. I was perched on the wenches holding on to the mast
looking down into the clear green water watching the bottom. We were in nine
feet of water as reported by all three when we hit bottom. The lesson that I
was about to learn proved to be invaluable much more quickly that I would have
hoped and on my first sail as the Captain of my own ship Quietly!
Sailing – or more properly, motoring – from Brian
& Teresa’s house out to the Atlantic Ocean takes about 45 minutes as their
house is very far inland on a canal off of the south fork of New River and
during the sea-trial of Quietly back in November, Brian was careful to remind
me that when sailing on the ICW (Inter-Coastal Waterway) that the US Standard
Buoy coloring and marking changes from “Red Right Returning” to Red on the land
side of the waterway and Green on the coastal or ocean side of the waterway.
It is Sunday when Rebecca and her son Jason are
joining me to crew for my first sail at Captain of Quietly. While
proceeding out
New River, I reviewed with Rebecca and Jason that when we reached the ICW
the Green Marks on our right would become Red when we reached the ICW. As
we approached the ICW we were all watching for the Green Marks on our Starboard
to change to Red as we intersected the ICW. When the last Green Mark on
or Starboard side slips slowly past and we approach a Red mark I slow Quietly
to idle forward and proceed well past the Red Mark into what I assume to be the
center of the channel before making the turn to Starboard to join the ICW going
south. With great caution I slowly turn Quietly
into the ICW when we come to an abrupt halt!
I manage to keep my composure while I confirm
that we are in fact aground. An attempt to back off does not work.
We are on a rising tide so I know shortly we will ok. I think back to our
experience in
Norway and swing the boom out to the low side and have Jason hang out as
far on the boom as possible while keeping his feet on deck and again attempt to
back off. This time we back off easily. Keeping a cool head and
that learning experience back in
Rein,
Norway has just paid off! Just as we back off, a coast guard boat
coming up the ICW and stops to offer help. I thank them but say we are
fee and ok. The Captain of the Coast Guard vessel points three hundred
yards further down the New River channel to a “A” Mark which marks the joining
of New River and the ICW which is where I should have made the turn. A
very embarrassed Captain Dalton and his crew, all of which must have been
working very hard not to burst out laughing, continued on.
If there is an old saying among sailors as there
is among pilots it mite go like this; “There are those who have and there are
those who will” run a ground, I joined the ranks of those who have on my
very first day as Captain of my own ship. There is no place but up from
here… {grin}
The rest of the day was perfect as we went out
the ICW to the
Atlantic Ocean and then back to the dock behind Brian and Teri’s house under warm
sunny skies. When we got back to the dock, we used the new technique we
had discussed before to turn Quietly around in
only ten minuets this time. Rebecca and Jason left to go to a dinner
party and I went to the store to get some things for the galley and for supper.
Christmas Eve, I was invited to a party with
another friend whom I had met. Patti and I went to a party given by
several of her friends. It was a really eclectic group of people! A fellow from
Tobago and his date from NYC. A French Canadian lady and her son. A local folk song
singer, and the couple who’s apartment the party was
in. No to people alike and all with a different personality! Quite
an interesting and fun gathering!
Christmas was a quiet day I spent scrubbing and
cleaning. Quietly was very clean in all the public spaces, but behind and
below the Teak walls, the brown water stains from years of condensation in
humid climates had built up on the painted surfaces since Brian and Teri had
cleaned and painted here five year before. Moving into Quietly
is like moving into a new house… There is lots of cleaning in the back of
cabinets etc that you want to do before you move all of your things in.
And like a house, that is probably the last time they get such a thorough
cleaning for many years. But this is that time and on a 43 foot boat with lots
of storage places behind the walls and under the floors, seats, bunks etc.,
there is a LOT to scrub and clean which is what I spent the bulk of my time
doing.
The rest of the week I spent cleaning and making
up new dock lines. It took a few tries to get it right after the
instruction on how to splice Double Braid Line back on the Mahina
Tarie in
Norway. But I eventually made a beautiful eye splice in a 86 foot line to make turning Quietly around in the narrow
channel easier.
