Preparing for First Big Crossing
15 October 2009 | Hampton Roads, VA
It helped alot that we had both been through the Chesapeake entrance
before (Mark had been through it twice) so we had a good sense of the
layout. Even with that experience, it was still a bit challenging
navigating at night with all the lights of Norfolk, Hampton, and the
cars on the Chesapeake Bridge-Tunnel in the background to make buoy
sightings difficult. Also, there was a good deal of boat traffic
that we had to keep a sharp lookout for, especially when we turned
into Norfolk. Nevertheless, we dropped anchor in the first protected
harbor we could find and went to sleep.
It was a very rude awakening the next morning. It turned out our
anchor had landed on a lobster trap and so did not get a solid hold
for us. We had neglected to test the hold very hard that night. In
the 30 knot winds the next morning, we dragged until we grounded
nearby a jetty. We were actually quite lucky to have grounded rather
than hit the jetty. With all the rocking from the winds, we had not
noticed that the boat was moving. Further, the anchor alarm we had
set on the iNavX software had not gone off for some reason. Lesson
learned: we now always set the anchor alarm on our chart plotter when
anchoring for the night.
We spent another day in that harbor while we caught up on business
and worked on repairs to the boat. The next day, we motored over to
the Public Piers Marina in Hampton. We had over a week until the
Carib1500 Rally started and the Public Piers Marina was about 1/2 the
price of the Bluewater Marina that was hosting the Carib1500.
Hampton was a new experience mostly because of the prevalence of
fellow cruisers. The marinas we had been at before has predominately
been full of power boaters and day sailors. Before the Carib1500,
the place was full of live-aboard sailors. We met several other
sailing couples and got to pick their brains about all sorts of
questions we had.
Dana had been complaining about her back being sore, especially in
jumping on and off the boat to the cement floating docks. Mark
hadn't being paying enough attention to these complaints and, sure
enough, her back got worse and worse. Dana had to go to a
chiropractor and masseuse. We had X-rays taken. It was a sprained
back. At that point, we had to cancel our plans to join the
Carib1500 since we would not be able to leave for more than a week
after their departure date.
Around that time, my friend Marty from my Africa trip had shown up
and was staying with us on the boat. He helped out in all sorts of
ways. Driving Dana to her appointments. Helping us with our
shopping. Working with me on our various boat projects. Most
importantly, being fun to have around.
One of the big projects was in replacing a pulley for the jib
fairlead controller that had cracked several months before. Mark had
purchased a replacement (and an addtional spare as the other side
appeared to be cracking, too), but he could not install it as the
broken parts screws would not come out. This turned into a gigantic
project over time. Mark got various tools for unjamming screws. He
ground down numerous drill bits trying to drill out the screws. When
Marty showed up we started getting serious. We tried anticorrosion
sprays. Then Liquid Wrench. Then we used a propane torch trying to
use differing heating characteristics of the metals to cause them to
separate, without luck. Then we used a hacksawed to cut apart the
broken piece. Then we drilled into the aluminum to get to the screws
and cut through them from the side. Even with the screws cut apart,
the piece still would not detach, either because of corrosion or
perhaps the pieces had been epoxied. At that point, we hacksawed
more of the piece until we could detach it from the boat and then
take it to a boat yard and have them separate the two pieces, which
they ultimately did. Finally, we have the control pulley working
again, which is nice.
Some other big projects we completed: repairing the starboard bow nav
light, inventorying the sails, inventorying the numerous lines in the
aft lazerette (we wanted to confirm we had what was needed for the
Panama Canal: 4x 120ft lines), soldering for various of the interior
lights. Finally, we tried various approaches to repairing the main
sails' leach line (a thin line used to shape the sail) before giving
up and going to a sail loft to have someone who knew what he was
doing carry out the work. He also identified some other necessary
repairs and executed them. Finally, we also hired a guy to replace
all of our carpets, which were in pretty tired shape.
Mark also finally took it upon himself to get the SSB radio working.
This is a Hamm-like long distance marine radio. The boat came with
the SSB radio and a special kind of modem that can be used to
send/receive email when we are at sea. This is important as it can
allow you to request weather report updates and so-called GRIB files
that give the status of winds in your area. Up to this point, Mark
had put off learning how to use the SSB radio as it looked like a
pile of trouble. First, he had to apply for licenses from the FCC
both for the Northfork and for Mark himself as an operator. He
didn't have to actually study anything, just fill in some forms and
send some checks into the government. He also had to subscribe to
the SailMail service (a co-op that puts up base stations you connect
when at sea) and finally figure out how things actually work. There
were a number of stumbling blocks, but Mark got it all to work. This
turned out to be more helpful and important than Mark had
realized... being able to get those weather and wind updates was very
helpful on the crossing. So was staying in touch with friends and
family so the knew we were ok.