I stepped onto GANNET yesterday morning and it felt so right.
The little boat was remarkably clean. Rain may have washed her, but there is no air pollution here and no birds that chose to roost.
I only spent a short time on board.
The first act was to drag the sheet metal hard jib through the forward hatch and bend it onto the furling gear foil. Carol helped, feeding the luff into the foil groove, and we did it in a fraction of the time it takes me alone when I have to go forward and straighten out the luff every few feet.
Then we went to a supermarket and a liquor store where I spend $200 on food and $200 on booze. In mitigation, some of the booze is going to be consumed by us here and, while the sail to the Chesapeake should take less than a week, in case I don’t have easy access to shops ashore once there I am provisioned for more than a month.
I also picked up at West Marine a gallon of white Pettit Vivid anti-fouling paint, rollers, etc., so that if I reach the Chesapeake and have time I can anti-foul there and save time next January.
Our condo still being uninhabitable, Carol rented an Airbnb on the mainland in Bluffton about ten miles from GANNET.
She drove us over this morning and we transported provisions to the little boat. I stayed on board while Carol went back up to the condo.
I accomplished a reasonable amount. Replacing a failed electric switch and rearranging and stowing provisions,
I still have a few more items to buy and need to test the Torqeedo and tiller pilots, but I could be ready to sail tomorrow afternoon. I won’t. I never expected to. But I could.
After I worked on GANNET, I walked up to the condo. A pure white egret was standing in the spartina. The tide was coming in. The sky dramatically dark and cloudy with patches of rain about the horizon.
Carol and I sat in the condo for a while looking out on the live oaks and Spanish moss and water only a few yards/meters away, There is beauty here. There is also despicable human behavior. When I sail for Panama next January I may never return or I may live the rest of my life here. I am comfortable with uncertainty.
As those of you who have been reading this journal for a while know, I have little confidence in weather forecasts beyond 48 or at most 72 hours, but I have been checking longer forecasts and the wind is coming from the northeast or east for most of this week, the least desirable directions for sailing northeast around Cape Hatteras.
Carol is here for a few more days.
I don’t expect to sail until Thursday or Friday at the earliest. There are a couple of tropical disturbances whose possible development needs to be considered.
I would like to see a forecast of winds from the south or west for four days, but you know that I don’t wait for perfect forecasts. Of the few things I am certain is that you don’t get closer to your destination tied to the dock.