On Friday after Christmas, I was to crew for
“Shake-A-Leg” out of
Miami. Shake-A-Leg is a national organization that teaches
disabled individuals the joy of sailing. On Friday, I was to crew for a
group of underprivileged children for an evening sail out across
Biscayne Bay. A
cool front had come through on Thursday so the temperature was around 65
degrees when I arrived at
5:30 in
Miami. My
Captain for the evening arrived about the same time and since they did not know
how to contact me and the Captain had been driving for several hours coming up
from
Key West, neither of us had gotten the word that the sail had been canceled
because it was TO COLD! Lyn, my Captain for the sale, suggested that
since we were both there and it was a beautiful moonlit night, we should take
the boat out and enjoy the sail ourselves. I suggested we have dinner
first and after that we sailed for three hour on
Biscayne Bay watching
the moon and the lights of
Miami on the bay. It was a really wonderful evening. Lyn is
a very interesting lady who does international consulting and was a joy to sail
with.
Living on the boat for almost a week at this
point, I had noticed that the pressure water system cycled every three to four
minutes for perhaps five seconds. I had spent quit a bit of time looking
for why it kept cycling but had not found any thing and had come to the
conclusion that the pressure must be leaking back through the pump when about
9:30 I heard the bilge pump kick on for the first time. Now that
got my attention! The first ting I did is pull
up the floor boards over the bilge to see where the water was coming
from. I did not see any water which relieved me some, but I still hunted
through the boat until I found the bungs and put them out in plane site in case
I needed them all of a sudden. Then I took the flashlight and started
really looking hard all around the bilge and there it was, a tiny trickle of
water running along next to the prop shaft bearing support! I started
tracking it back and found a tiny leak in a fitting in the pressure water
system that was drip, drip, dripping. Judging from the corrosion around
the bearing support (the major problem found on the survey which will be
repaired this month when Quietly is hauled out for the
repairs we found during the survey), this has been leaking for a long time,
probably over a year. Fixing the leak will be simple and will give me the
opportunity to replace the hose and remove several splices that might cause
trouble in the future and fix the cause of the bearing support corrosion at the
same time! I am very glad that I found it and I might not have if I had
not been living on the boat for several days on end in the quiet of the private
dock behind Brian and Teri’s house. In a noisy marina or if I had been
sailing every day, I might not have though so much about the bilge pump having
come on and would not have found the leek.
Another friend Patti joined me for a day of
sailing on Sunday before I departed for home on Monday. It was
beautiful sunny morning with a nine knot breeze as we were motoring
New River for the
ICW and the
Atlantic. As we approached the intersection of
New River and the
ICW with great caution well aware of where the "A" Mark and the turn
point are, there was another sailboat stuck exactly where I had been the week
before. This poor fellow was really stuck! There were three Boat Tow
boats and a Coast Guard Boat trying to get that boat free, but it looked like
everyone had pretty much given up waiting for high tide as the sailboat was
really listing to one side indicating it was well grounded. I smiled and
waived a knowing and understanding smile as we sailed past. As I found
out from talking with people, two or three boats
get stuck at that point almost every day! The Red Mark that I and this
poor fellow had both turned on is actually a mark on the ICW where the ICW and
New River run parallel for 300 yards with a 20 foot wide shallow between the.
You would think if that is the case, they would place Green Mark on
New River to mark
the
New River channel from the ICW at that point. As one
local sailor said, “Local Knowledge Helps!”
As we got to the
Atlantic Ocean, we
raised the sails and sailed for most of an hour before it clouded up and the
wind died. So I cranked the engine and motored
the rest of the way down to
Hollywood,
Florida and then turned and headed out to sea five miles to the
Gulf Stream and then
headed back to
Fort
Lauderdale. We
were out about 9.5 hours for a very relaxing and pleasant day. By the
time we approached
Fort
Lauderdale harbor,
the cruise ships were departing so we stopped outside the channel and watched
them all leave before heading in. By this time, it was getting dark, so I
had the experience of sailing back in the evening with all the channel lights.
The next morning my flight was not until
4:40 in the afternoon and I could hear the sound of rain on deck.
It was marvelous sleeping in listening to the relaxing sound of the rain on
deck. When I got up, I packed my bag, cleaned up and took out the trash
before heading to the
Miami
Airport. I had a wonderful time and though I did a lot of work, I
still have 2/3’s of Quietly to clean and scrub.
I can see that this will be an ongoing project when I get back to Quietly in
March.
