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By Mitch Traphagen
traphagen@observernews.net
GEORGETOWN, MD -- It seems my soul came back just about the time the engine started on fire.
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| Sailing under the ornate and historic Brooklyn Bridge with Lower Manhattan in the background. |
The temperature was forecast to dip down into the low 40s on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, the night my wife, Michelle, had left. Although the boat does have a beautiful looking, German-made diesel fired heater, both the fuel and power lines had been disconnected. By this time I had learned that if something had been disconnected on this boat, there was a very good reason for it -- often that reason was because it had become dangerous.
So lacking heat, I piled on blankets and fired up my little portable generator to charge the batteries and to run a couple of small, household lamps to brighten up the boat, if not my spirits. To make the quiet go away, I lost myself in the words of a good book. All was reasonably OK until suddenly everything went black.
The generator had run out of fuel -- and even if I could convince myself to take the dinghy into town through the cold and waves, the island’s sole gas station had long been closed for the day (actually, no one really knew when it opened or closed -- but it certainly wasn’t open at that hour). Instead, I turned on a light that operated from the ship’s batteries and dived under a mountain of blankets in the forward cabin.
Friends and family often ask how I am doing. Yes, I always tell them, I’m OK.
The boat is OK. It’s the leaks that are the problem.
The island is OK. It’s the fact that it’s too cold out to believe summer is around the corner that is the problem.
The bank account is OK. It’s the fact that there is no money in it that is the problem.
The engine is OK. It’s that it started on fire that is the problem.
Away from the dock and the wondrous technology of shoreside power, I have to run the engine to charge the ship’s batteries and to heat the water heater. It had been a bit too much time since my last shower and I was rapidly approaching the point of finding myself disagreeable.
With the cabin temperature a sprightly 42 degrees, I jumped out of my warm bunk and started the engine. After an hour or so, the batteries were charged a bit and the water was warm enough to battle the chill.
As I dried myself off, I noticed that something still smelled funny -- I hoped it still couldn’t be me after having just showered. It was then I opened the door to the engine compartment and saw the glow of a small fire.
It was the first time in my life I ever used a fire extinguisher. Boy, those things sure do work as advertised – in a way, it’s too bad more life-critical things don’t start on fire so we could all laud the incredible achievements of the fire extinguisher companies.
All it took was a quick blast – the fire was out and I was left with some smoke and a bunch of white powder. It took some searching but eventually I found the gigantic battery cable that had shorted against the engine. It was a miracle that nothing more had come from it.
Certainly, I could have found myself swimming ashore had things gone only slightly different.
On that note, it was time to leave Block Island. On a rare sunny day, I made the short sail to the historic seaport of Mystic, CT. A few days later, Michelle sacrificed the last of her vacation days to help me sail to New York City.
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| Michelle at the helm entering the Cape Cod Canal. Cape Cod is beautiful, but summer was late in coming -- we were looking forward to making our way south.
Mitch Traphagen Photos |
Our plan was to take advantage of the tides and currents and sail Long Island Sound as an overnight passage to the city. Just out of Mystic Harbor we had the sails up and everything was OK. Then the engine died -- but that was no problem as we were sailing at over six knots.
The sailing was OK until the wind died just as darkness fell. It took some coaxing, cursing and a few fuel filters but eventually the engine started -- unfortunately it would only run at one speed. If we tried to touch the throttle at all – either up or down -- it would die.
That was OK -- we were moving along fast enough to reach New York City by early morning.
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| Approaching Hell Gate -- a point at which the currents from Long Island Sound and currents from the East River and New York Harbor collide. For those in small boats, it is very important to time the trip to ensure the best possible current. Sailing against the tide could mean not moving at all.
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That was when the fog set in.
I’m not overly superstitious and I have a fair grasp of geography. I knew there was no way we could possibly sail off the end of the world while peering into pea-soup fog. But it still felt like we could -- not to mention, it also felt like we could easily hit an errant fishing boat or something equally horrific while puttering on at our specific speed. Fortunately the radar helped us to see what we could not.
The radar made everything OK. But that was until the rain squalls hit. Rain and radar are not friends. Rain makes radar screens -- temporarily, at least -- go black. The first time a squall suddenly popped up, blacking out the screen I nearly had a heart attack. A heart attack would not be OK.
The gathering daylight helped somewhat with the fog but did nothing to solve the problem we would have anchoring just north of the city. To anchor we would surely have to slow down a bit – to really do it right, we would have to go into reverse. We couldn’t just speed into the harbor, throw the anchor overboard (well, I suppose we could but I really didn’t want to try that).
Somehow, someway we did manage to get the anchor down, neither killing nor maiming anyone in the process. The next step was to replace all of the fuel filters – even the inconvenient ones – and hope we could have an engine trustworthy enough to propel us through the madness of New York City.
By the next morning, we regained the optimism that only fools share and we set out for the largest city in America. It was a stunning and beautiful passage – sailing under ornate historic bridges and along the wall of skyscrapers known as Manhattan. We shared the waters with small ships, tugs and maniacal ferries kicking up tsunami wakes but nothing detracted from seeing that magnificent city from the water.
We put up our sails as we glided just in front of the Statue of Liberty. In just three short hours we were through and on our way to a little spit of land that would protect us from 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean fetch named Sandy Hook in New Jersey.
From there, Michelle had to return home to Iowa once more. For me, I had an overnight sail in the Atlantic down the New Jersey coast, followed by a shorter sail up Delaware Bay and a quick trip to the Chesapeake Bay via the 13-mile C&D Canal.
In the process, I was hit by winds fair and foul. On June 4th, I found myself wearing my winter coat in Cape May, NJ. While my body shivered in the cold Atlantic wind, my mind was feeling the balmy breezes of Florida. By this time, my soul and I were on speaking terms again. I was beginning to know what I was supposed to do. More importantly I was beginning to learn what I needed to do.
When I got hit by a storm worse than I had ever experienced in my 46 years of life, and possibly clipped by a tornado, while at anchor in the Sassafras River off Chesapeake Bay, my mind realized that perhaps hurricane season wasn’t so bad if the Northeastern thunderstorms are strong enough to tear things off my boat.
When we left Florida a year and a half ago, I thought I was Florida’d out. I was able to recite a long list of serious problems and petty annoyances all too easily found in the Sunshine State.
But now with the perfect clarity of hindsight, I can see that Florida isn’t so bad. In fact, things are pretty good there.
Florida is OK.
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