Monthly Archives: October 2013

The chickens of Annapolis. What’s with those chickens, really?

It seems that most everyone, teams, cities and countries have mascots.  Some become controversial in our ever so PC society such as the current debate about renaming the Cleveland Indians.   Welcome to America, where you can’t offend anyone.

Even Annapolis, it seems, has it’s share of debate about such things.  As I was walking around town the other day, I ran into a monstrous chicken, another and yet another.

Someone decided to set up an art project modeled on the same type such as the “cows on parade” in Chicago a number of years.  Legend has it that the city passed an ordnance making it legal to raise chickens within the city limits.  I am guessing that this didn’t include roosters.  Hens only.

It seems that this “chicken ordnance” spilled over to the art world and some local artists decided that they too wanted to be part of the debate.  The deal is that local businesses make a donation to create a “chicken blank” which is given to a local artist or school class, which is then “finished” according to the desire of the artist/class.   The finished piece is installed somewhere in downtown Annapolis.  I wonder if there is an arbitrator of “chick taste” to determine if the finished piece is an “approprichick” design for the community?  I guess you will need to be the judge.

Anyway, so much for background, here are some of my favorites.  This one had lots of little guys crawling up his back.How about a fleur de lis inspired chick?If chickens were smart, and I am told that they aren’t, this one would be at the head of the class.
Civic, or “civchick” pride was very much in evidence.  Go firefighters!!!
I’m thinking school class.  The work of many, small, hands.
This one seemed to be looking into the conference room window of a downtown hotel.  The folks around the table looked like they were in pain.   As awkward as it was, I leaned up against the window and snapped this candid of one of the folks in the meeting, watching a Presentation, no doubt.   Not a good day at the office.   Me, I prefer a visit to the boat show. Yes, definitely better.  “Not so PC Bob.  Down Bob, down Bob.  Not PC at all.”|  Ok, I am told that some folks love meetings, really.   Could that be true?

The boat show?  Fun, even in the rain.  Not much to report there.  My boat improvement budget is blown, definitely blown for the season.  Time to go sailing. This weekend Brenda and I are visiting our son Rob and his girlfriend Kandice for a few days.  Let’s hope for fair winds early in the week for our run down to Hampton VA.

Getting around Annapolis in many ways.

To visit Annapolis by boat is one of my favorite things.  The maritime heritage of the US is deep and Annapolis, arguably, is the deepest.  This trip for me marks the third or fourth time that I have been here by water and I have to say that it’s just great.  To view the city from the water and see the glow of lights on the capitol dome, Academy chapel and in the windows of private homes in the evening is magical.

As the front came through yesterday afternoon, with it’s gusty wind and torrents of rain I was struck, again, by how quickly things can change on the water.  One moment it was calm and warm and the next Pandora was being blown over one way and the next.  I had been out getting some fuel for my dink and saw blue sky off to the southeast and dark lumpy clouds off to the northwest.  Within literally minutes the calm was shattered as the front was upon us.

Later that evening, at sunset, I was treated to a magnificent and colorful sunset. Sorry, no picture this time.

It’s just so great to be here, tucked away in such a secluded spot, right in the middle of a city.  It’s hard to believe that I was able to just drop my anchor here and settle in for a week.  In so many harbors there isn’t any room for anchoring as it’s totally filled with “private, keep off” moorings, that are mostly vacant, leaving no room for folks to visit.  And, it’s clear that the city has made a point of making the water accessible to transients.  Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be a problem with derelict boats camped out full time.  Perhaps that’s because the harbor master comes by to register anyone who plans to anchor for more than three days.  I had to give him a lot more information to anchor than I did to pay for a mooring.

Whatever the reason, it’s a city that still respects their maritime roots and history unlike so many of the communities that we have visited over the years where you have to pay a fee to be there, on a regulated mooring with no place to anchor.  On top of that, every street that dead ends at the harbor has a small dock for dinks.  So, how great is that?

