You Gota Watch Out For That First Step! ! ! ! !

SHIP'S LOG:

Well, I'll have to say that the hook went down and stayed out all night. I don't think I quite sleep well as I was expecting it to drag and have to go through the whole process of setting it again . . . . . . in the dark. But no, it held tight, so much so that it was a pain in the but to get it to break out in the morning. In fact, I had to motor a couple of times on a shorten scope ( move the boat forward so that the rode was straight up and down, decreasing its holding power) to get it to pull out. I do wonder why this did not happen the first time in New Haven, but "in the Gulf" at Millford, it I could have held the Queen Mary.

Once again, the wind was right on the nose blowing against the tide, creating those square wave that you have to punch through. It actually was a beautiful day and I was making decent time but once again I decided not to push it. A good 20 miles would be a fine day as the next two there were supposed to small craft advisories and I decided to put into Black Rock Harbor in Strafford, tie up at Captain's Cove Shipyard and wait out the impending storm.

The charts I use are from MAPTECH and they come in a 1 1/2' X 2 1/2' format chartbook. They show a particular area in varying degrees of detail, with large format depiction of harbors, rivers and the like. They are excellent so long as use them well. I am not sure exactly how it happened by I missed Black Rock Harbor by a mile and a half. The chart I was using had about 15 miles of the Connecticut coastline, plus 3 smaller detailed inserts of Bridgeport, Black Rock and Southport. Unfortunately, I must have miss read the Charts and ended up in Southport rather than in Black Rock Harbor. I guess that I was actually going faster than I thought I was to miss it by that much. I also think that with one big chart and the three little insert charts all on the same page made getting confused about exactly where I was a real chance.

And so it was that leaving Southport Harbor to go to Black Rock Harbor, I looked at the chart, set the autopilot and . . . . . went aground again! I am not sure if the auto pilot messed up or I inputted the wrong course ( garbage in=garbage out) I ended up on a shoal at the entrance to Southport Harbor. It was a good thing that UI was that far off the beach as the string of Anglo-Saxon expletives that escaped my lips would have curddled the hair of saltiest of old salty seadogs. I was moving at about 6 knots and the grounding was "relatively soft", more sand and gravel than rock, but rocks were there. The ground got me up enough so that I couldn't motor off. I shut of the engine. I center the rudder and locked it down. I got my phone and called Tow Boat/US. and sat down to wait.

In that the season had ended, they had no Captains on stand-by and it would be a couple of hours before one could get to me. I went aground at 2:10pm, which I was informed was near mid-high tide and that ABISHAG was going over on her side long before they could get there.

It was long couple of hours, during which everything on the port side of the boat decided to move to the starboard side of the boat. The farther the boat leaned, the more the water in the bilge came into the cabin, more than there should have been as I was slow in shutting the seacocks on the starboard side of the boat. Slowly but surely over ABISHAG went until she rested on the bottom (sand and gravel), about 45 degrees out of vertical. The towboat got there about 4:30pm but couldn't get near me. Actually he could have walked, barely getting his feet wet, but there was nothing he could do about getting ABISHAG off her side and out of the predicament I put her into by missing the buoy. He did take the time to plan a route back out into deep water so that we would avoid the sizable rock that were present. The good thing about it drying out that much is that they were easy to spot and chart. There was one about 50ft behind me that could have done serious damage had I hit it and several in front that were equally nasty. They were to be avoided on departure.

The Coast Guard showed up as well and there was nothing they could do either, though once they got my cell phone number, they called every half hour to make sure I was OK. Other than that, the time between the grounding until 10PM was taken up adjusting to the increasing heel and, after 6:18pm when the tide ebbed and changed, the decreasing heel. Trying to move around the boat, I jammed my left ankle and pulled a muscle in my back so I decided that before I ended up seriously injuring myself, I took a nap - one punctuated by calls every 30 minutes from the Coast Guard.

At 10pm, ABISHAG was pretty much upright an lines were attached to the tow boat, keeping a strain on the boat to keep her from moving forward with the tide into the rocks. Every 10 minutes or so, the towboat tried to pulled the boat out. About 10:45pm, off she came, with a bang or two as she skidded over the bottom. Free at last!

The towboat escorted me into Black Rock Harbor, to the fuel dock at Captain's Cove Shipyard, just where I wanted to go in the first place. The rudder seemed untouched as she steered as well she ever had. The engine ran fine and the prop as well as it had before the grounding. The inside of the boat was a shambles and water from the bilge, with nasty oil drippings was on part of the floor in the main cabin, adding that wonderful bilge smell to the mess. Anything on the floor got soaked and somethings, like footwear and pillows, are probably ruined and have become trash. I spent a little time trying to straighten things out but since I was going to be stuck in port for a couple of days, there would be time enough for that so I went to sleep. Do you believe it?

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

This part of the journey. After a night's sleep, I have decided that the boat will be hauled at Captain's Cove (we've done that before) and have them check the damage. They are a full service boat yard so any work needed could be done there. I have also decided that if there is room, and there should be, that I will have them winterize the boat and store it for the winter. I guess God really was trying to tell me that it was not part of the plan that I go South this year.

I think that even though I was going to take it really easy on the way that perhaps this was not the time to go. I so wanted to go that I was pushing it just by trying to go, not matter how easy or careful I was trying to be. Waking up to snow and freezing rain made the decision a whole lot easier. It will be real pain to take all the stuff off the boat that needs to be stored for the winter, especially since it is such a trip to get to the boat. It will also be an equally big pain to restock the boat come the spring. Hey, you got to do what you got to do.

Right now, I am not particularly happy as it is very hard to see a dream I have worked so hard on come to such an end. During the grounding, I was trying to figure out what God was trying teach me in all this, aside from the fact that going South was not an option this year. Surrendering control, self-surrender, living in the moment - I am sure that these and other things are a part of the lesson, as they have been on the agenda since a year ago August. I must be a slow learner but now I have lots of time to reflect on it all and grow some more.