Hilton Head Island: a tangled web(b)

 

If you followed my Yellowbrick track as shown above, you know that I am ashore, having tied GANNET in her slip at noon yesterday in rain.

I anchored the preceding night at 10 pm in 60’ of water 13 miles off the entrance to Port Royal Sound.  In dying wind I knew I was not going to make it in and with a high barometer I judged that the night would be quiet.  It was.  The wind died completely and small waves rocking GANNET went flat after a while.

I woke at 5:30 am to the sound of unexpected rain on the deck.  I got up and though I was beyond cell phone coverage, I could receive NOAA weather on my handheld VHF and learned that there was a small craft advisory for 20-25 knot winds.  Such winds are mere inconveniences to GANNET under sail.  At anchor in the middle of no where with zero protection they are serious.  With all possible speed I mounted the ePropulsion on the stern and raised the anchor.  I had out 150’ of rode, all but the last 20’ ½” plaited nylon.  As I have written many times all chain rodes are best, but GANNET cannot carry that weight and using mostly nylon has the advantage that I do not hesitate to anchor in relatively deep water.  The rode came in.  The anchor came up clean.

We had the fastest sailing of the week on the way in.  At first under full sail, then as the wind increased to the forecast 20 knots with a partially furled jib, making 7 knots and an occasional 8 in smooth seas and intermittent rain.

In foul weather gear and sea boots I was on deck, adjusting the tiller pilot’s course and sail trim.

Some of you may recall that when I charged the ePropulsion battery at anchor the first night in Port Royal Sound I could not determine how complete the charge was.  When I connected the battery to the shaft I was pleased to see it at 94%.  Still I sailed all the way to the first marker at the entrance to Skull Creek, completing the last half mile under partially furled jib alone, before I turned it on.  I knew I was going to be powering in Skull Creek against both wind and tide.

I furled the jib and powered slowly, attempting to maintain 2 knots, but our SOG varied from less than 1 to 3.  I saw wind strengths of 20 knots to 8 knots.  We were in the first third of the outgoing tide.  I have no way of knowing its strength, but could see its varying effect on our speed.

There is a long curve to the west in the Skull Creek channel, when I reached the apex of that curve, I checked the battery level and found it at 59%.  With a half mile to go I knew we were going to make it to the slip.  I had been prepared if necessary to anchor at any time and spend the rest of the day and night recharging the battery, but I really did want to get in and go home and have a hot shower and a cold drink.

Rain had fallen intermittently all morning.  The sky was completely overcast.

I put out the fenders and attached the dock lines.

As we approached the marina, there was a dark line in the clouds to the west over Pinckney Island that I knew meant heavy rain.  Still I removed my foul weather gear and sea boots and put on my usual boat shoes to be able to move more easily when I docked.  I hoped the rain would hold off for ten minutes.  In now more than 80 years I have come to understand that my hopes have no standing in the universe.  Before I made the turn into A dock heavy rain began to fall.  The air temperature was in the mid-60s F, but it made me cold and worse made it more difficult for me to see.

I most see and feel the Skull Creek tides in docking GANNET.  I like to dock at bare steerageway.  Yet slow too much and the tide moves the boat in undesired directions.  

We docked.

I got the dock lines in place and retired wet into the Great Cabin where I sat for an hour until the rain eased.  I made a FaceTime call to Carol.  I checked the barometer in my iPhone which I have often tested against shore stations and found to be accurate and saw that the barometer had fallen 13 millibars in 14 hours.  That is a quick and deep fall.  I am surprised the weather was not more extreme.  I removed the ePropulsion from the stern.  Put on the mainsail and tiller covers.  Put my devices and the still largely full bottle of Laphroaig in my backpack and wearing my foul weather parka in light rain walked home.

I had the desired and much appreciated hot shower.  I sipped cold martinis.  I ate a microwaved Cuban pork dinner.  I watched part of a Robert Redford movie, THE CONSPIRATOR, and went to bed.

I slept until 7:30 this morning.  I don’t recall when I last slept that late.  During the passage I sometimes fell asleep while reading at Central.  GANNET has a very quick motion and three of the five days we were sailing were rough, but I begin to wonder if I am growing old, though of course we know that cannot be true.