Anyway, enough from my soap box for now.  As I sit here on Pandora I am also treated to all the comings and goings on the water.  Everything from the drama of the harbor police moving wayward powerboats (see last post) to really interesting boats that come by all day.

I was particularly struck by this rowboat that passed me yesterday.   They were being shadowed by another boat complete with an enthusiastic photographer documenting her every stroke.  I wonder where she plans to head.  I expect that her voyage will likely take her to another continent.  Europe?  Japan?  For now I expect that her destination is the Sailboat Show in a a few days.  I’ll find out more about here plans there.   I wonder where you go to buy such a craft.  Probably “home made”.  If so, I’d love to meet the folks that live in that home or the women rowing.  Clearly, she’s not a “girly girl” and probably not the type that spends the typical 8.5 hours per day watching TV.  Just a thought, if a bit random one at that.If I were going to row across an ocean, and I wouldn’t, I’d feel pretty comfortable (a relative term) in this boat.  It looks new to me.  No voyages yet. 

However, what’s with the guy in the stern who probably didn’t think I could see him.  Perhaps if I scrunch down real low, know one will see me.  I wonder if she even knew he was there.  OMG, a stowaway!!! So, that’s where all of my sea biscuits have gone.  GIVE THEM BACK!!!Not all transport in Annapolis is waterborne, at least not all of the time.  I loved this one.   Yellow is such a great color for a plane.  I wan’t to go for a ride!!!  I wonder if my life insurance would allow this?  No wait, I am too old for life insurance now that I am getting AARP mailings what seems like every other day. Count me in, I am going.  As soon as he lifted off he powered overhead.  What fun.  You too can get a ride and sign up at their site.  They take a lot of private yacht photos and you can go to their site and purchase a print.  It seems to be a franchise operation.  Perhaps now would be a good time for you to chuck it all and purchase a little yellow plane for yourself.  Perhaps not.

Enough dreaming.  Time go get the lead out.  Today is sunny and cool.  No excuse to sit around.

So, are powerboaters and sailors different? You be the judge…

There is a natural distrust between sailors and powerboaters.  Well, at least there are stereotypes that fuel the perception that there are differences.

Last evening I witnessed an event that did nothing to change my opinion that at least some powerboat owners that operate their vessels differently than the sailors that I hang out with.

Let me explain…

Yesterday two large powerboats anchored near Pandora in Spa Creek, Annapolis.  First the big one dropped his hook, with very short scope I might add,nearby. After he was settled, another powerboat arrived and tied up to him.  The two boats represented a lot of weight and windage for his anchor but it was calm so there probably wasn’t a lot of risk to them for the time being.  After tying the two boats together, they jumped onto a water taxi and headed into town, probably the boat show.

Some time later the wind picked up from a different direction and, as you would imagine, they shifted direction.   The bad news was that they were now sitting just a few feet of the dock of one of the homes on shore.  To make matters worse, if they had dragged even a few feet, they would have bumped into the owners very nice yacht, no make that two very nice yachts.  I guess that the homeowner made a call as a short while later the harbor police showed up to check out the situation. After securing his boat to the wayward raft, the officer jumped up on the bow of the offending yacht and proceeded to pull up the offending yacht’s anchor.  To see that anchor come up so quickly really showed just how short the line was. And, let me tell you, the holding here isn’t that good under the best of circumstances so to go with short scope was a very risky move.

As I watched the officer try to maneuver these two boats, each much larger than his patrol boat, made me realize that he could probably use some help.   As luck would have it, another sailor was observing the events and he too pitched in.   So, like three tugs maneuvering a cruise ship, we helped shift the “raft” onto a nearby private mooring.  It was great fun.  My crew from Essex was still on board and took a few shots of the action.  There’s me holding the mooring line as the officer and other helper nudged the raft.  I am glad that there wasn’t much wind as our puny boats would have been no match for the shear bulk of the two offenders.  It turns out that the other sailor who helped out was Mike from Wombat of Sydney a very nice guy.   I need to learn more about how he came up with that name.  Exactly, what or who is a Wombat anyway?

