Perhaps The Worst Day, Part Two

This is Part Two of Part Two of A Tale of Two Screw Ups. If you didn't read Part One of 'Perhaps the Worst Day,' go back one post to read it first. If you haven't read about Sleeping in a Sinking Boat, go back two posts, that is Part One of 'A Tale of Two Screw Ups.' Confused yet?  

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When we last left our hero, he had wrapped a line on Ruth Ann's propeller and was waiting to get hauled out a second time in one week on an emergency basis. Standing in his way was a yacht that needed to be extensively tested in the water of the slipway and a second boat coming up the river to be hauleld out.  The story picks up again, Friday afternoon, patience wearing thin, shame still simmering over the boneheaded move that got him here in the first place.  

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And then the other boat showed up. It was captained by Captain Jack who had actually helped Sam and I get a boat out of the way and get Ruth Ann into the slings of the travelift back on Monday. He had also been at the dock with my neighbors to catch my dock lines just before I had discovered the leak late Monday afternoon. He had brought a retired North Atlantic fishing captain as casual crew. Soon a workboat showed up behind them and rafted up at the dock. It seems that they had needed some extra fuel on the way up from Charleston. They had called Scott, another waterman, to meet them on the ICW with some fuel. He had decided to tag along just for fun, so they ordered takeout from a dockside seafood joint which Scott ran to get in his boat and then rejoined the caravan up the river. 

Captain Jack asked me why I was still there and I told him of my plight. Scott, the workboat captain exclaimed that he had his dive gear with him and could help out. Have I mentioned that I’d rather be lucky than good? There I was with an anchor 40 feet deep and halfway across the river delayed by some fancy yacht languishing in the slipway. And there was no reason for this diver to have shown up; he had just followed his friends for kicks. I was basking in a broad smile from the universe.

I asked him how much and he deferred to checking first with the office. “That’s the proper way, of course” I said, “but I’m not letting you get in the water before you give me a number.” 

“Well, my kids are real hungry.” 

When he came back, Scott said, “they seem to like you in there.”  

“There are days, I’m not sure why,” was my rueful reply.

Amy, the office manager and another sweetheart (they are running a surplus at Cape Fear Boat Works), told Scott that he could do anything he needed to do ‘to help Todd out.’ So he started to get ready. For a couple hundred dollars, he was going to unwrap my prop, check it, and retrieve my anchor if that was possible. 

Captain Jack and the other waterman told me that I was lucky that Scott was there. “He’s just crazy enough to take care of your problem.” Scott struggled into his wetsuit, complaining all the while about how complicated it was to dive in the Winter. Turns out he didn’t have all his gear, he just had a hooka hose about 40 feet long and a full size dive tank to feed it. The hose was only about as long as the river was deep, so rather than moving his boat out over the anchor, he tied the tank to himself and once he was in the water it was dangling between his legs. Captain Jack, also experienced in salvage operations, tied a small bouy on a line which we deployed off the bow of the other boat. Eventually, Scott came around to the dock near the bow, grabbed my anchor line and pulled himself into the black water; waddle swimming with the tank between his legs. He must have been in the water for forty minutes. It was nerve-wracking just standing on the bow watching bubbles come to the surface and drift down the river. Every once in a while a great eruption of bubbles would come up. I had to wonder how we could tell if he was stuck or just working. He had not taken the line with the buoy down with him! 

After an excruciatingly long time, Scott surfaced!

“Who the hell has 60 feet of chain on a little sailboat like that!” he shouted in mock derision. “The chain was wrapped several times around a valve on that pipeline. It was tangled over and under itself, but I cleared it and then set the anchor in a spot of sand. I think we can haul it up. We might just get it back.”  

My heart became light again for the first time in over twenty four hours. To wrap my own line around my own prop was such a boneheaded rookie move, I had been stewing in my own private shame ever since it had happened. Even the night before that fateful morning, I had sat in my cockpit with a friend talking about all the work I had done and my plans to head south. After fifteen years of work, and four boats, I had thought that I was done – thought that I was leaving. And it had all come crashing down because I had panicked and taken my eyes off the prize. That couple seconds of inattention carried such a huge cost it was unimaginable and nearly unbearable. And then I had spent all morning just waiting for when Ruth Ann could get hauled out for a second time. I was questioning whether I was actually cut out for the life I had worked so long to manifest.

Then when Scott had said so matter-of-factly that we might be able to retrieve the anchor – I could barely stand on my feet as all the positivity I had lost the day before came flooding back into my life. 

Scott wrapped my anchor line on the delivered boat’s windlass and slowly pulled on the line. 

“I think it’s working. Here it comes. Oh, wait we’re hooked on something … no, there it goes.”   

The line came aboard slowly with Scott feeling the tension and signaling the other captain when to pause the windlass a second and when to start again. I watched as the 120 foot tag came aboard, then the 90 foot tag, then the 60 foot tag followed by the chain coming aboard. I couldn’t have wished that it were true. Then the chain went taught again. Scott waved for a pause, waited for the chain to settle, and then by some waterman instinct chose the exact moment to wave the windlass on again. There was a jerk and the then chain went loose. 

“There we are.” Scott said flatly, “The anchor is off the bottom!”

I saw the shackle, then the shank of the anchor, and then the whole blessed thing. It was back! I was dumbfounded. The effort that this waterman had made just to get some stranger’s anchor back was astounding. But that is really how boat people are. We look out for each other and sometimes go to the end of logic and practicality to get another skipper out of a jam. I look forward to the opportunity to pay forward for what Scott did for me that day.

“Oh, by the way, I already did the prop,” he said. “That sturdy old school, two-blade propeller was beefy enough to take it and there is so little prop shaft outside the cutless bearing, there was no leverage to do any damage.”  

Relief. Such sweet relief I have never known. Now I was back on. Now I could actually leave.  

During the afternoon, besides hearing that his kids were hungry, I had heard the guys talking about chicken wings. So, when I sat down with Scott to Venmo him the money, I gave him a 25% tip, and said ‘maybe you can buy the kids some chicken wings.’

Scott looked at his feet and said, “I gotta be honest with you. I don’t have any kids, that’s just  something I say.”   

What a guy. Hilarious. He is one of us. 

I hauled the anchor, line, and chain down the dock to Ruth Ann and threaded the line through the bow roller and down the hawse into the anchor locker. Down inside the cabin, I crawled to the bow, opened the storage cupboard and the hatch in the back to reach in and re-tie the bitter end of the anchor line to the boat. Then I hauled the line and chain aboard and carefully pulled the anchor into place. After that I walked the Bruce anchor I had absconded from one of Sam’s derelicts and put it back in place on its original bowsprit. 

After trudging back through the yard, I caught Sam, Amy, and Samantha in the office and told them the news. 

“Good lord,” Sam sighed with a twinkle in his eye, “Are you finally leaving? Am I finally rid of you?” 

I told him that since there was not much daylight left, if he would indulge me, I’d be leaving with the mid morning tide the next day. 

“That’s just fine,” he said, “this is not a good time to leave anyhow.” 

And so I spent one more night at the dock. Poor Ruth Ann had been at the Cape Fear Boat Works yard since July 2019. She was as anxious to leave as I was. I cleaned up the decks a little and went below to make supper and get some sleep. I slept like a stone. As long as I didn’t screw something else up, I was finally on my way. I was finally living the life that I had been striving for most of my life and actively pursuing for more than fifteen years.

“If anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.” 

 – Captain Ron

“Incentives are important. I learned that in rehab.” 

 – also Captain Ron

Perhaps The Worst Day, Part One

I know this is Part Two of A Tale of Two Scew Ups, but it's a good story and it's me, so it is long. I had to split it up so that you, dear reader, didn't have to cancel all your appointments in order to read it. Part Two of Part Two will come out tomorrow. 