Today I moved slowly.

I was still feeling GANNET’s motion more than twenty-four hours after we docked.

I biked down at noon and wrestled the little boat’s interior into harbor mode.

I brought a knapsack of food I had taken to the boat back up to the condo.

I took some videos while sailing.  I watched them yesterday and did not think they are of much interest.  I will watch them again and if I post any will let you know.

I kept a log.  

I have not reread it.  I expect I will do so tomorrow and decide whether to post it.

I have already received emails observing that the Yellowbrick failed to upload positions for eighteen hours.

Much of the sailing was rough.  The Yellowbrick was knocked from its mount without my being aware of it until I found it under a food bag.  I might have knocked it off the mount myself climbing up or back from the deck.

I will write more about the sailing.

It was not the vision I had.

I simply wanted good sailing.  I had some, but I had a majority of rough conditions that kept me off the deck and sailing GANNET from below with only brief moments standing in the companionway to trim sails.  I can with a remote adjust the tillerpilot course from the Great Cabin.

I have considered whether this was a good thing to do and have concluded that it was.

I did not enter the monastery of the sea, though at times when 150 miles offshore I had the ocean to myself I almost felt I had.

I am still uncertain of my present relationship to the ocean.

I expect to sail again in May.  Perhaps again I will simply seek good wind angles.  That would be purest.  Sailing for itself.  But I sense that I need a destination.  In my logs at noon I record our position, our course, our speed, the barometer pressure, our day’s run from noon to noon.  On this sail changing course so often with the wind, the day’s runs made no sense.  I think I need that they do.

 

Port Royal Sound: sunset from a different perspective

 

I left the slip at 1 PM with light NW wind, motorsailed for two hours at 3-4 knots and anchored at 3 PM in about 40’ of water.

I removed the ePropulsion from the stern and stowed the shaft and tiller arm.  I am presently charging the battery from the ship’s batteries.  In theory I could leave the outboard in the water and as we sail it would charge itself.  Dragging a prop through the water for hundreds of miles is not appealing.

I like living in our condominium.  Natural beauty is outside all our windows and glass doors and almost within arms reach  It is almost like living on a boat.  Almost.

I have not spent a night away from the dock in months.  It is a pleasure to be out here.  To feel the wind, which in one of my poems I said is “more essential than blood”, blowing through the forward hatch behind me.  Of course that is poetic license.  Without blood we cannot survive.  But perhaps it is not completely poetic license.  Perhaps some of us cannot survive without wind.  I think such people are called sailors.

In my preparations I forgot to bring my iPhone case and to buy another canister of wipes.  I have one previously unopened on board.  

I had an air temperature gin and tonic on deck during the above sunset listening to Bach’s French Suites.

Since completing my sixth circumnavigation I have no longer understood my relationship with the ocean.

Tomorrow I will sail off the anchor and go offshore to learn if the ocean still has anything to say to me.

My second and last gin and tonic is at hand.

L’Chaim.

 

Hilton Head Island: gale warning: JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG

 

We have a gale warning and the wind is increasing.  Though it is still far from gale strength, it is causing the Spanish moss to dance and sway.  The front is not due to reach us until around sunset.

I am just back from GANNET, where among other things I turned on the Yellowbrick to be certain is it working.  As you can see from the screen shot above, it is.  Google appears to have updated their images and I think that is actually GANNET in her slip.  I have the Yellowbrick set to transmit a position every six hours.  If the current forecasts are accurate I am likely to depart either tomorrow afternoon or Monday morning.  The variable is getting away from the slip.  GANNET is easily blown around and she is underpowered.  Moorings are easier.  If I leave tomorrow afternoon I am likely to anchor for the night in Port Royal Sound and head offshore Sunday.

I have checked several sources and been downloading GRIBs.  There is no prevailing wind off this coast and next week the wind looks to be all over the place, with another front due the following weekend, so don’t be surprised if our course is all over the place or if we stop and heave to.