As you would imagine, the officer was very appreciative of our help and stopped over to thank us once everything was properly secured.   They say that the satisfaction of doing good is it’s own reward.  Yes, that’s true but I did ask if perhaps I could get a “get out of jail free card”.  Alas, no such luck as he was all out.

A short time later, the owner of the home who’s yacht and dock were threatened by this whole incident showed up to present me and Mike with our own bottles of very nice red wine.  What a wonderful gesture.   Brenda and I will enjoy the fruits, so to speak, of my labors.  The wine presenter is on the right. In the interest of complete candor, the owner had a large powerboat on his dock. However, he also had a good size racing sailboat.   However, no stogie for him and he has great taste in wine.  I guess that makes him a good guy, powerboat or not.

Perhaps you are wondering what happened when the wayward powerboaters showed up.  I am so glad that you asked.   Well, the owner arrived by water taxi, climbed on board, all the while probably wondering how his yacht had moved several hundred yards from anchor to a mooring.  He came up on his bow of his now relocated vessel, while puffing on his altogether fat cigar,  and casually looked down at the lines and mooring.   I could’t resist and said,  “You missed all the fun.  The harbor police and harbor master were here to move your boat”   So, what did he say to that, you ask?  “I wanted to be sure that everything was properly secured”, and walked back into his cockpit.   No questions, just concern that perhaps someone had not secured things properly.  Can you believe it?   I would have been mortified if I had done what he had but his reaction didn’t provide even a hint of self doubt.

However, there was justice, I hope, as the harbor captain paid the skipper a visit this morning.   Fine?  I am optimistic.

So, are sailors different than powerboaters?  You be the judge but I can’t say that I have run into many sailors who are so casual about anchoring but have seen a number of episodes, by “the others” like this.    No, I don’t want to paint everyone with a broad brush but this was one for the books, or blog as it were.

So, are sailors and powerboaters different?  You be the judge.  Me, I got a great bottle of wine and made a new friend, or two.    I can’t wait to share that nice bottle of wine with Brenda.

Oh yeah, my crew from Essex departed today just ahead of the rain that is now pounding down on Pandora’s decks.  Now that I am finished with this post, I’ll have to figure how to keep my self occupied for the rest of the day until the rain stops.

Hmm… Can you say time to clean Pandora?

Into the Chesapeake headed to, not sure.

It’s Saturday morning and an absolutely beautiful day here in the northern Chesapeake.  We spent last night in the basin at Chesapeake City, a spot that I have visited a number of times.  It’s a very quaint historic village complete with a Tiki Bar.   While the old homes look the part of early america, I expect that the Tiki Bar at a local resort wasn’t there when barges were being pulled along the canal by horses.  Just a guess.

The view this morning of the bridge and “town” was quite a sight.    A bit earlier in the morning we were treated to a rainbow over the bridge.  Nice juxtaposition of arches.  Don’t I just have all the luck?   However, I didn’t want to push it by heading out to find the pot of gold.  Perhaps I already have but I don’t want to jinx it by chasing rainbows. Yesterday we caught the tide going up the Delaware River and enjoyed a windless run on perfectly calm waters all the way, over 50 miles, from the ocean to the canal.  The tide really rips and the 2kt current made our run up take hours less than it would have been if we had gone against the tide.  I wasn’t pushing the engine very hard so our 6.5 kts combined with the tide pushed us at a respectable 8.5 kts.  To buck the tide would have reduced our progress to 4.5, a 50% reduction in speed.  That would have been painful.

Along the way we passed a number of really beautiful lighthouses.  Today’s lights aren’t nearly as scenic.  To say that “they don’t make them like they used to” is certainly an understatement when it comes to government structures.  So, let me get this straight, less spending on elegant architecture and more on something else. What might it be?  No wait, I remember, free stuff for everyone?   Can you say entitlement programs and I don’t mean that we are entitled to nice looking lighthouses.  Never mind.  Perhaps I’d better quit while I am ahead. Good thing that the founding fathers liked architecture and light houses in particular.