Thursday was going to be a Red Letter Day. Literally, the culmination of fifteen years of striving. Not that I had put any pressure on myself, but I was so ready and had begun to think that I was due. And then it became one of the most humiliating, most depressing days of my life. 

There is a railroad bridge about a mile downstream from the boatyard. I was going to have to call them on the radio to get it opened for me. As it was my first trip on Ruth Ann for three years, I was cautious and, between the river and the tides, I was concerned about the currents. The plan was to leave as soon as the current had died down from the height of the mid-morning tide. On Tuesday, when I had to get Ruth Ann back into the slipway to be hauled again, I learned that the current is deceptively strong. There were also two or three trees (yes, trees) that had floated down the river and gotten caught on the upriver end of the boatyard’s dock. Tuesday morning, I had gotten pushed quite strongly into those trees. There were a couple clunks along the way that I believe may have been a small branch from one of those trees getting buzzed by my propeller. It was one of the first things that I checked when the boat was out of the water, but all was well.  

Back on Thursday morning, I had the luxury of my own time and I waited until it appeared that the current had waned. Ruth Ann was pointed upstream and, of course, we needed to go downstream. I set up a spring line on the outside aft cleat that ran to the dock and back to the cockpit. After untying the rest of the dock lines, I began to slowly move forward while holding the spring line. In theory, Ruth Ann would have strained against the line and while I kept her in forward at idle speed, the line would cause her to swing around and point her bow downstream. As the boat moved forward, the line would trail behind and I could pull it in at my leisure. It was going to be perfectly graceful.  

There was, of course, more current than I had hoped, and we started getting pushed toward the half submerged trees again. I started to panic! After more than three years out of the water, I was a nervous rookie all over again. I let go the line, revved the engine, and tried to steer us clear. We were not quite going to make it past the very outside trunk, so I threw her into reverse. That moment completely contradicted the rest of the plan. If it hadn’t been for that lapse of judgment (panic), I might have left that day and continued down the river. Nevertheless, in that moment, the line in the water wrapped around my propeller and stalled the engine. 

That was weird, I thought, but still in rookie mode, I tried to restart the engine but it immediately stalled when I put it in gear. That’s when I started to know the trouble I had just gotten into. Looking aft, I could see the springline yanked over the transom and pulled as taut as a guitar string. For a moment, all I knew was that sticky, acrid lump of shame in the back of my throat. But the current and the wind were pushing me upriver toward the I-140 Bypass Bridge. Time for action. 

I went to the bow and dropped the anchor, not really thinking about the pipeline that runs under the river there. If I had thought about it, I probably wouldn’t have imagined that I had already drifted that far. With the boat secure, I began to consider my options and had the bright idea to get in the water (Hey, I’m a cruiser now, we are self sufficient). I dug out my snorkel mask and stripped down to my underwear. I knew the water was going to be cold, but I had no idea how difficult it would be. 

I dropped the swim ladder and carefully crawled down to the water. It was a jolt when my feet were first submerged. I’m guessing that the water was in the 50s. It was damn cold. When I got down to my shoulders, my whole body in the chilly river, my breathing and my heart rate had accelerated dramatically. Even so, as I stood there on my ladder I felt that I could get used to it. I wasn’t shivering yet, but DAMN it was cold. And dark. The river is exactly what is meant by Carolina Black Water. You can’t see eight inches in front of your face. 

What I learned that day was that cold water is mostly mental. My body had gotten used to the cold water but when I tried to dunk my head and swim down to the prop, I felt the strongest notion that I didn’t have enough air! I tried a couple times, even hyperventilating a bit to jack up my oxygen, but the response was the same. Every time my head got under the water, every cell in my body was screaming: get out! Get Out! GET OUT!! So, I gave up, got out, and dried myself off. At least I had tried.  

I have two extra long lines on the boat; one an old anchor line and the other a spinnaker sheet. I unrolled my dinghy and pumped it partially full of air. After installing the thwarts (seats) and the oars, I flopped it into the water. With the foot pump in hand (I know, I know), I climbed down and finished filling the inflatable. Luckily, the tide had slackened and there was very little current by then. I rowed to the dock with a line tethered to a cleat at the stern, tied it to the dock, and rowed back. Then with the other line tied to a bow cleat, I repeated the trip. 

As I devised and revised my next plan, the boatyard launched an Army Corps of Engineers boat that had just been painted. I expected them to head down the river but they headed to the dock and tied up. Just beyond their transom was my aft tether. I whistled to them, pointed to the line at the dock, and held up the line in the boat, and pointed to my chest like “that is me.”  

The captain shouted back, “Do you want me to let you go?”  

“No!” I shouted back while gesticulating wildly in every negative body language I could muster.  

I had called the boatyard office, but even though I was only 50 yards from them physically, the connection from one end or the other was so bad that the receptionist could not hear me. The anchor was down, and I really needed to get back to the dock but I had no motive power. Thankfully still securely tethered to the dock, I started the next phase of my plan. By letting out some anchor line, and then pulling in each tether, one at a time, I could crab walk my way back to the dock. The other captain inquired and I told him I had wrapped a line on my prop. I was getting used to the shame of it. It was already late afternoon, when I walked up to the office, hat in hand, and explained my trouble. Amy, the office manager, was confounded. “Only you, Todd,” she said, smiling and shaking her head. 

Sam, the boatyard owner, is a sweetheart. A bit later I was back in the office discussing the schedule for the next morning. “Sit over here,” he said and started telling me a bunch of stories of when he had screwed up, just to make me feel better. Also, nearly every other skipper I told my story to said “Oh, yeah, I did that once … “ and proceeded to tell me a story about wrapping their prop. It was still pretty embarrassing to wrap my own line on my own prop, and many of the other stories were about crab traps or someone else’s line. 

The boatyard schedule for Friday was going to be complicated. There was a huge luxury yacht in the yard, owned by some bitchy rich people, that had received a large amount of complicated mechanical work. The owners wanted to arrive, get in their boat, and leave, so the mechanics were going to set the boat in the slipway and test all the systems to make sure all was well before the arrival of the cranky owners. Also, another boat was coming up the river to get hauled out. The huge yacht was going to go in the slipway first and Sam told me that either in between  or just after the second boat was hauled, they would pull Ruth Ann out of the water to unwrap the line. We would check the propeller, shaft, and other equipment for damage and if all was well, Ruth Ann would go right back in the water. All I had to do was wait my turn.  

Friday morning while the yacht was being tested, I re-tethered Ruth Ann and pulled my way back out into the river using the anchor line. I was going to try and retrieve the anchor. At the dock I had more than 120 feet of chain and line out to the anchor. I could haul in to the 90 foot tag, but straining with all my might (I don’t have a windlass at this time), I could not get the line to move beyond the 90 foot tag. It was absolutely caught on something more just than the anchor. I’m sure those trees on the surface were not alone in that section of river. So I pulled Ruth Ann back to the dock and tied her up. 

Sam was keen to try pulling the anchor with his truck. I was skeptical. My anchor is designed to roll over and reset itself. It needed to be pulled up rather than over in my opinion, but what did I have to lose? Sam drove his pickup truck right down onto the dock and we tied my anchor line to his trailer hitch. He had the truck in four wheel drive and was smoking the tires on the boards of the dock – the anchor would not move. We were very close to causing an environmental incident but hadn’t realized it. Sam was impressed that my line hadn’t parted. I was impressed that the rope-to-chain splice, which I had spiced, held under the strain. Imagine if that line had parted as his tires were smoking. There was only so much dock and I wonder if he could have stopped before flying straight into the river - truck and all. 

I asked Sam, “So, is there anywhere in town I can buy an anchor and some line besides Worst Marine (my pet name for West Marine)?

“Get in,” he said. And he drove me out to the back corner of the boatyard. “How about that one? Or that one?”  

