What a differece a day(and AIS) make
21 October 2010 | BYC
Hopefully Sunny
Hola Amigos,
We have made 2 good decisions on consecutive days. This is unheard of in the Annals of Cruising. Now that lightening is a theoretical subject we would like to talk about it. We have read many articles on trying to protect your boat from lightening. Some say you should ground your boat with copper wiring. People who have put in copper plumbing in their homes know how expensive that is. Everyone says you should disconnect your electronics. This is not as easy as it sounds. Everyone also agrees that you should stay inside your boat and not fly a kite with a key attached. Another wives' tale is that you can protect your computer by hiding it in the stove.
Once we were on a friend's sailboat trying to cross from Hilton Head SC to Bermuda and ran into a lightening storm. We disconnected the electronics and huddled on the ship's floorboards trying to avoid metallic objects. We simultaneously saw a flash of light and heard thunder. This is not a good thing. We then noticed the glow of St. Elmo's Fire and smelled ozone. That was definitely one of those, "Once is enough" experiences. By the way St. Elmo is the Patron Saint of sailors.
Now to the wonders of AIS. As the picture tries to show, at one point we had 84 AIS signals. That is not as daunting as it sounds because most of those were safely hiding in San Pedro/Long Beach Harbor. Some were moored (it actually tells you that) and thus not moving. There were several Catalina Flyers that go more than 20 knots and were either in front or behind us. While the others were far away, there was one boat that was of concern to us. It was called the Brooklyn Bridge ( we kid you not). We were 6 miles from the entrance of San Pedro going 6 knots and it was 10 miles from us going 12 knots. Its destination was SP ( it tells you that also). We figured in 1 ½ hours we would be 3 miles past the entrance and it would be approaching it. Sure enough, as on cue, it turned and never got more than 3 miles from us.
We also had our computer on and were monitoring the weather radar doppler site. Everyone knows that we always embrace technology.
Today is another dream day. We will be anchoring at Dana Point which is about 15 miles away. We then we be seeing not 1 grandchild, not 2, not 3 but 4 of them in one day. It does not get much better than that.
Happy Dream Day to you until we Blog again.
The Very Merry Merry Lee