Anyway, these are nice ones, indeed.  It was barely getting light when we passed this one. This one looks like it came right out of a Harry Potter book.  Pretty ornate.  You almost expect to see a wizard standing on the balcony summoning up a water spout. The day broke as we entered the river mouth, with a fabulous sunrise reflecting on the water.  It doesn’t get any better than this. So were are we headed today anyway?  Not sure exactly but I do need to get closer to Annapolis so my crew can make their bus on Monday.  However, with the boat show in town, the powerboat show that is, I may have trouble finding a spot to anchor.  The show breaks up on Sunday night so perhaps I can grab a spot as one group leaves and the other arrives.

Wish me luck.  This is just so great…

 

Underway, finally. Annapolis or bust!!!

It’s 01:30 on Thursday morning and we are about 20nm from entering the mouth of the Delaware Bay to begin our run up to the C&D canal.   The seas are almost unbelievably calm and we are powering along very peacefully.    It is very dark as even the moon isn’t out and with the calm waters, the phosphorescence in the water disturbed by our passing is remarkable.   There isn’t anything around except a few ships off in the distance and the shore lines of Cape May off to starboard.   We were able to sail for about 5 hours earlier in the evening but the wind went away.

We left Deep River early afternoon on Wednesday and powered down to the mouth of the CT River and into Long Island Sound. From there we were able to sail to Montauk. The tide was with us and we had a good breeze. Once we rounded Montauk point we were hard on the wind and, as predicted, over the next few hours it shifted from the west to the north and died. While we were able to sail for a few hours now and again, the wind died again with less than 5kts. It’s remarkable just how calm it is out here with virtually no swell and even less ship traffic.

Aboard with me are two fellow Corinthians, Barry and Barry, cousins. I guess that Barry is a popular name in their family. To keep them straight, I am supposed to call one Barry and the other Cousin Barry.  So, who is who? Barry or Barry? Will the real Barry Please stand up.

Anyway, it’s pretty easy to remember their names. Nice guys, Barry.

The last few days preparing for my departure were frantic and to add even more pressure to the situation, Pandora still had some vibration in the drive train, even after working on the alignment and having the Max Prop serviced. The only real option left was to pull her out of the water again and have the shaft straightened as I detailed in my last post. Unfortunately, after all that, and considerable more expense, there is still a bit of a vibration. I guess I’ll see the Max Prop guys at the Annapolis Boat Show and see what they think. I expect that they will think it’s something other than their prop. What’s a skipper to think?

The guys at the yard feel that everything is in good working order and that the problem is the prop. Hmm… I am pretty confident in saying that I will NEVER purchase a Max Prop again.  Come to think of it, I have never purchased one.  It came on Pandora.  However, given the money I have spent having the prop reconditioned, twice, I feel like I have purchased most of one by now.  Having said that, perhaps it’s a good time to just abandon the prop and get something else. With regards to timing, I surely don’t want to cough up the money to haul the boat and put a new prop on just yet. I guess I will have to live with this for now seeing as how I had Pandora hauled two days ago.  I hope that Pandora can… The mechanic thinks so. Fingers crossed.

Much of the trip has been under power and I am always amazed to see how long the engine can run without any problems.   With a few hours here and there for sailing, the engine has been running for over 24 hours.  Amazing.

We have been lucky with our speed as we will enter the busy shipping lanes of Delaware Bay as it begins getting light and as the current starts to flood up the river.  That’s good as the current really rips, at 2 plus knots, on the ebb, not something that I want to buck.

We haven’t been going hungry for long on this trip.  Fresh biscuits for breakfast this morning. “Barry” didn’t have much trouble gagging them down. That’s good.