Even though I was with the owner of the place, it seemed bizarre to be shopping for an anchor among the abandoned and derelict boats out by the fence. I told him I would get a ladder and check a couple of them out. One was an old hinged plow anchor, which I think was an original CQR from England, but it was a couple sizes too large for Ruth Ann. The other was a real Bruce Anchor, just a bit oversized. The anchor I had lost was a bit oversized for my boat, so I chose the latter anchor. After unscrewing the shackle, I threw the anchor over my shoulder and walked it back to the dock. Along the way, I told Sam which one I had grabbed and that I would be back later to make a deal on it.  

A bit later, Samantha, the receptionist (also a sweetheart), came down to ask me to move my boat to the downriver end of the dock. She had just told the boat headed upriver that they wouldn’t be hauled until Monday, but could tie up at the dock. I’m sure Sam was behind the plan. All the folks at Cape Fear Boat Works have been so good to me in the three and a half years that Ruth Ann has been there. I moved Ruth Ann down the dock and looked skeptically at the yacht in the slipway. Joe, the head mechanic, is a thorough guy and I knew that the yacht might be there a good while yet. All I could do was wait.

Trying To Sleep On A Sinking Boat

Part One of A Tale of Two Screw Ups

Ruth Ann was finally ready. 

I had arranged with the boatyard to launch on Monday, December 5, and spent the weekend finishing the final details and packing up. Also, Sam, the boatyard owner, is going to let me leave my little trailer here until May. I had listed a few things for sale and figured out that all my stuff wasn’t going to fit aboard. After getting not one nibble on any of the things I had listed and after running out of room on Ruth Ann, I had to do something. Sam is an old softy at heart and directed me to put my trailer in a corner where he couldn’t store a boat anyway. 

Come Monday morning, I was ready. Sam was offsite for most of the day and tricked me into breaking one of my rules because it was a Monday, not a Friday. I had always said that I wouldn’t launch on a Friday, especially late in the day. If I had started down the river and figured out I had a problem, it would be a much bigger problem if everyone at the boatyard had already gone home for the weekend. I wasn’t thinking of this on Monday and anyway I was enthused to finally launch Ruth Ann. She has been in this boatyard since July 2019.  

Sam came crashing back into the boatyard about 3:30 pm and said “Let’s get you in the water.”  

There was a boat in front of Ruth Ann that had to be moved. Sam grabbed it with the big forklift and we dragged the blocks and jackstands over so he could set it back down in a new spot. Then he got the travelift, a U-shaped crane for lifting large boats, and came for Ruth Ann.  She was strapped and lifted off her jackstands, then the crane gamboled across the yard with Ruth Ann swinging gently under her. 

At the slipway, Sam lowered Ruth Ann toward the water, pausing so that I could climb aboard the bowsprit. After she was all the way in, with the straps loose but not removed, I went about checking for leaks. Ruth Ann has six thruhulls for various inlets and drains; plus a brand new packing gland that I installed where the propeller shaft leaves the boat. With a flashlight in hand, I checked all the those spots and all was well. I kind of glanced in the bilges but I wasn’t worried so much about that space. There are no thruhulls or other connections in the bilge and earlier I was letting a portable air conditioner drain into the bilge and it had been holding water. I just had to pump it out every few days. 

I started the motor and checked it over. I goosed Ruth Ann in forward and then reverse. Satisfied, I signaled Sam and he lowered the straps the rest of the way, so I could back out. Sailboats don’t go backward very well in normal conditions and I hadn’t been at the wheel in over three years. It was not graceful, but I made it out into the river and parked at the dock. My former boatyard neighbors and a couple other people grabbed my lines, I wandered back up and put away my ladder and threw away a paint tray and a used roller. On the way back to the dock, I had a nice chat with Sam and presented him with an Army P-38 can opener that I had found (an inside joke). 

Everyone went home and back at the boat I started thinking about supper. When I casally checked under the engine hatch, I was surprised by the amount of water under the prop shaft. I looked under my galley floorboards and was shocked by a huge amount of water in the bilge. After rechecking in the engine compartment, I realized that I had finger-tightened the packing gland in the morning, but hadn’t gone back to tighten it up. While running the engine, I spun the nut right off and water was coming in around the prop shaft with no seal! 

I fixed the leak, turned on my electric bilge pump, and started pumping with the manual pump as well. Soon the water level had gone down significantly and I let the electric pump finish the job. As I watched, there was a strange little gush of water near the bilge pump. I thought that it was leaking air; that didn’t seem right. Something was amiss, so I watched it as the last of the water started to drain. But when I turned the pump off, the water started to rise again. Looking more closely, I realized that the little gurgle of water was a leak. Water was coming in! I was sinking!!  

I texted my boatyard pal, Mike, who works for Sam and asked if he had some emergency epoxy or an extra pump. And I called the former neighbors, Grace and Jeff. No one had epoxy. I’m ashamed that I didn’t have any, but I don’t know that it would have worked under pressure. Mike scrounged up a large bilge pump and crimped some alligator clips on it for me. I had portable manual pump that I dug out as well.  

In the end, once I got the situation under control, my bilge pump could keep up. The good news was that I wasn’t going to sink; the bad news was that the bilge pump was going to kick on every twelve or fifteen minutes, whine for five as it pumped, and then go through a dramatic Shakespearean death each time it ran out of water and the sensors gradually decided to turn the pump off. 

I had worked pretty hard all weekend prepping, spent a day on edge waiting to launch, and then spent the night trying to sleep on a sinking boat to the coughs, sputters, and whining of the bilge pump.  

In the morning, I talked to the office and one of Sam’s guys hauled Ruth Ann back out of

the water by 9:30 or 10:00 Tuesday. When I left the dock to go back to the slipway and the travelift, there was a lot more curent that it appeared and Ruth Ann got pushed into some trees that had floated down the river and caught on the upriver end of the dock.  For a moment the current was pressing us into the tree and I wasn’t sure that I could get free (This foreshadows Part Two of The Tale of Two Screw Ups). Eventually I got her moving and I was kind of proud of how I entered the slipway; well centered and drifting to a stop right in place. No rest for the weary - now I had to find the leak and repair it.  

I learned something interesting about my boat that day. The hole was a perfectly round drilled hole, probably drilled by me, but I don’t really know how it occured. The hole itself had been right on top of one of the wood blocks that Ruth Ann sat on. That block prevented any daylight from shining through to catch my attention and it was tight enough to hold water in the bilge; faking me out from another perspective. 

I got some tools, my epoxy, and some glass cloth out of my recently moved tool trailer. After grinding around the hole and beveling it slightly, I applied four layers of glass cloth to the botton of the keel with the epoxy. Then I made some putty by mixing cabosil (chopped glass fiber) into some epoxy. After the first patch had cured, I pressed the putty into the hole from inside the bilge. Ruth Ann was already scheduled to go back in the water the next morning. I let the epoxy cure all night, then I scrounged up a quarter cup of bottom paint, sanded the patch, and painted it. 

The next morning (Wednesday), I was back in the water and back at the dock. My friend, Anthony, ran me into town to get some final provisions and took me to lunch - my last meal on land for a while. Back at the boatyard, I put away my groceries and decided that I would leave with the falling tide in the morning. 

Au Contraire, mon ami. 

Stay tuned for Part Two, perhaps the most embarassing and depressing day of my sailing life. 

Running Up to Beaufort; the conclusion

Wild Ponies near Beaufort

Here is the conclusion of Running Up To Beaufort where we get Victor and his boat (and his dog) to Beaufort and I go crashing back to Florida on a Greyhound Bus. 

I was born in the backseat of a 

Greyhound bus,

Rolling Down Highway 41! 

The Allman Brothers Band

(actually, it was mostly I-95)

During the day on Sunday, Cheryl and I traveled back down to the boatyard and picked up her car and Victor’s truck. Victor had some things to do on the boat and arranged for another night at the dock. Back at the marina where the boat was, the three of us ran up to Beaufort, our destination, to drop a vehicle there. The plan was to get the boat to Beaufort, then backtrack to collect the other vehicle. Victor had to be to work Tuesday and Cheryl would drop me off at the Greyhound station in Fayetteville; a fair bit out of her way but sort of on her way home. 

