The Atlantic

7/4/2006: 7hrs: 16 miles: CO invited a friend of hers, to go with us to Bahia Honda. She had never been sailing before, so we had a green crew to do a bridge crossing. Where we have to anchor, lower the mast, motor under the bridge, anchor, and raise the mast. I’ve never done it before, so it was going to be a learning experience.

The wind was NE-E at a solid 10mph, white caps. We sailed down Bogie channel pretty fast and fun, anchored by the bridge, but it was too rough to lower the mast. So we motored to shallow water and lowered it. We then motored under the bridge, anchored and put the mast back up. Not too many problems, need to make some adjustments and modifications to the rigging to make it go faster, but over all very successful.

We sailed up wind in 1-2 foot seas. Waves were breaking over the bow every now and again. I was a little nervous, but the girls were having fun. We made a few long tacks and made it to the beach in about 2 hours, which was about 6-7 miles away.
We anchored in shallow water and went swimming, ate hotdogs, and just lounged around on the boat. I put up a tarp over the cockpit, to block the sun. perfecto.

On the way back we had some trouble running with the wind. I couldn’t get the boat turned around to go away from the bridge. It’s hard to explain, but we finally did it and started scooting right along. The waves rolling under us felt very strange, almost like the boat was going to turn over a couple times. If any body was to get sea sick that would have been the time.

I sailed close to the bridge so we wouldn’t have to motor very far once we lowered the mast. We threw the anchor out and it got wrapped around the front sail. I climbed up front to unwrap the anchor while the wind was trying to push us into the bridge. The rope that rolls up the front sail was also tangled. So I had the anchor rope around the back of my head keeping it off the front sail while I untangle it. The front sail in the mean time was flapping like a loose tarp on a trailer, slapping me in the head. The girl that was sailing with us wanted to help, so she grabbed a hold of the front sail and tried to keep it off my head.

There is only one problem with her help. If you don’t let the sails flap, then they catch the wind and the boat starts sailing. We started sailing toward land! I felt the anchor pulling really hard on the back of my neck and start grinding down my back. What is going on!?

I looked at the anchor and we were now pulling it across the bottom. My brain exploded into high computing power to figure this one out, I’m yelling at Christine to keep the tiller straight and she’s yelling “I am!” I finally turned around and saw the girl holding the front sail tight.

I told her to release the sail as sweet and tender as I possible could, but sounded like one of my Ranger Instructors yelling at me for puking all over him. Needless to say, she released the sail and I got up and accessed the new situation. We were now closer to the bridge and drifting towards it and the anchor was not catching. Not enough time to dive in and set the anchor that may not even reach the bottom now. The motor didn’t crank the last time I tried (That was another explosion I didn’t want to talk about.) The only thing left to do was sail out of there immediately, …hopefully.

I went to the back and asked CO to pull up the anchor, politely. I set the sail and we were moving out of the impact area. I sailed about a half a mile away from that stupid bridge and found some shallow water. We threw the anchor out, untangled everything and lowered the mast. Now I just got to get the motor cranked.

After pulling the cord a few thousand times, I decided to check the gas. Out of gas. I let the crew complain a little before I pulled out the extra gas tank and filled up the motor. I felt the weight of 36 years of experience coming into play at that moment. The feeling of poring gas into that tank was kinda like 100 bad shots of golf being erase by 1 good one.

The motor cranked up and we headed home. Under the bridge and up the channel as the sun was getting low in the sky. I was freaked, frazzled, withered and nerve wracked. We were cruising at a steady 7mph, so I decided to motor the rest of the way home. The crew needed a break and we still got to go watch fireworks. Overall it was a successful day. Simply getting the boat back to the dock makes it a successful day. I felt like I passed my sea trails, but I need to put her in dry dock for some modifications. Try to cut down on the explosion factor.