Avoiding the blob
Daytona Beach Floriduh
One of the worst things to have while cruising are appointments A date you have to meet while travelling by boat can bring trouble. Instead of casually saling along you tend to push it a bit. Say the weather is looking a tad horrible where you are going and your first thought is to sit tight and wait it out a day. Well, you have an appointment! Press on or you'll miss your date! Suppose you wait a day and the weather gets worse? It's just rain! You are on a boat for Gods sake. Get moving!
Deb is a really good planner. I am a really poor planner. Deb decides when we will leave to make an appointment because I am habitually late for everything. Deb is also very conservative with her schedules. This gives us a buffer of time to sit and wait out any bad weather that may occur. Today we are using one of those days. There is a blob of rain and lightning south of us and moving up the coast. After a poor nights sleep, which we can't figure out why as it was totally peaceful, we both felt a day of rest was in order. No one really felt like driving through the blob. I can see Deb looking at the radar now and thinking we could have made it. She hates to modify a schedule.
The problem I see now is that Deb has used one of her "free day" cards and tomorrow will be a travelling come hell or high water type of day. This is when bad shit happens. This is where you are going through the mosquito lagoon in driving rain and thirty knot gusts and your glasses are too wet to notice the green mark they recently moved beacuse of shoaling.
This is where the powerboat coming up behind you doesn't see you because of the rain on his windshield and the fact that his wipers do not work. He's on autopilot, following the magenta line while playing solitare on his iPad and driving way too fast for the conditions. He has an appointment to get his wipers fixed. He sees you at the last second and stops just in time but not enough to keep his undersized and very shiny fortress anchor from snagging the tube of your dinghy hanging from the davits. Like walrus tusks the anchor punctures the tube and shreds your new chaps as he slams it into reverse. He then gestures an apology while yelling in a eastern European language and drives off. You miss the boat name because your glasses are wet and your binoculars are fogged.
This is where you are about to pick up that mooring in the driving thunderstorm. On the third try you snag the pendant and as you smile about your success, lightning strikes the fully extended and jammed boat hook you are struggling with on deck. You are a vegetarian remembered as fried bacon.
What is it with these friggin boat hook poles? Twist lock. My ass. It always fully extends and then jams when I pick up a mooring. Then I have this 20ft pole I have to do something with while cleating a line. A royal pain.
Daytona Beach Floriduh
One of the worst things to have while cruising are appointments A date you have to meet while travelling by boat can bring trouble. Instead of casually saling along you tend to push it a bit. Say the weather is looking a tad horrible where you are going and your first thought is to sit tight and wait it out a day. Well, you have an appointment! Press on or you'll miss your date! Suppose you wait a day and the weather gets worse? It's just rain! You are on a boat for Gods sake. Get moving!
Deb is a really good planner. I am a really poor planner. Deb decides when we will leave to make an appointment because I am habitually late for everything. Deb is also very conservative with her schedules. This gives us a buffer of time to sit and wait out any bad weather that may occur. Today we are using one of those days. There is a blob of rain and lightning south of us and moving up the coast. After a poor nights sleep, which we can't figure out why as it was totally peaceful, we both felt a day of rest was in order. No one really felt like driving through the blob. I can see Deb looking at the radar now and thinking we could have made it. She hates to modify a schedule.
The problem I see now is that Deb has used one of her "free day" cards and tomorrow will be a travelling come hell or high water type of day. This is when bad shit happens. This is where you are going through the mosquito lagoon in driving rain and thirty knot gusts and your glasses are too wet to notice the green mark they recently moved beacuse of shoaling.
This is where the powerboat coming up behind you doesn't see you because of the rain on his windshield and the fact that his wipers do not work. He's on autopilot, following the magenta line while playing solitare on his iPad and driving way too fast for the conditions. He has an appointment to get his wipers fixed. He sees you at the last second and stops just in time but not enough to keep his undersized and very shiny fortress anchor from snagging the tube of your dinghy hanging from the davits. Like walrus tusks the anchor punctures the tube and shreds your new chaps as he slams it into reverse. He then gestures an apology while yelling in a eastern European language and drives off. You miss the boat name because your glasses are wet and your binoculars are fogged.
This is where you are about to pick up that mooring in the driving thunderstorm. On the third try you snag the pendant and as you smile about your success, lightning strikes the fully extended and jammed boat hook you are struggling with on deck. You are a vegetarian remembered as fried bacon.
What is it with these friggin boat hook poles? Twist lock. My ass. It always fully extends and then jams when I pick up a mooring. Then I have this 20ft pole I have to do something with while cleating a line. A royal pain.
Sometimes you even venture out when there are storms brewing with the potential to become tropical storms or even hurricanes. Let's hope Joaquin goes out to sea. Sorry Bermuda.
This is why we sit today and let the blob on the radar bother someone else. We keep our fingers crossed that another blob doesn't come our way anytime soon.
Avoid appointments.
Cheers!
P
"Please. I haz appologize your dingy. Fix, yes? Do svidaniya. Go Yankees!"
This is why we sit today and let the blob on the radar bother someone else. We keep our fingers crossed that another blob doesn't come our way anytime soon.
Avoid appointments.
Cheers!
P
"Please. I haz appologize your dingy. Fix, yes? Do svidaniya. Go Yankees!"
(This was posted via email as a test. It usually screws up the formatting so don't think I'm a boob who can't edit)
Anytime I manage to finally get my anxiety under control, all I need to do is read your blog to understand what my mind is really trying to tell me. Awesome as usual. Avoid blobs, indeed. Now, tell me how to avoid the ones coming our way this winter due to the El Nino or Nina or whatever we're going to be having. I live right now surrounded by huge Douglass Fir trees. Trees that dance and sway alarmingly in the wind. Trees that could fall on my house. Trees with limbs they call 'widow makers' for good reason. Just saying. It's dangerous everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHahaha. Beware the trees. Our old house was surrounded by very large oak and other swaying killers. We had several hit the house in storms. I would lay awake some windy nights staring up through the skylight as the large branches passed through the moonlight like arms reaching for my soul. How's that?
ReplyDeleteI used to tell Deb that if a branch broke off and speared through the roof of our bedroom it would probably impale me to the bed and not her. She said "you got that right." That's when I noticed my side of the bed was directly under the skylight. I wanted to tell her plywood wasn't that strong but she was ignoring me at that point. Sleep well.