The marina where we holed up for the weather was a little rustic but serviceable. There was work being done to recover from some recent hurricane damage. Several boats languished in the yard. As usual in a boatyard like that one, more than a few of those boats will not likely ever get back in the water. The travelift crane was parked over a shrimp boat and I wasn’t sure either of them were operational. Regardless, we had a pleasant stay hanging out at Swan’s Point Marina; Victor, Cheryl, Link the dog, and me. 

During the day Sunday, a powerboat came into the marina and got stuck on a shoal right at the entrance that we had somehow missed the night before in the dark. Actually, the dockmaster was shouting at them as much as he had at us. “STAY TO THE RIGHT AT THE ENTRANCE.” They were simply not as good at listening as Victor was. Then along came a catamaran who might have had a reservation. They tried to sneak in the entrance thinking they could squeeze past the stuck boat. The dockmaster told them in no uncertain terms to stay out until the first boat was free. They got frustrated and left to find another dock – during a small craft advisory. 

We had a wonderful dinner aboard as the weather trailed off. Cheryl’s big cooler was magic for the copious amount and variety of food she offered us. It might have been possible to make some miles toward Beaufort Sunday evening, but we opted to stay; a wise decision I think.  

Monday morning we were raring to go. After another big breakfast, Victor cautiously turned the boat around and headed back out into the ICW. The first obstacle was crossing the New River. There are many rivers that cross the ICW along the Southeast U.S. coast. Their currents interact with the tides and the result is ever shifting sandbars and shoals. The Coast Guard doesn’t use permanent channel markers, they deploy buoys and move them regularly as the sandbars shift. A few years ago, on another boat going the opposite direction, we went hard aground at the New River. But we did fine that day. The channel was clear and the buoys were well laid out.

We cruised toward Beaufort with lots of wilderness; more salt marshes to port and low islands to starboard. At Swansboro, we ran into civilization again. Most of the way into Morehead City there were houses along the shore. Some of the houses were palatial, but others obviously housed working watermen and their families. Morehead City is just west of Beaufort and we were in the home stretch by then. Bogue Sound is wide and open along here. Lots of deep water and lots more houses along the way. We passed some industry as we approached the city. The Morehead/Beaufort area is home to a port and lots of marinas and marine industry infrastructure. 

Approaching Beaufort, the ICW goes to the left of Radio Island and then north up Adams Creek to the Neuse River and on toward Norfolk, VA. We went to the right of Radio Island, curved up and around Horse Island which contains the Rachel Carson Reserve and some wild horses. We spotted a few ponies on the way right into downtown Beaufort. Victor had a slip at the Beaufort Town Docks while he waited for his permanent slip to open up at the marina where he was headed.

As we approached downtown, Victor hailed the marina on the radio. They directed us to a spot on the seawall at the end of a fairway full of high dollar fishing boats. I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to even attempt it, but Victor had no choice. There was a current moving perpendicular to the entrance. Victor went on by and turned around to make the approach heading into the current. He gurgled the boat slowly past millions of dollars of fiberglass and stainless steel and planted us right in our spot. 

Cheryl and I tended the dock lines and tidied up the boat as Victor went and checked in with the marina. Beaufort is a great spot, though it sounds like the slip he got to is even better. I might soon visit on Ruth Ann while I’m waiting to gauge whether hurricane season is done this year. 

The three of us, and Link the dog, piled into Cheryl’s Tesla and we headed back to Swans Point; grabbing a bite along the way. We dropped Victor at his truck and carried on. I got to drive a Tesla for a couple hours. 

With some trepidation, I approached Fayetteville. I was getting on a Greyhound bus to get to a trucking job in Florida. Years ago, I had been stuck at the Fayetteville station for eight or nine hours. We either lost a driver or a replacement driver never showed up, but fifty or sixty people were stuck in an old cinder block building with two vending machines and a couple small restrooms. The station was a relic of the past that could have been a sheriff’s office or a prison at one time. Nothing but cinder block and terrazzo with institutional colors and hard benches. Looking down the street in both directions, there were no lights nearby; not a sign of life. I spent half the night against a wall, on the floor, leaning against my duffle bag. I was not looking forward to my return to that station. 

I didn’t remember where the bus station had been, of course, but we followed Google Maps into town. It was almost midnight but I could tell I was in a new spot. Under the streetlights, there was green space, sidewalks, office towers, a hospital, and a new transportation center. Many municipalities have built nice central bus stations for their local buses and made room for Greyhound. Gone are the days of a stand alone bus station; many that had restaurants and even barbers. Fayetteville had done it up nicely, though there weren’t many lights on.

Cheryl dropped me at the curb. After a hug goodbye, I assured her I was all set and grabbed my bags after waving again. With two large duffels, a bookbag, and a ukulele, I lurched and stumbled toward the dimly lit entrance set in a rampart of glass and aluminum. I dropped a bag and grabbed the door handle – locked. I picked my bag back up and wandered around the corner. It was quarter to midnight and my bus was scheduled to leave at 1:00 AM.

Luckily, on the other side of the building, I saw the old grey dog on a sign over another door. With some relief, I trudged to my salvation and tugged on the door …  but it was locked too. Now, I became a little concerned. Was I even in the right place? Then I noticed the sign on the door “Back at 12:30.”  I wasn’t really dressed for Fayetteville at Midnight in December so I leaned into the alcove of the entry to stay out of the wind. This might be a long night. 

At 12:20 or so, a couple employees (or people who appeared to be employees) showed up. None of them had a key apparently and they all stayed in their cars. A bit later, another rider showed up with a couple bags. Finally, someone approached, walking with purpose and authority – and no baggage – and proceeded straight to the door; unlocking it for us all. 

Inside, the ticket counter was a tiny room with a single door that went into what looked like the municipal side of the station. There were no signs about lining up or where the busses might arrive. So I sat down with my heavy payload. The one passenger I had seen sounded like they were headed some other direction than I. There were more employees than passengers milling around. Soon the little room was empty and I waited for an announcement of some kind. Employees wandered in and out of a back office; appearing behind the counter, fiddled around, and disappeared again.  

It was getting really close to 1:00 AM and I wondered about my bus. Just then, one of the Greyhound people walked in and caught me with a startled look from behind the counter.

“Aren’t you here for the bus to Orlando?” 

“Yeah.” 

“They are loading up out back right now. You’d better get over there.”  

What!?! There’d been no announcement, no instructions of any kind. The man disappeared into the back office without further comment. I didn’t actually know where the bus was. After loading up with my bags again, I stepped through the door toward the rest of the station. It was a big lobby with lots of open space, lots of glass and benches, and no signs. Around to the right there seemed to be more space, so I walked that way. Trudging through the empty building I could now see the stands out back where various city buses would arrive and depart – and a single Greyhound bus idling at the curb with 8 or 10 people milling around. Where did all those passengers come from?! Likely at least a few of them were on the bus when it arrived but I had been insulated from all their activity. The bus driver looked up from beside the luggage compartment of the bus and frowned. He asked for my ticket which was on my phone and shrugged toward the bus as if to say “there you go, load your own damn bags.”  So I did, and I boarded the bus with my book bag and my uke. 

I really don’t remember but looking at Greyhound’s schedule today, I think that I rode down to Orlando, got an Uber to Groveland, and stepped into orientation for the driving job by 7:00 or 8:00 that morning. I was going back to drive for a company that I had driven for before. It’s a good little company, they are good to us drivers, and the schedule is fairly slack. After eight months, I returned to Ruth Ann. During those eight months, I had two regular weekends. The rest of the time, I was driving 6 days a week, averaging more than 500 miles per day. Most every week, I took a 34 hour break, which reset my DOT clocks and then went right back out on the road. My time driving was lucrative and I came back raring to go. In the last eight weeks, I’ve worked my ass off, lost about twelve pounds, and I’ve got Ruth Ann almost ready to launch.  