We also had a visitor much of the day today, a tiny bird.  In fact, he has stayed the night somewhere up forward I think.  Well, at least he was there at sunset. Actually, two small birds landed on the boat multiple times today and one of them camped out for a while with us right in the cockpit, believe it or not.  It’s hard to believe that the little guys could get along so far from shore, some 40 miles when they first joined us. I would guess that they found themselves further from shore than they realized and got tired.  This is not the first time that small birds have landed aboard when I was making passages.

For much of the time, one of them hung out on up forward and a few times he even came into the cockpit, out of the wind and rested. To see this little guy some three feet from us on the cockpit combing cleaning his feathers was amazing. Funny how safe he seemed to feel in spite of the unfamiliar environment.  I guess if you are tired enough… It will be interesting to see if he’s still with us when it gets light.  With sails coming down and going back up, I expect that we shook up his world pretty well.

Our stopping point for today will be Chesapeake City, one of my favorite destinations in these parts.

Oh, I almost forgot, I heard from our friends Maureen and Bill aboard Kaluna Mo0, with whom we spent weeks buddy boating around the Bahamas last winter, today as they too were moving down the NJ coast.  I had heard them check in on the morning SSB net Thursday and then later talked to them on the VHF radio. We had hoped to connect with them in Chesapeake City tonight but they expect to stop in Cape May and will be a day behind us.

Not much more to say right now except that nothing major has gone “bust” yet.   That’s good.  Fingers crossed for continued good luck on our voyage. The “spot” will continue to post our position every four hours as is our custom.

Yikes, but yesterday was a really looong day.

It’s Wednesday morning at 07:30 and today is the day.  It’s the day that my crew arrives and we depart for our run to Annapolis.  With unfavorable winds scheduled to hit Cape May on Friday it is important that we get out of Dodge today, and as early as possible.

That will be a bit tough for me as I lost all of yesterday to last minute mechanical issues on Pandora.  After tense and awkward discussions with the yard manager, we finally agreed on the “who pays what” details (I find out exactly what I owe today) and a mechanic, or two, attended to Pandora off and on all day.  The problem is that there was a miss-communication about some vibration issues in the engine early on so they were never adequately addressed.  As a result, when Pandora went back in the water there was a moderate vibration in the engine and shaft and it had to be fixed.

After much discussion we decided to pull Pandora out of the water again and have the shaft straightened.  As I had to take the $%^& Max Prop (I am not loving that prop right now) off AGAIN and then remove the shaft to have it straightened at the machine shop.

After the prop was removed, the shaft was pulled out.  They used a neat slide weight to pull it from the coupling and out of the boat.   Now the clock was really running!  Let the payments resume!Luckily, Paul, at the machine shop, who had done some work for me while Pandora was on the hard, was very accommodating and dealt with it right away. Interestingly, when he saw the shaft he recognized it immediately as a shaft that he had made years ago.  I had this shaft installed in Bridgeport at Captain’s Cove.

It’s a small world.  While he doesn’t normally allow folks to watch him work, he let me observe as he worked his magic.  These massive pieces of equipment are really impressive.  To watch him put the shaft in a press and twist it was fascinating. This lathe was a monster.  I won’t go into nauseating detail about the process but it looked like art as he bent the shaft this way and that, finally declaring it true and ready for the high seas.   

However, big equipment and all, the real bills started piling up as the mechanic messed around in the aft cabin tweaking this and that to get the shaft out and back in again.  I don’t know how many times he ran back and forth to his shop to find just the perfect bolt, or two, several times.  While he looks uncomfortable squirming around I can assure you that I was squirming more, not knowing how it would all end up or how much it would cost.  So, when all was said and done, and plenty was said and done, I can assure you. Much of the vibration was gone and Pandora declared fit to head out to see.   Actually, the yard never said that as they won’t take on the liability.  Such is life. 

So, now what?  The plan is for crew to arrive in New London just before noon today.  My good friend Rodney agreed to pick them up and deposit them and me at the marina for our departure early afternoon so I can clean up Pandora and do some last minute shopping. 