You will see us move when we do at:

https://my.yb.tl/gannet

I watched the first half of the three hour long JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG last evening.  I saw it when it was first released in 1961.  I was in college then.  I admired the film.  I admire it even more now and am looking forward to watching the last half this evening.  It is superbly directed, acted and written.  I checked to see what film won best movie in 1961.  JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG was nominated, but WEST SIDE STORY won.  WEST SIDE STORY is an entertaining musical.  JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG is a great and even minded film about serious matters.

Hilton Head Island: from The Great Cabin

 

5:30 pm as I start writing.

I am sitting at Central, sipping from a plastic of New Zealand sauvignon blanc, listening to Bach, and enjoying a cooling breeze blowing in the main hatch.  I walked down an hour ago.  I brought a store bought roast beef sandwich for dinner and a zip lock bag of ice to keep the wine cool.  Decadent.

Today is March 1.  Among my many virtues, I am punctual.  I was working toward having GANNET ready to sail on March 1 and she is.  I reconfigured the interior into sailing mode—formerly known as passage mode, but I am not making a passage—yesterday.  Behind me the forepeak is filled with watertight bags, the asymmetrical, a box of cabernet sauvignon, plastic bottles of ice tea, a 12 pack of cans of Heineken 0% alcohol beer, and two 5 gallon jerry cans of water.  I will be sleeping tonight on the port pipe berth, which is to the right in the above photo.

On all of my voyages after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I have taken cans of something to drink each mid-afternoon.  For a while this was Coke-Cola, but I lost my taste for sweet drinks several decades ago, so I took cans of beer.  This was for the liquid, not the alcohol.  I am not a beer drinker.  Another sailor, Lee, suggested 0 alcohol beer, so when Heineken came out with theirs I tried it and found it acceptable.  We will see if I continue to do so on the upcoming sail.

When I reconfigured the interior yesterday I found it much easier than usual and wondered why until I realized that I was filling only three of the four five gallon water jerry cans.  One is stowed aft under the cockpit, the other three usually on the v-berth.  There is a general rule of a half gallon of fresh water per person per day.  I found during GANNET’s circumnavigation that I normally use .37 of a gallon per day.  As noted I have other liquids as well.  Juice in the morning and something stronger around sunset as well as the mid-afternoon can.  So on this sail, fifteen gallons of water will be more than enough, barring a disaster.

After experiencing how much easier it was to arrange the v-berth stowage without the fourth jerry can, I have decided that if I ever have reason to want to have twenty or more gallons of water on board, I will buy 2.5 gallon collapsible water jugs instead of filling the fourth rigid jerry can which is presently at the condo for hurricane preparation.  I used collapsible water containers on CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE.  They held up well and when emptied took little space.  CT’s pitchpole in the South Pacific was so explosive that they pulled out of their handles and were lost.  The handles are molded into the ones I will now buy rather than wired on as were the ones on CT, and luxurious GANNET has a lid to keep things inside.

Although GANNET is ready, requiring at this moment only for me to top up my day water bottles and fit the outboard, a front is due to pass over the island on Friday and Saturday so I do not expect to sail until Sunday or Monday.

I have charged and reactivated the Yellowbrick and will turn it on unless I forget.  The tracking page is:

https://my.yb.tl/gannet

I have been sipping as I write and my plastic is empty.  Time to refill and wish you well wherever you are.

L’Chaim.

Hilton Head Island: Amundsen and me; a yellow haze; a modest plan

I started writing this last evening with seven topics.  I am now down to three.

Two nights ago I watched a movie on Amazon Prime, AMUNDSEN:  THE GREATEST EXPEDITION.  Despite the hyperbole in the title, I enjoyed it.

In 1966-67 I lived in Oakland,California.  I bought my first boat then and taught myself to sail on San Francisco Bay.  The woman then in my life and I often drove across the bridge and rented bicycles and rode through Golden Gate Park.  There were live bison in a fenced field in the park and you could feed them slices of bread.  They were quite gentle and had thick black pebbly tongues.

At the west end of the park, just before it ends near the Pacific Ocean, there were incongruously a windmill and a large wood boat sitting in a patch of sand.  She was about 60’-70’.  I wondered about the boat.  Most people I asked had no idea.  Finally I learned that it was the GJOA, the boat in which Amundsen and five companions made the first transit of the Northwest Passage in 1903-06.  He left GJOA in San Francisco, where she sat forgotten, until sometime after I saw her she was returned to Norway.