Stay tuned. I hope to give my patrons some kind of live access to my first few miles down the river and perhaps a Q&A at my first anchorage. Become a patron at the link near the top of this page. Thanks for your support.  

Escaping Death, Not Once, but Thrice

This is a fresh tale to interupt the "Running Up to Beaufort" saga and it is pretty long -- I’m sorry -- but I’m still buzzing a bit from all that just happened. I wanted to write it down while it was fresh. It’s a good story nonetheless. 

Last Friday, I faced death and destruction no less than three times. I’m a sailor, so what follows might be a slight exaggeration, but it felt pretty real to me. It just happened in the last twenty four hours.  

The day had arrived. After a restless night (more on that later), I had made breakfast and started working on my Task List. Earlier I had wandered up toward the office, but no one was in yet. A typical lazy-ish Friday around the yard. The guys were working in the various buildings on various boats, but the office was not yet occupied. I had started pulling tools together to go back over to Anago, the boat from which I was taking the engine. 

Just then I heard the mahogany baritone of Sam, the boatyard owner. I peaked out my companionway and could see his truck, so I dropped my tools and went after him. I had been chasing  him a few days to get the mast down and pull the engine from Anago. It was going to be the day before, but Sam had to make an appearance at the funeral of an old friend’s sister. I was determined to coax him into doing it that day. 

“You want to do something today, don’t you,” Sam said when he saw me coming after him.  

He was stringing an extension cord to a fishing boat that had been sitting here a while. He plugged the cord into another and craned his neck to look up at the fishing boat’s wheelhouse. He cussed and started walking back toward the pylon where the power was. 

“See if that light comes on.” 

Um, which light exactly. Oh, nevermind.

We worked at the lights for a time. Presumably, Sam was switching outlets on the pylon and I was watching the dome light in the boat. It’s tough to keep power working all around the yard. Each pedestal has 30 amp and 50 amp connections like most marina docks and also standard 110 volt outlets. 

“Well, I’ll call him and tell him we tried,” Sam said in his sing-songy Carolina accent. “I’ll go up to the office and tell them what I’m working on, then I’ll meet you at Anago with the forklift.”  

That was music to my ears.  

I hustled to get my extension cords, my angle grinder, and my ladder then trudged over to Anago which was 30 yards or so from Ruth Ann and my “camp.”  Once I got there, I strung the extension cords from a pylon that I knew worked and leaned my ladder against the boat. 

Right behind Anago, literally only four feet or so, was the good ship Rare Breed. Rare Breed is a fishing boat, about 40 feet in length. She was built by her captain, Brent, about 25 years ago and he is working on her now. Rare Breed is a beauty; purpose built with the loving hand and attention to detail of the man who knew he was going to captain her. Brent had spent the last several years as the captain of a large luxury yacht. It had been an excellent gig but he had been kept away from Rare Breed. Then the couple he had been working for were getting old enough that they decided to sell the big yacht and he was out of a job. This was really a stroke of luck as Rare Breed had been just sitting on the hard. An ignored boat starts to succumb to nature and little things start to become bigger problems.  

Brent was working on some small areas of rot in the floor timbers of Rare Breed; getting her ready to do fishing charters again. Anago got placed right on his bow in the rush of pulling boats ahead of a storm a few years ago. Brent has never liked how close the boat was to his. His worry was only amplified as the boat just sat there and no work got done on her. He was glad when I showed up with a plan to extract the engine and get Anago to the landfill. However, he wasn’t so sure of my plan to drop the mast. 

I explained how we were going to take the mast down. I should have consulted with Brent anyway as Rare Breed is literally a million dollar boat. I know from our conversations that his deductible is $10,000. Anago was set with her bow higher than her stern. This meant that the mast was leaning back; toward Rare Breed. If anything let go, the mast would fall on Brent’s boat and likely cause significant damage. The first two times I explained my plan, he just said “I don’t know. I need to talk to Sam.”   

Then the third time through, Brent seemed to understand that I had some experience rigging heavy stuff and that my plan was solid. With all that in mind, on the day it was actually going to happen, I had to bang on his hull and shout for him to hear me over his grinder. I told him that we were about to drop the mast and pull the engine, but that his truck probably ought to move. He finished what he was working on, crawled out of Rare Breed’s bilges to move his truck, and stuck around to supervise.  

Sam came around with the big forklift and we briefly talked about the plan again. I climbed up on to Anago with my grinder and a nylon strap from the forklift. Standing next to the mast, I was ten or twelve feet off the ground. Sam pulled forward putting a fork on each side of the forestay. I waved and he stopped. I wrapped the strap around the mast twice and then over the fork and attached it to itself with the shackle. As the strap lifted slowly, I made sure that it didn’t get caught on the winches or anything else. The strap gradually tightened up as it went higher toward the spreaders. When it stopped, both Sam and Brent shouted “OK.”  

A couple things that landlubbers need to know to understand the next couple paragraphs: a mast is held up in all four directions, usually by stainless steel cable. The forestay holds it from the bow; shrouds hold it from the sides; and the backstay holds it from the back.  Also, when a boat is out of the water it is “on the hard.” A sailboat on the hard rests with all its weight on its keel. Jackstands are placed around the sides to balance the boat. Jackstands are not designed to hold weight. In fact, trouble begins when the jackstands start to take too much weight.   

I stepped back to the cockpit and grabbed the grinder. The important part of my plan was that Sam was pulling the mast forward as I cut the backstay. The mast was on a tabernacle (a hinge), so that as Sam pulled the mast, it was still attached to the boat at the base. Also, the shrouds along the sides and the forestay at the bow were still attached and would prevent the mast from going backward (toward Rare Breed).  

When  I cut the backstay, the boat jerked as the mast jumped forward, pulled by the forklift. Little did I know, but Brent had told Sam that if things started to go bad – just floor it in reverse. I think Sam thought that the tabernacle was loose enough that he might be able to yank it off. Either way, while I was still about ten feet in the air, Sam gave the mast a good yank with the forklift. The boat and I jerked back and forth a couple times as the jackstands were deciding whether to fold underneath me or not. I held up a hand like “OK, fella, settle down” and I jumped to the ladder and climbed down. 

Later I noticed that the wood block under Anago’s keel had moved almost two inches when the mast was yanked. A couple more inches and the metal tubing of the jackstands would have likely buckled and Anago and I would have tumbled to the ground. That would have been exciting, but it wasn’t the most exciting thing that day.  

On the ground again, I untied the strap from the forklift and from the mast. Brent picked it up and put it on the back of the forklift. Sam wiggled the big machine around and lined up to lift the engine out of the cockpit. I grabbed the straps and shackle and climbed the ladder again. 

“Oh, sorry,” Brent said, “I just put those up.” 

“No worries,” I said, “If you put it away, you can find it when you need it.” 

“That’s how I was taught,” Brent drawled with a slight hint of appreciation.  

Next Sam and I pulled the engine up out of the hole I had cut in the cockpit floor. It was fairly anti-climactic, but the engine was what all this work had been about. As Sam left with my engine, wiggling between a couple boats, Brent approached and thanked me. 

“That was a well planned and executed safe method. I appreciate you,” he said.  I took that as high praise from a salty old fishing captain.  

“Thank you, sir.”  And I ran after Sam who was delivering the engine to Ruth Ann. We set the engine down on a couple of large wood blocks. I removed the straps from my chains, folded them, and placed them on the back of the big forklift. 

“Thank you, sir,” I said with a slight bow of my head. 

Sam winked and drove off.  

