A week on the Jersey Shore. Lots of boards, surf, body and what have you. Not much in the way of waves though. A persistent on-shore breeze had things pretty flat. Of course, this following week, with a tropical depression off the coast, it'll be amazing. Should have been here next week!
One good thing about this heat wave is: it's actually a pleasure to swim around the boat and knock barnies off. What's not good is how the warm water is promoting marine growth. It had only been two weeks and the bottom and keel were very foul with new growth.
I rowed out to the rocks and beach. While there, this buzzard walked out of the grass about 20 feet from me. It looked at me and then started eating something behind a big piece of driffwood. I've never seen one voluntarily get that close. I guess I looked harmless enough.
Nice day...I guess...
A little more breeze than we'd expected (and hoped for), but despite an awful first leg, plagued by vexing shifts and holes as we approached the top mark, we pulled off a 3rd. Just shows to go ya, working hard and making better decisions can get you back in a race, even if you were among the last to round the first mark.
The top mark was in the lee of a massive ship snuggled up against the DMT dock, which was worst-case scenario with the NE breeze. We should have recognized that an approach from directly downwind of the ship was a losing proposition. Next time around, we stayed farther offshore, which paid off massively.
Beautiful night and very fun to reel in a boat or two on the last leg to, at least, eek out a moral victory.
All dressed up. Autopilot CHECK. Bimini for shade CHECK. Water. Food? nah.
Just a dress rehersal for some day in the future. It was hot and dank. There was no breeze. Sat in the next cove over and even took a ride halfway across the river, looking for wind.
There wern't none. So I went home.
Nice day, for sumpthin....
We goofed. On the first leg, we headed off to round the WRONG mark. Still rallied to get a 4th. But it wasn't a beautiful thing. The boat had an issue with electronics and maybe we could blame that, but two of us were running iNavX (myself included) and it's kind of embarrassing that we didn't use it more effectively.
But at least we got a race in...it had been almost one month since the last race, due to Wx situations.
The heli port next door was unusually busy. Conversation is tough when they come in, sit there, get refueled and then leave.
Oh man, what a chore. Should've been done long ago. Two hours in the water with a 3 inch scaper blade. I think I got rid of 95% of all the barnacles. I'll finish up this week of the 14th. Shouldn't be much more work.
Damage done: huge hot spot on my heels where barnacle grit fell into my flippers and chafed against my Calcaneus. Deaf in my left ear due to water intrusion. Banged up knuckles where the barnies ate thru my chain mail glove.
Other than that, good clean fun. It was a relief being in the water instead of sweating thru yet another hot sun/high humidity day.
I had a laundry list of stuff to get done, as I hadn't been to the boat in over 2 weeks (which is a bit of a record for me, a record of neglect). But it was so darn hot I bailed on much of it. I rowed around the point to see if the anchorage closer to the river was empty - it gets more breeze out there when the wind is SE and it's a smidge cooler. But there was a powerboat out there with all kinds of coming and goings. Good for them!
So I remained on the mooring and did a little experimenting. My mooring pennant keeps getting twisted up and even went so far as to work a gnarly knuckle into the bottom section. A knuckle like this significantly reduces overall strength of the line. Presumably there's a swivel down at the bottom of the mooring that should unload the twist that occurs with changes in tide and wind direction. Well, mine must be frozen.
I made a change in the bridal by employing a locking carabiner so it'll be much easier to detach and re-attach when singlehanding. Maybe. Maybe sorta. It might foster more chafe though. I'll check in a few days.
I wanted to get home by 9 pm. But damn, it was so darn beautiful as the sun finally went down behind the trees (shade finally!) and a huge convective system was building to the south. Who wants to leave during the best part of the day?
A trip out to Tybee Island. Surf was pretty poor and the guards would not let me swim out to the offshore break way outside. There was a guy with a board out there. I only had fins and a borrowed body board. So I guess I understand the guard's reluctance.
In any case, the convective systems that day were amazing. From the hotel room I spotted this high cloud top. Looked like it was just over in the next SC county. Turns out it was 135 miles away NW of Moncks Corner, SC, which is NW of Charelston. A 50,000 foot cloud top can be seen from quite a distance.
There were massive, slow moving systems to the west and north with serious flooding but Savannah stayed remarkably dry.
Tackled a small project requiring the multitool on the dink, that is, removing and replacing a bunch of rotten wood in the centerboard trunk. Most of the woodwork will be done here at home and then quickly plugged in at PSA.
Took Route 2 and the Fort Mac tunnel heading up to Canton for the BCYA race. I took Cromwell over to I-95 North and discovered there's an entire new city there in Port Covington where we used to sail out of Tidewater. Even with their ridiculous stoplights (sat still for 3 ninutes as zero vehicles passed by) it only took me 35-40 minutes as opposed to 1 hour 20 minutes last time. Paying attention to directions matters.
We did not have our best race but then it was slightly above our sweet spot, blowing a consistent 8-12 from the SE all night. Thunderstorms did not roll in until after midnight so we dodged a bullet with that.
Crazy day:
11 am - 1:30 pm - RAINBOW and dinghy fishing
2 pm - 4 pm - Quantum sail check on INC
(mad rush to Canton at rush hour)
5:30 pm - 8 pm - BCYA Series 2 Race 2 - BOXCAR
I picked the worse way possible to go from Lake Shore to Clinton Street. 1 hr 15 minutes. Somehow I missed the fact that McComas Street is the way to get to 95 north off of Route 2. E. Cromwell is probably an even better bet. Then a series of really bad decisions in downtown Baltimore rush-hour traffic.
So geting to BOXCAR before the boat left the dock was a victory. So was the race!