That voyage made Amundsen famous.  He became even more so by subsequently becoming the first to reach the South Pole.

He died at age 55 trying to rescue another polar explorer.

AMUNDSEN:  THE GREATEST EXPEDITION is not a documentary.  I hope it is historically accurate.

While watching I noted the following dialogue:

Amundsen was preparing an expedition to reach the North Pole, but after learning that Richard Perry had already done so says, “The newspapers will no longer be interested.  No one will finance our expedition.”

Is the interest of newspapers, or now the media, the true test of whether an action is worthwhile?  And is outside finance, sponsorship, essential to greatness?  I know of a sailor who completed a solo circumnavigation and knew he had set a world record and never held a press conference or contacted Guinness.  To him it was enough that he knew, that he had proven himself to himself.  Guinness ultimately contacted him.  Who in this age when masses seek instant attention online:  Look at me.  Look at me.  Please look at me.  would understand that?

Another quote from the film:  I planned the South Pole so well, I made it look easy.  That was my biggest mistake.

Some of you may recall that I have quoted Amundsen as saying, Adventures are the result of bad planning.  I read that long after I had reached the same conclusion and wrote:  Amateurs seek adventures; professionals seek to avoid them.

And of a friend to Amundsen:  Most people give up on their dreams, but you don’t, and you dream bigger than anyone.

I know a sailor who in old age said, I may or may not have lived an epic life, but I had the nerve to dream big.

And in the movie Amundsen quotes Fridtjof Nansen who upon starting what became the first successful crossing of Greenland as saying:  The west coast of Greenland or death.

Some of you know that the second part of STORM PASSAGE begins:  Victory or death.

I would not now say ‘victory’.  I know we don’t conquer oceans or mountains or deserts or ice, we merely transit them.  So now, if I said anything at all, it would be merely ‘Completion or death.’  But the commitment would be the same.  

Hilton Head is covered in an ever renewing film of yellow dust.  Wipe it off a surface and an hour layer it is covered again.  It is pollen.  I have not lived here long so I wondered pollen from what and googled and discovered it is from pine trees.  There are no pines in the immediate vicinity of our condo, only live oaks and a few small palmetto palms, but there are many tall pine trees on this island and on Pickney Island on the other side of Skull Creek.  I searched further and learned that pine trees produce both male and female cones.  The males secrete pollen to be carried by the wind to fertilize female cones.  Perhaps you knew that, but I did not.  

GANNET is almost ready to go for a sail.  When I was circumnavigating and spending most of my time living on board, I knew that everything necessary to go to sea was there and needed only to top up on water and provisions.  Now I am finding that some equipment is in the dock box, some in the condo.  I have been biking regularly to supermarkets and nearby liquor stores and my preparations are almost complete.  I still have some things to carry down to GANNET.  I am presently charging the Yellowbrick and a GoPro here in the condo.  

Earlier today I replaced the spinnaker pole topping lift.  This might seem odd considering that I have not set a spinnaker pole for decades, but GANNET’s new mast came with one and I have thought it might be useful as jurying rigging if the rig sustains damage.  The cover on the old topping lift had frayed.  Replacing it with a piece of high-tech line I already had was easy.

 I don’t know when I will leave.  I only began looking at long term weather this morning.  I have no destination.  The plan is simply to go offshore and put the wind on or aft of the beam and hopefully enjoy good sailing for several days, maybe longer, and then work my way back.  I would like to enter the monastery of the sea.  I don’t know that will happen.

Hilton Head Island: south; spectacular; clean

Above SPARTINA and Steve Earley heading south yesterday morning.  They crossed the Savanna River this morning and are now in Georgia.  

https://maps.findmespot.com/s/67DG#history/assets

Last evening I glanced up and saw this.  Unedited.  Just the way it came from my iPhone.  They aren’t all like this, but when one is you are going to have to endure a photo.