My next job was to get the mast the rest of the way to the ground. The tabernacle had been twisted in the lowering process, so I was going to need to cut the mast. More than three quarters of the mast was hanging off the bow, so I needed to be careful. Most sailboats have a row of teak grabrails on top of the cabin; Anago was no different. I carefully laced a line back and forth across the mast and under the rails. I figured with three points on each side holding the mast down it would be secure until I slowly lowered it. I cut through the mast about a foot from the hinge, but when the mast let go, so did everything else. I had purposely positioned myself on the high side of the prone mast, but when it jumped up all hell broke loose. The mast lurched, which made the boat lurch again and the grabrails gave way immediately. When the tip of the mast hit the ground, it stopped going that direction but then lurched the other way as it slid down the starboard side of the boat, stopped only by the wires that were strung through the inside. All the while I was showered by teak debris from the exploding rails. But just as soon as it had started, it stopped. The mast was still askew, but everything had settled. That was pretty exciting too, but it was not actually the closest I came to death and destruction last Friday.  

Sam, the boatyard owner, is a charmer. I like him a lot and I know he has a lot on his plate as the yard is not his only business. Further, nearly everyone else active at the boatyard is worth more monetarily to Sam than I am. He has a way, though, of making you feel like you are next and his highest priority at the moment. Sam had to leave during the afternoon on Thursday to go to a funeral, but he had kind of made it sound like he would be back late and we would do the mast then. Now there is Eastern Standard Time, Island Time, and there’s Sam Time. He did come back. In fact, I saw him, still in a suit, behind a boat instructing his guys on what to do with that boat’s outdrive. But soon it was after five o’clock and everyone was gone. I knew then we weren’t going to do the mast that day and I began to putz around and do some other little jobs around Anago. I got wild, grabbed my grinder, and decided to take out the compression post which was stainless steel. I am scrapping a bunch of stainless, aluminum, and the lead keel taken off of Anago. Another few pounds of stainless was money for the good. With that done, I was tired and packed up.  

Now, for you landlubbers again: a compression post is a post inside the cabin of a boat that supports the mast. My boat has what is called a keel-stepped mast; the mast goes through the cabin roof and is seated right on the keel in the bottom of the boat. Many modern production boats, however, have a deck-stepped mast; which is a bit of a misnomer because the mast is usually stepped on the cabin roof, not what I call the deck. 

I made supper, diddled around, and went to bed. It was just after midnight, when I awoke in a cold sweat. My heart was literally beating like it was going to ram its way out of my chest. I had a single thought; a thought so powerful it had woken me. In a B movie, the camera would have cut to the whole solar system, pause for effect with all the planets and the stars behind them, then zoom past Pluto (yes, I know), Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, buzz Jupiter and Mars, focus on the Earth, then oceans and clouds, continents and countries, fields and cities, to a house in a neighborhood, right through the roof, to the guy on the couch, through his forehead, the brain, the synapses, a couple spasmodic cells and then a gigantic explosion. I was wide awake! 

I had taken the compression post out from under the mast on a boat that had been sitting in the yard rotting for four or five years. The post that was meant to support the mast was gone. Now, the mast was supported only by the fiberglass shell of the cabin. If the roof failed, the mast would begin to fall down which would slacken all of the stays holding it vertical. It would inevitably fall – onto Rare Breed. Or if the Universe was in a particularly finicky mood, it could hit that boat and the boat next to it which was worth nearly as much. If such a calamity occurred, those two skippers would roam the earth to find me and shred me into pieces small enough to burn and stomp on the ashes. They would kill me. And worse yet it was something that I had decided to do for no good reason other than I was near the boat with a bunch of tools. There would be nothing I could say or do to compensate for the losses – financial and emotional – that I would have caused.  

I lay there trying to decide what I could do. There was no one in the yard but my pal Mike asleep on his boat and me totally not asleep on mine. I couldn’t see the boat in the dark, but if something was going wrong the only choice would be to try and wake Sam up at home and get him to the yard. Mike might be able to drive the forklift but neither he nor I would be willing to weave our way through a bunch of other expensive boats with a hulking machine to try and save another. If something was going wrong, there was nearly nothing I could do about it that night.  

And what if it had already fallen, but I hadn’t heard it. 

If I go look, will it be worse or better for my sweaty brain. 

I wasn’t about to get any more sleep that night. 

Finally, I decided to get dressed and go look; figuring that if it wasn’t bad I might actually sleep. I climbed down out of Ruth Ann with a flashlight and made my way over to Rare Breed and Anago in the dark. Brent has scaffolding on three sides of his boat with ladders in each corner. I climbed one of his ladders and poked my flashlight at Anago’s mast step. It was hard to see. I couldn’t really tell without climbing up into Anago anyway, but the curve of her roof looked like a continuous arc. I thought I could see the very bottom of the tabernacle. I decided that the worst wasn’t happening yet. So, I went back to Ruth Ann and back to bed. I actually slept some after that. 

First thing in the morning, I looked out the port in my galley. I could see the hulk of Rare Breed in the emerging dawn – and I could just make out the thin line of the mast beyond her, still standing. All was well in the universe. [do I have to say again: I’d rather be lucky than good.] I was determined to tell Sam my mistake if I had to, just to get him to take the mast down that day. 

And that was as close to death and destruction as I got last Friday. It wasn’t the exploding teak or the dancing boat, it was doing something stupid that could have affected two boat captains that I know and respect. If it’s all the same to Davy Jones, I’d like to never get that close again.  

Chronologically, this last bit happened before everything else, of course. After I made some coffee, I went looking for Sam. When I first didn’t find him, I set an alarm for one hour to look for him again. Before that timer went off, I heard Sam talking to someone nearby and that is where this post started. I dropped my tools and chased Sam down. 

A bit more than a day later and the mast is stripped of anything other than aluminum and is chopped up into manageable chunks. My pal, Anthony, chopped up a boat last year and got it to the landfill on a flatbed wrecker, so I enlisted him for my project. We have only to call for the wrecker and haul the metal to the recycler. We're splitting the scrap money after the cost of the wrecker and the landfill. 

I’d rather be lucky than good. 

