We'd only planned to be at Herrington Harbour for two weeks, but things never go as planned when you're on a boat. Finding a metal shop to weld us a radar pole pushed things back a few days; then our plan-B departure was stymied by our whisker pole which somehow failed to make it on the truck from the West Marine warehouse. On July 4th we at last declared our independence from the cushy marina life.
So, what have we accomplished? We now have a radar, a necessity for the foggy cruising ahead of us in Maine. We've replaced both our alternator regulator and its temperature sensor, although things still seem a little screwy -- we'll have to do more tests. The leaky watermaker membrane has been sent back to Spectra, and the leaky forward head has been repaired. We bought and installed a CD changer -- not an essential bit of boat gear, admittedly! We finally got around to mounting the fire extinguisher in our bedroom (the forward cabin); it had been tucked away at the bottom of the closet, accessible but not exactly Coast Guard approved. We installed straps to hold in the computer desk chair and the sewing machine while underway, and padeyes for galley straps and for jacklines on deck. We adjusted the backstays and straightened the mast, then replaced the mast-wedge system with Spartite (a sort of epoxy which is poured around the mast where it goes through the deck). We installed track and tackle on the mast for the whisker pole, and finally installed the boom brake we've been carrying around since the boat show last October. Our dinghy davits now sport new line, as does our mainsail furler, and we replaced the old, poor-quality blocks on our mainsail furling and outhaul lines with much better Harken blocks. We bought a big wrench and tightened the packing around the prop shaft. Based on a tip from another boater at the Caliber get-together, we drilled holes in the stainless-steel pipes that support the bow pulpit, so that the water will run out of the holes rather than create rust streaks down the fiberglass; the old rust streaks we removed using that miracle substance, Y-10. We bought an upholstered seat and a stainless steel swivel mount, and set up a real "Captain's chair" at the helm. We inventoried the contents of all our storage areas and moved things around so they fit into a reasonable scheme, so we finally know exactly where the spare navigation light bulbs are (behind the port forward settee cushion, in the newly designated "electrical locker") and how many spare 2-micron fuel filters we have (four). We refilled our supplies of propane, food, beer, and Jack Daniel's, went out to dinner with myriad friends, and even managed to fit in a movie (Chicken Run). All told, we spent about $5500. If we weren't moving on, we'd probably go broke in a hurry.
We're happy to have gotten out of the marina in one piece. Maybe it's because most of them only come out on weekends, but a lot of our slipmates here don't seem to have a clue about maneuvering their boats in tight quarters. Last week a guy moved his sailboat out of his slip and into another one near us. Unfortunately, the second slip already had a boat in it. After a few grinding metal noises, he backed off to make another attempt at getting into the proper slip, and nearly backed right into us. It took him several tries to make it, and although he didn't dent any other boats he did manage to bonk two pilings. Then just the other day a traditional-looking sailboat with a big bowsprit came barrelling out of its slip a few boats down and opposite from us. When we heard the woman aboard yelling, "Michael! Michael! Slow down!" we popped out into the cockpit just in time to see that big bowsprit nearly snag our arch. Their bow bounced off our giant stern fender -- otherwise known as our dinghy -- and then he managed to get enough steerage to wrench the rest of his boat away from the looming collision.
That's what it's like on a calm day. On the windy Sunday we returned from the Caliber Cruising Club's get-together, things got really scary. We dock bow-in, and both Britt and Pete were on the lines, so it only took a little bit of tricky throttle work to slide into our slip perfectly. All around us, though, boats were bumping pilings, piers, and each other. One small sailboat with two couples aboard was trying to back in against the wind -- a losing proposition with their tiny engine. The woman who was at the helm simply freaked out and yelled at her husband, "I can't do this! I can't do this!" and stepped away from the wheel, panicked. Unsurprisingly, he yelled back, the other couple looked embarrassed, the wheel spun on its own, and the boat slid sideways across the pilings. Another boat did a similar try-to-back-in-but-go-sideways dance, and another, opting for a bow-in entry but misjudging the wind, took two tries to get into the slip. We got a little worried when our next-door-neighbor boat came in, a Beneteau with about a dozen twenty-somethings on it, but the young woman at the wheel did an expert job.
I shouldn't throw stones, though -- we've gotten fairly good at maneuvering Windom, but we've had a year's practice. I haven't forgotten how nervous I was the first dozen or so times, and I still get nervous, to be honest. It's an art, and a bit of a dance, since the person on the lines has to act fast and competently between the moment when the boat is stopped and in position, and the moment the wind or current takes it and puts it somewhere else. Docking must be the hardest thing of all to do singlehanded.
It's nice to be on the move again. Even though we lost three weeks out of our cruising summer -- three hot weeks of hard labor -- we still have time to get up to New England. We've still got most of July and all of August, maybe even a bit of September before the weather starts to chase us back to the Bay and then further south.
Other cruisers we know aren't so lucky. Our friends on Shamal were hauled out for bottom work and discovered blisters severe enough that they need extensive repairs. Their boat's only a few years old, and still under warranty, but dealing with the manufacturer is an uphill battle, and they expect it will take all summer to resolve the situation. Another boat, Nightwinds, was damaged in late spring by storm winds pounding it into a dock down in Florida. It'll take long enough to repair that Bryan and Mike decided not to try to make New England this summer. It seems that every time we talk to cruising friends, we hear about changes in plans. Some decide to go back to work for a while, some for good; some are taking time off for repairs, some are changing their destinations or scaling back their itineraries, and some have decided that the cruising life is not for them. "Cruising plans are written in jello," as a friend says. Well, we hope the jello's firm enough to get us up to Maine this summer!