Yesterday a diver was supposed to clean GANNET’s bottom.  I walked down this morning.  He had.  Bottom cleaning, like boat insurance, is many times more expensive in Hilton Head than it was in San Diego.  Insurance for GANNET in California cost $160 per year.  Last year here it was $760 for the same coverage from the same company.  Obviously California does not have hurricane risks.  Yet.  In San Diego I paid $40 or $50 to have GANNET’s bottom cleaned.  I don’t yet know what yesterday’s diver will charge, but he has a $140 minimum, and the last diver charged $240.  Perhaps this is alligator hazard pay.  We have seen gators in marina waters, but very infrequently and I have never heard of a diver being eaten.

While on the little boat I did an inventory of stores and found that I probably have enough on board to cross an ocean, with some exceptions.  I disposed of two boxes of soggy crackers and a container of fossilized dates.  I’ll top up on juice, crackers, cheese, chocolate, cookies, dried fruit, and a few other items.  And the liquor locker is presently empty.  GANNET has never been and will never be a dry boat in any respect.

Hilton Head Island: two well traveled boats and crew

 

Steve Earley has paused his winter cruise for a few days in Hilton Head and today we briefly had SPARTINA and GANNET docked beside one another.  Steve took all of the above photos, some by cleverly setting up his iPhone on the next dock and having it shoot continuously at four second intervals.  I thank him for permission to share them with you and wish him a continuing interesting and pleasurable sail to Florida.

Hilton Head Island: a not so brief introduction to Webb Chiles

I recently had reason to prepare a list of sources of information about myself as though I were doing so for someone who knew little or nothing about me.  Amazingly there are some.  I intended the list to be shorter, but it isn’t.

Thinking that some of you might be interested, here it is.

at: www.inthepresentsea.com

home page

introduction

on the articles page

Cape Horn

Swimming

Adrift 1, 2, 3

Acceptance Speech

Why I Sail

The End of Being

lines page

poetry page

lists page

on the photographs page

the boats

Webb Chiles

journal posts

https://self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com/search?q=three+hypotheses

https://self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com/search?q=the+peasant+class

videos at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdl7dZLxNI4VIB_eOiaNgiQ/videos

Ithaca, Illinois

GANNET in the Indian Ocean 2,4,7,11,12,13,14,15

GANNET Durban to St. Helena 6,12,19

GANNET St. Lucia to Marathon 5

GANNET Marathon to Hilton Head Island 3,4,

The End of Being 1 and 2

Balboa, Panama, to San Diego, California           2,4,7,9,10,13,15,21,22,24

Beginnings 1 and 2

Goodbye to San Diego

To St. Mary’s and Back 4

A State of Grace

Hilton Head Island: popular demand; in praise of live oaks; one tough woman

Due to overwhelming popular demand—well, one person asked.  I am easily overwhelmed—above is a photo of me wearing my Akubra hat.  It was taken in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2001.  Neither the hat nor I have changed since then.  At least the hat hasn’t.

I am reading an interesting and well written book:  SIX FRIGATES:  THE EPIC HISTORY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE U.S. NAVY by Ian W. Toll.  This is not the navy of the revolution, which, with the exception of John Paul Jones, was all but annihilated, but the true founding of the navy in the 1790s after we became an independent nation.  I am learning a great deal about that part of our history and of shipbuilding.

At the time of course the British Navy ruled the waves and the world.  Basically they used three classes of ships:  ships of the line which carried at least 74 guns and were the equivalent of battleships; frigates, which were smaller, lighter, faster, and usually carried between 28-38 guns; and a class of still smaller and generally faster, non rated sloops and brigs.

A Philadelphia shipbuilder, Joshua Humphreys, who was put in charge of the building of the first American frigates, came up with the brilliant idea of building exceptionally large, heavily armed and fast sailing frigates, which could out gun any existing European frigate and out sail any ship of the line and thus not have to face overwhelming fire power.  Naturally as with any original idea there was opposition, but Humphreys had his way, resulting in among others the USS CONSTITUTION.

Essential to the construction of the ships were the trees just outside my windows.  I continually admire their beauty, tenacity, and obvious strength, but after reading the following paen to them yesterday in SIX FRIGATES, I admire them even more.