Running Up To Beaufort, Part 2

We had an easy start Saturday morning. Victor’s mom, Cheryl, fed us like kings. I think it was sausage and egg biscuits that morning as we were soon to be underway. Cheryl was nursing a broken finger but helped a lot with docklines and other boat stuff; while also handling all the galley responsibilities. The Navassa Railroad Bridge is only about a mile downstream. That bridge had to open, so we waited for slack tide to head down the river. As soon as we started moving, we radioed to request an opening. When we got close, the bridge started creaking open. An easier time than I had had with that bridge on the way up to the boatyard with Ruth Ann. Victor’s Willard 36 is a unique traditional looking, strongly built trawler. She was repowered with a big John Deere diesel a few years ago which rumbled confidently at the push of a button. The trip down the river was uneventful and the boat performed without a hiccup. From the boatyard to downtown Wilmington, the river winds its way through salt marshes and acres of seagrass. We could have been traveling the river in any century except for the hum of the John Deere. Bare trunks of trees, some surely cedars, poked up through the seagrass while all kinds of herons, ducks, and other waterfowl went about their day; mildly bemused by the noisy humans floating by.. The only view of civilization to ruin the ancient river atmosphere was the Thermo Fisher Scientific building that towers across the marsh from the city. It wasn’t until we rounded the last long curve toward the junction with the Northeast Cape Fear River that downtown Wilmington loomed into view. We were thrust back into the 21st Century, but without much other traffic on the water. Soon after we past downtown there was a scattering of industry on each side, then oil storage tanks to the east. After a short stretch of wilderness, we came to the Port of Wilmington. The huge cranes had been in sight, but now we were right next to the huge docks and stacks of shipping containers. I don’t remember there being a ship docked in port that morning. Beyond the port we were back on a wild river. This stretch, however, was dominated by pine forests and random spoil islands. It was peaceful without too much traffic until we got to our turn. There seemed to be a collection of boats around the intersection of river and the ICW. Most were fishing but a few were on the move like us. We followed a sparse trail of daymarkers to cross a broad section of flat water from the Cape Fear River over to Snow’s Cut; the man made channel that connects the river to the ICW headed north. The Cut was the original reason that Victor and I started talking. Back when we thought that both our boats would launch about the same time, the first plan was for Victor to follow me since I had been through the Cut a few times. The boat and crew settled in and we made pretty good time through the cut, into the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), and on toward Wrightsville Beach. There were nine bridges on our route, but only three which we had to request to open. Now that we were on the ICW proper, the Wrightsville Beach Bridge was the next bridge we had to call. The bridge opens on the hour and the half hour, so after checking in with the bridgetender, we cruised out Masonboro Inlet and into the Wrightsville Beach Anchorage just for fun. Back out into the ICW, and back on a northward track, we made the bridge just in time and cruised under it's gaping jaws. The evidence of Wilmington thinned out pretty fast and soon we were rolling along with salt marshes and spoil islands to starboard and boathouses and docks to port. We enjoyed the quiet scenery of the ICW offseason. Nearing Surf City, we were looking for a place to put in for the night. Sears Landing, a restaurant with docks, caught our eye on the chart. However when we got there, it was a long skinny channel up to the docks with a pretty stiff cross breeze just then. Since all three of us were new to the boat, we decided to keep looking. Daylight was soon to fade and Victor was calling around, but all the nearby marinas were full. We motored a little further up the ICW and found an anchorage just past the Topsail Island Bridge. The sun briefly splashed some color but faded quickly behind the blue grey of the overcast horizon. With the anchor down, we caught up with our weather apps and suddenly found that a strong wind was on the way. Indeed, a small craft advisory for morning. And then a marina called Victor back. So just as the sunlight began to disappear, we hauled the anchor. I went to the bow with a borrowed pair of gloves. The windlass was not working, so I began hauling on the rope. Victor had opened a hatch and I shouted to give a little forward. The anchor rode came aboard without too much effort, anchor rope turned to chain, but we began to overrun the anchor. I wrapped some chain on a cleat and paused but the big boat had some momentum and we drifted further forward. Lacking some old salt patience, I asked Victor for a little reverse to bring us off the anchor. Soon, that John Deere kicked in and I was struggling. It was a scramble to keep the anchor chain from running back out, and just as hard to keep from getting pulled over the bow myself. But we won and the anchor finally came aboard. We motored toward Swans Point Marina, anticipating a safe harbor for the night; and the morning’s blow. It was dark when we arrived. The dockmaster was a bit coarse and direct to a fault, but exceedingly helpful in his own curmudgeonly way. He directed Victor into the dock while Cheryl and I stood by to heave dock lines, and then he helped us tie up. . Victor did great despite the shouting and grunting from the dock. Then the dockmaster informed us about a nearby seafood restaurant that would come pick us up for supper if we called. Victor had to call twice to convince them to come get us, but they did. Amazingly, it seemed like more than a 10 minute ride each way. We had a great supper and a couple beers, and then got a ride back to the marina.

Overnight the winds piped up and we were happy to be tucked into a little marina rather than at anchor in a fairly open spot. Cheryl made us a hearty breakfast and we strategized. It was decided that we’d stay until Monday morning to avoid traveling in some pretty stiff winds and possibly having to find another marina anyway. I began to quietly fret just a bit for my plans. I had to catch a bus in the wee hours Tuesday to make it to Florida for orientation and a new job on Wednesday. 

Running Up To Beaufort, Part One

To properly start this new season of the Bubba the Pirate Blog, we must start from the end of last season. Here is a story from mid-December, 2021. It was a hell of a send-off for me on my way back to a stint of truckdriving. 

As early as October, Victor and I had thought that our boats would be launched about the same time. We had talked about heading down the river together, and over to Wrightsville Beach. The main obstacle along the way is Snow’s Cut; a man-made canal that connects the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) coming down from Beaufort to the Cape Fear River. The tidal currents can rip through the cut and since I had done it a few times, and because Victor had just bought his first big boat -- he was keen to follow someone who had done it.

Victor is a youngish guy, an engineer and recently out of college; recently compared to me anyway. The boat he had bought was going to be his home up toward Beaufort, NC, near his job. We had gotten along from our first meeting and he can geek out about diesel engines, electric motors, and general boat stuff, but had lots of questions too. I don't yet qualify as an 'old salt' but I was nearby, and I have a lot of opinions. And I was a hero one day because I was the last person to hit the start button when his engine started.

His boat, a Willard 36 trawler was near my boat in the yard and he came over one day with a question about his diesel. I demurred that I probably wasn't the right guy to ask. We had talked enough previously that he knew I had been a truck driver for a while.

"But you've started a bunch of diesels," he stated with confidence I hardly deserved. "Can you just come have a look?"

So, I wandered over and climbed up into to the shippy-looking old boat and admired its efficient layout. The floor boards in the main salon were all up exposing the engine. Victor hung onto the water intake hose slung into a tub of water and had me gingerly cross the open space to get to the helm station. I pushed the start button a couple times, but didn't get it started. However, he might have been right about my experience because I sensed that it really wanted to start. We agreed on giving it one more try, so I pressed the button with new found confidence and the big John Deere engine roared to life. We all danced around and I got the credit; though all I did was push the button one more time.

Back at the yard last December, I had just figured out that my engine had seized and Ruth Ann wasn’t going to make the trip. Also, the yard had discovered that Victor’s boat had several cracks in its stern tube. We had talked about me crewing for him in lieu of taking Ruth Ann, but I had started to look for a job to pay for a new engine. The stern tube had to be custom made with an uncertain leadtime, and I was preparing to leave town.

I had pushed my luck and stayed nearly longer than was feasible. Hoping against hope that the yard's boom truck would get fixed and my mast raised. Nevertheless, the mast never moved before I headed back to Florida nearly out of money.

The stern tube had suddenly arrived the first Monday of December and the yard was going to install it yet that week. I had 4 or 5 applications out and was waiting for word on a driving job. Helping Victor sounded like great fun, but timing was everything. I was ready, and it was basically necessary for me to jump whenever one of the trucking companies called.

My batteries had to be at 50% state of charge for storage. So, Wednesday that week I disconnected the solar panels and started using up amps that wouldn’t be replaced. Thursday morning Victor’s boat was ready to go and I had the job offer that I wanted. I was headed back to Florida to drive for a good little company that I had worked for before. I knew the people, the system, the equipment, and the schedule. And I knew that I could work for several months and not have to buy a car. And ... I was going to be able to make the trip with Victor!

Truck driver job ads are a bit like used car ads and I have trouble believing anything I read. Going with the devil I knew was an easy decision once my application had been approved down in Groveland, Florida.

As luck would have it, the company sent me to get a drug test at a clinic that was right across the road from a laundromat that I’d been using all along. The nights had been chilly that week so after it warmed up a little, I loaded my laundry into my bike’s saddlebags and rode into town.

After my clothes were in the dryer, I walked over to the clinic, but they were pretty busy. The lady at the desk suggested that I come back in an hour or so. So, I wandered back to the laundry. Once everything was folded and packed back up, I left the saddlebags on an out-of-the-way table and walked back to the clinic.

Victor texted that the yard was ready to launch his boat. I replied that I was stuck in line at the clinic and he should not to wait for me. It crossed my mind that my reply might have sounded a bit churlish but I didn’t think he was prepared to leave without me anyhow.

When I pedaled back into the boatyard, Victor’s Willard was in the slipway, in the water. He beckoned me aboard, so I ditched my stuff and climbed in. The yard guys had helped with a couple final details and we were ready to make a trip -- momentous but only about 20 yards over to the dock. The boatyard is not a marina, it is, in fact, a boatyard. The dock is a fairly large platform but is only used as a place for skippers to stage their boats either on the way in or out of the yard. In fact, we met a couple that evening, who were preparing to bring their boat up the river and had stopped by to check out the facilities.

