Sunday, June 14, 2012

    I'm up at 6 AM, make my coffee and meet Chuck on the dock. I was feeling, slightly,  the effects of the wine dinner the night before. Anyway, Chuck who has made the part of the trip that I was about to go on, many times, was giving me last minute instructions and strategy for my trip down the Pasquatank River, then across the Albemarle Sound, and then down the Alligator river. Then Dale comes over, asks if she can say a last good by to Sam. After that we say good bye at the dock and we get each get on our way. We just happened to leave the slips at the same time and in passing we wave. You meet a lot of people while cruising, but it is not often that you meet someone that you really click with.
    So I start on down the river. The winds were still around 15 kts from the NE. After a while I decide to put up the mainsail. So I make my way to the mast and free the halyard so I can raise it. As I do that and then step down to the deck, for an instant I lose my balance. I grab on to the lifelines and the hand rail. I make my way back to the cockpit. Sit down, and start talking to my self that I almost did it, ie: fall overboard. I was very scared. I was wearing my PFD, but I was not connected to the boat. The river at this point was probably 4 miles wide, no chance of swimming to the other side if I went over. It also had a pretty good chop on it. I always had the attitude that I wear my PFD on inland waters, and my harness while on the ocean. Figuring on the ocean no need for a life preserver because no one is going to see you anyway. Also I realize that the wine last night did not help my situation, my legs, I guess, were not that strong. Any way I come to the agreement with myself that I will also wear the harness while on the inside for now on.

    A little later I go to raise the mainsail. It gets jammed halfway between the boom and the spreaders. I could not pull it up or down. So I sit back and think about how this is going to affect my anchoring  later on. I figure that there is not that much sail up out, and that it will only act as a riding sail while at anchor. No big deal. Actually the main halyard got jammed at the connection of the lazy jacks on the mast. This never happened before. I decide that maybe if I loosen the lazy jacks that maybe I can wiggle them and this will free the halyard. I try it and after a while the halyard frees. At this point I decide that I do not want to fool around with the main anymore. I'm a little disgusted so I lower it and tie it up. A little later I let out the sta-sail and let that pull me down the river. As I said the river had some chop on it, and this along with hundreds of crab pots, was making the trip miserable, but onward I must go.
   Eventually I run into the Albermarle Sound. This is a pretty big water way, almost like the Long Island Sound. Only one difference though. The Albemarle sound is only 18 feet deep. It turns out that when a good wind blows along something this long and shallow, it creates, not large, but sharp and close waves. For two and a half hours I felt that I was in a washing machine. For you other boaters out there it is like when you enter an inlet, going slow, and you start to get hit with waves in the inlet and the reflections of waves coming off the sea wall. If you had that experience then you can appreciate what I was feeling.
  After the Albemarle I turn into the Alligator River. The entrance to this is a little tricky, and add to this some unmarked shoals. By the way just before approaching this river I go to spool in my stasail and it gets jammed. Well I have to watch my navigation so I just ignore it for now.  I get into the river, and head down to the Alligator River swing bridge. Actually this river is about six miles wide, so the bridge has very long approaches. I was the only boat heading south. Ten boats were coming from the other side going north.
The river, it seemed, went on forever. It was very dismal. Not one thing on this river warmed my heart. Along the way I was able to lower the stasail, and tie it up to my life lines, I figure at anchor when the wind stopped that I would straighten it out. Eventually the river narrows, and at the bottom it turns into a nice little anchorage. I have not had too much to eat all day, my breakfast after I got moving and some snacks along the way, ie: trail raisins and nuts. After I anchored, I started for the first time to feel down about the trip. I was wondering if maybe I should turn around here and just head home. I had dinner. My favorite: rice and beans, and went to sleep.