In reading SIX FRIGATES I found myself wondering how Philadelphia more than a hundred difficult miles from the open ocean became a major seaport.  So I googled and found this, which is well worth reading, especially the section ‘Women At Sea.’

https://philahistory.org/2019/08/29/philadelphias-rich-maritime-history/

Hilton Head Island: Gabrielle; blocked; Australiana; Laphroaig; back

Zane, who lives in Auckland and whose parent’s home was partially flooded in that city’s recent record rainfall, emailed me about what has now become cyclone Gabrielle which is predicted by all models to make landfall in northern New Zealand in the next few days.  As you can see from the screen shot of this morning’s earth wind map Gabrielle is presently off the Queensland coast.  It a category three storm.  It is expected to weaken some as it moves out of the tropics and over cooler waters, but is still forecast to be a serious storm that will drop considerable more unneeded rain over the north of New Zealand.  It is being called by some sensationalists ‘the storm of the century’.  Get serious.  The century is not even a quarter over and it is far too early to be talking about anything being ‘the…..of the century’.  

My thoughts are with all of those who will have to endure another deluge.

A friend sent me a link to a movie about Mike Plant, an American sailor who died at sea in 1992. I knew of him, but I never thought he did anything significant or original.  However, I tried to watch the movie.  I only made it to the second minute when someone claimed “Mike Plant is American’s greatest solo sailor.’

There are two men who have legitimate claims to being America’s greatest solo sailor.  One is Joshua Slocum and the other is not Mike Plant.

I decided to google him to see if he had ever done anything I missed.   At Wikipedia I found that he didn’t.  

There is a statement there that says he was at the time of his death one of only five men to have made three solo circumnavigations.  In 1992 that may have been true, but is no longer.  Among I expect several others, I have made three solo circumnavigations:  my first, fifth and sixth.

Being at Wikipedia I went to the bare bones article about myself which someone kindly created.  I decided to try to upload the chart of my circumnavigations and some photos and clicked on the edit button and got this:

I have never before tried to submit anything to Wikipedia.  Our Internet comes through T-Mobile Internet.  We have been with them only a few months.  They provide the router, which seems to be new.  So I have no idea why this appears and at present don’t feel like reading through their FAQ and too numerous rules.  

Australia, as well as New Zealand, has recently been very much on my mind.

I have received several emails from readers there.

I just finished reading Patrick White’s THE VIVISECTOR, a novel about a painter who lived in Sydney, which remains my favorite big city in the world.  I have spent a total of three years there on various voyages.

An album by the late Aboriginal singer, Gurrumul, came up on one of my playlists.

And I wore my Akubra hat on the flights back from Chicago.  For American readers, Akubra is perhaps the best known Australian hat brand, similar to our Stetson.  I am gradually moving more clothing from Lake Forest to Hilton Head prior to the final move next year.  I realized that hat is almost forty years old.  I bought it during 1986-87 when Jill and I lived aboard RESURGAM for a year on a mooring in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay.  Akubras really do last forever.  Too bad I don’t have anyone to will it to.

I thank Tim for a link to a video about my favorite liquid.

https://youtu.be/sUFa_GxgPqY

I watched and enjoyed it last evening.  In the background of some scenes I saw a marina I did not know is there.  Tempting.

I confess that I do not find in Laphroaig the citrus and pineapple touches that are claimed in the video, but then I find the language of wine tasting also alien.

Naturally the video resulted in my wanting a sip of the golden pour.  Alas, I had none on hand, and almost constant rain was forecast for today and tomorrow.  Liquor stores aren’t open in South Carolina on Sundays so I was faced with a disconsolate wait until Monday.

I woke this morning to low skies and rain.  However at a little after 9 there was a break and I made a break for the supermarket and nearby liquor store four miles away, pedaling fast.

I made it to the stores in twenty minutes, five minutes faster than usual.  Bought the last two bottles of 10 year Laphroaig at the liquor store; bought berries, grapefruit juice, milk, sushi, a salad, a container of frozen shrimp and sausage gumbo, and another of Cherries Garcia ice cream at the supermarket.  Then pedaled furiously for Skull Creek.  I made it home just before the rain resumed.  My legs are back.  Maybe they weren’t as far gone as I thought, but muscles do return when you use them, even when you are seriously old.