As I don’t want to leave my car sitting at the marina for a month till I return from Florida, I have to have someone deposit us at the boat so my car can stay in the garage at home, but I still have to contact door opener experts like A-Dependable Overhead Door Company since it’s currently stuck. Back to the land home for an errand I guess.

It’s about a 36 hour run to the Delaware River entrance from Essex, so let’s hope that the weather holds till we get to Cape May and head up the river and into sheltered waters.  Yesterday was long enough, so I hope that all runs smoothly from now on.  I don’t need too many more vibrations, engine or otherwise, in my life.

I had better wrap this up as I still have to secure groceries and a few last minute items to prepare for our departure.

Don’t forget to watch on “where’s Pandora” if you are interested in where and when we are.   For inquiring minds…

On the road, no make that on the hard again! Ugh!!!

When Brenda and I took Pandora to Newport a few weeks ago for a shake down cruise after all of the work I had done and had done this summer, we wanted to be sure that everything was in perfect order prior to heading south for the winter.

When we left the marina, bound for Newport, I noticed a vibration in the prop shaft at cruising speed.  Now that Pandora is back in Deep River, I had the yard check into the problem.  After several hours of messing around with things, about everything was ruled out except for a bent prop shaft.  Unfortunately, the only way to really determine what the problem is is to haul Pandora out of the water again.  Ugh… No make that double ugh…

Well, on Tuesday morning Pandora will yet again be on the hard.  Paul, from the local machine shop will come down and do a rough check while the shaft is in the boat and then, if he thinks that the shaft is bent, I will remove the Max Prop, AGAIN, and the yard will take the shaft over to the shop for review.   Fortunately, Paul at the machine shop, has agreed to work on it right away to identify what he thinks the problem is.

I really hope that it’s the shaft as just about everything else has been ruled out with the exception of the Max Prop, which I would hate to think was a problem yet again.  Recall that I had the prop completely reworked in July by the manufacturer.

Fingers crossed.  To make the pressure worse, if I am delayed more than a day or so I will miss the weather window to make it to Annapolis in time for the boat show.  With all the plans we have for that event, I’d hate to miss it.

I am still hopeful that I will get going as planned on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning at the latest.  If not, I risk loosing my crew as their own deadlines conflict with being underway later than planned.   Double fingers crossed…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Brenda and I have been shopping for provisions as putting them aboard now will be easier than when we are in Annapolis or Miami. Here’s a shot of what we put on board on Sunday.   The pile looks a lot smaller than it is.  That’s about 400 items.  Each item had to be categorized in a spreadsheet so we can find them again when we need to.  You’d be amazed how deeply buried things get on board.  I think that the computer cataloging work took a lot longer than stowing things.  Today we shopped for meat and yet more stuff.  I vacuum packed about 30lbs of chicken, pork and some lovely steak fillets to take us through the winter.   Funny how little the pile looked when I put it on the counter in the galley.  And, it didn’t even fill the freezer.  My routine is to pack everything into the freezer unfrozen so I can really pack it tight.  Then everything freezes into a big block.  And, you can’t get anything out without eating the top most food first.  If you try and dig, everything gets “fluffed up” and won’t go back in.   Not good.  

The freezer still has room for more and the size of the bill for all of it made me think that it should have been 60lbs, not 30lbs.  Alas, such is the nature of inflation…or deflation, as it were, with the vacuum shrink wrap machine.  Perhaps I should have used my compressor to fluff them up so they would seem like enough to justify the $$$.  Never mind…
Here’s hoping that Tuesday’s re-haul won’t prove to cost me mucho bacon as there’s already plenty in the freezer, three pounds, actually.

Yes, double crossed on my fingers, and toes.   All I want to do is to go sailing.  IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?  

I guess that it’s true, bigger boats means bigger trouble.  I sure hope that Pandora is “little” tomorrow.