Century Club: Tim Ford

A long motor prior to the club's monthly board meeting, there being almost no breeze for 5 hours.  Decided to lift the board and go behind Dobbins, chart showing 1 foot at MLW in some places.   It not being MLW, and the board-up draft at around 12 inches, it went fine, albeit slowly, until we popped out into the fairway leading into the mis-named Long Cove (it ain't that long, actually).  Motored quietly all the way into the G.I. inner harbor, put it in neutral, popped a low ETOH session ale and wolfed down lunch, turned back to PSA.  Same thing behind Dobbins, no worries.  Fished a little but luckily, wasn't bothered by fish.  Gooid day and gorgeous November weather...except for the lack of breeze.

Swore to myself to NEVER own a boat on the Chesapeake with more than 12 inches draft. 

Fun race on Inc and on the 2nd upwind leg, from "N" to "K" it actually felt like a Harbor Cup, a few puffs to 22.  It got lighter in the river and we captured line honors in CRCA A, but got bumpoed back to second as Heartbreaker, the S2 9.1 corrected over us.

Friend, Jon, completed his CLC Skerry, and we helped him put it in.  What a great little boat!  A few awkward moments, you know, the learning curve in dealing with mast, rudder and sails the first few times.  Heck, my boat is seven years old now and I still goof up from time to time getting it rigged and ready.

We pulled the plug on the Race to Rock Hall.  Fx was just too dicey and AYC, TAYC, HdGYC and CYC had all canceled their weekend events.  So I get to PSA about 30 minutes past when our first warning gun would have gone off...and of course it was blowing a mere 12 kn and not raining.  I jumped into a kayak paddled out to the mouth of Black Hole Creek to see if it was really blowing in the river. It wasn't.

While zenning-out back in a recess in the creek, I was just a few feet off the tall grass, just listening to the waves lap up on shore and I guess my resting there too long made some sort of very large mammal nervous.  Suddenly, just a few fet away but obscured my the foliage, something got up and crashed through the undergrowth. I mean large. I expected a water buffalo or huge moose to come charging out to swamp the kayak and stomp me into the mud. But it was probably just a large buck who got pissed off I disturbed his nap.