Friday evening we prepped both boats. I tidied up Ruth Ann and the space around her and gathered my stuff for the trip. I was likely going straight to the bus station from the boat. Two stuffed duffel bags, my book bag with my laptop, and a ukulele were all I had packed to occupy me for the next six months or so. It was just spitting rain when I pitched my duffels to the ground. After climbing down, I hung them on Ruth Ann’s jack stands to stay dry. Back up the ladder, I did a final check and turned off the batteries. When I climbed back down and was thinking it would be best to make two trips over to the dock … I was confronted by an empty jack stand - a missing duffel!

There’s a few of us hanging around the boatyard, so I immediately suspected that someone was messing with me. However, there had also been a guy, occasionally acting a little crazy, who had recently brought his boat to the yard. Sometimes he was more than a little drunk, and other times random things had come up missing around the yard. I had not met the guy yet, so all that was mostly hearsay, but just in case, I decided to pass by where his boat was.

I grabbed my book bag, my ukulele, and the one duffel I still had, and crunched through the gravel across the yard. Around the building, with a flash from my light, there was no car and no activity around the allegedly crazy guy’s boat. Just then, a pebble skittered across the pavement near me.

“Now I know you’re out there,” I said out loud to my unknown nemesis.

I started walking toward the dock as if giving up. Another pebble skipped over the gravel. After a few more steps feigning nonchalance, I spun around, clicked on my flashlight, and spotted Mike -- laughing and lugging my biggest, heaviest bag.

I hadn’t seen Mike in a couple days and I was leaving. After helping Victor get his boat to Beaufort, I was going to catch the bus to Florida to start truckdriving again. It was good to have a chance to shake hands and say ‘see you later’ to Mike, one of my boatyard pals. My bags were packed heavy, hence the two trips idea. After we laughed and shook hands, Mike said with a smile, “well, I’ll walk down to the dock with you but I’m not carrying your stuff.”

Departure Morning Sunrise

So there I was with everything in one trip, but I didn’t mind. We stumbled down to the dock. I shook
Mike's hand again and tossed my stuff down to the boat. Victor’s mom, Cheryl, was aboard with Link, Victor’s big, ol’ sweet dog -- and lots of food. There were several grocery bags, a large cooler, and takeout supper that was filling the boat with delicious smells. She had brought provisions for a battalion.

“Do you think we’ll have enough?” she asked.

Victor arrived and the three of us, and Link, prepared to tuck into the fried chicken, BBQ pork, coleslaw, and hushpuppies Cheryl had brought from Smithfields. We stowed some of the groceries, moved the big cooler, and each found a place to sit down to eat.

“I’ve been on 3 day voyages with less food than what you’ve brought for supper,” I told her with a smile. “I think we’ll be just fine.”

If It Was Easy ... [ Part 37 ]

We are back to “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” The Universe has been testing me, but I am unassailable. 

It’s been a frustrating week, but it all started fine. “Started” is a funny word, because for the last eight months or so, my week has been six days on, one day off with my “weekend” usually falling on Tuesday. Anyway, on Monday, which is kind of my Friday, I turned in my two week notice. I will soon be done with truckdriving and will be back at the boat by the first week of September. 

I normally would have rolled back into the terminal during the day Monday, had Tuesday off to reset my DOT clocks and run some errands. There is a lot on my mind as I crash toward the end of this round of truckdriving. Apparently, I had failed to email my dispatcher with my requested hometime. This formality has been a little bit more formal with my current dispatcher. Also, I had a slim week because I had spent most of the day Saturday in a truckstop shop getting my trailer fixed. This meant I hadn’t used up all my hours for the week. 

So I got another load rather than being dismissed for the week. Trucking is an unpredictable occupation and I have learned to just roll with it. I had my doubts from the start about this new plan and as expected it got sideways. I picked up a load of cardboard bales and headed toward Georgia again. The unloading at the papermill went faster than expected, and I headed on to Savannah to grab the Walmart load that was going to get me back to Florida.  

Along the way back, I was watching my clock and how many miles I had yet to go. By the time I got near Gainesville, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the delivery and then ‘home.’ I called in, but my dispatcher was at lunch. The load could have dropped at the terminal for someone else to deliver the next day, but the guy I talked to said it was set up for me to take it all the way and offered no options. I didn’t argue. 

What I did do was pull off at Hawthorne, FL - a little early - where I knew I could take a short hike and get some Chinese food. If I was going to take the load all the way, it didn’t matter how far I drove that day. I’d get there at the same time tomorrow one way or the other after taking the required ten hour break. What that meant, however, was that I was going to roll in on Wednesday and have Thursday off; shifting my schedule by two days. 

When I woke on Thursday, I had a lot on my mind. I already have one foot in Navassa, NC next to sv Ruth Ann, my boat. I took off, dropped the load in Brooksville, and headed to the yard in Groveland (“home”). What I should have done somewhere along the way was get some damn fuel!  When I turned the corner in downtown Groveland, the fuel all sloshed to one side of my nearly empty tanks and I got a short buzz to tell me that I was low on fuel. Dang.  

At the yard, I dropped my empty trailer and called my dispatcher. Pete has been very good to me but I was causing us both a problem. He did not have any advice about fueling up as there are no truckstops nearby, but he had me check with the shop. The mechanics could appreciate the silliness I had got myself into, but could not help.  

I’ve been living out of my truck since late December. My whole living space is about two thirds the size of a full size van. I have standing headroom, and the cab is about as wide as a big van, but behind the driver’s seat is a small cabinet and then the bunk. With all the fancy new auxiliary air conditioning for when the truck is stopped, there is nearly no storage under the bunk. I throw my duffel bag on the seat to make room to sleep in the bunk and throw it back on the bunk when I wake in order to drive. And … there’s a ukulele, a laptop, dirty clothes bag, and other supplies that make those hops back and forth too. Under the mattress, are three boxes I bought from the UPS Store so that I could ship some of my cold weather clothes back to North Carolina. I needed longer sleeves until about March, but haven’t worn them since. Hauling less through the Greyhound station in a couple weeks will be nice, but that stuff is not getting shipped this weekend. 

I couldn’t rely on what little fuel I had to run the auxiliary a/c for 34 hours on my weekend. I also needed that puddle of fuel to make it to a truckstop to get more. The shop thought that I had about enough fuel to get to the nearest truckstop. The other pressing issue was that I had about 55 minutes left of the 70 hours I’m allowed to drive in a week. The truck can’t move without the computer knowing it and there is no wiggle room for goofy personal problems. After evaluating my options, I made a snap decision. Back in the empty lot, the only trailer available was the one I had just dropped. Empty trailers are often worth their carrying capacity in gold. I always need one to move about, empty or not. 

The guard at the gate eyed me curiously as I dragged the same trailer out that I had just brought in. “It’s a long story,” I said as she checked my lights and my permits. Pausing in the driveway, I quickly typed a message to Pete. I was headed to the Pilot Truckstop in Wildwood to get some fuel and spend my 34 hour weekend. It was a slightly dumpy, older Pilot, but it was home … until late Thursday. However, there was no laundry and not a grocery store in sight. I’ll make up for missing my weekend errands on the road after I get moving again. 

svRuth Ann Awaits

All this goofy drama trying to get to my weekend is not unlike my life trying to get to sea.I have been frustrated. I’ve been blocked and bamboozled, but I’ve kept going. I’ve rolled with it for fifteen years and four boats. Things have not gone the way I thought they would; the way I had hoped. It’s been harder, more expensive, and sillier than I could have ever imagined. But I’m still here – still doing it. I will not be turned away! I am already detached from the expectations and the faux authority of normal life on land. For fifteen years, I have been living on my own terms. It has not always been what I wanted it to be, but it has always been headed toward my goal: living aboard and wandering around the Caribbean Basin by sail.

I have no fear of life or death. I have done my best and I am satisfied. If all goes according to plan, I will be sailing before Halloween.