Date - September 28 - October 2nd 1997 (five days)

Crew list:

Don Boyd (your correspondent)

Marek Parnell (Scurvy Dog #3 "The Evil One")

Miles traveled - 135 (aprox)

Engine hours - 17

Sailing hours (Includes 5 hours of survival motor Sailing)-16

Money spent:

Food / beer / ice / snacks on board - $55.00

Diesel / gas / marina fees / lock fees - $ 65.00

Charts / guides / port fees - $ 0.00

Eating out / drinking out / touring - $30.00

Aprox. total this leg - $150.00

Scurvy Dog #3 arrived on a blustery, warm, wet Sunday afternoon, and I bid farewell to Scurvy Dog #2 who hightailed it back to Montreal. I normally would have put a few miles in that afternoon, continuing towards Florida, but the weather was just too bad, and the new Scurvy Dog is a soft spoken evil man who tricks his captain into ordering drinks for the crew! So we left Monday instead for one of the wildest sails I'd ever had, running at seven knots plus before a twenty knot wind, under reefed main and 90% jib and clear warm skies.

We stopped at Smith Island in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, population 310. It's a place where the only industry is fishing and there is no way to get to it than by boat. There is no Doctor or nurse on the Island, and the only emergency route out is by helicopter.

Getting in is tricky in a following surf. There's nasty shifting sandbars blocking the route, resulting in scaring away almost all pleasure boats. But for the brave like Scurvy Dog #3 and myself, it was no problem... to run aground that is! We grounded right by a mark where we should have been okay, but with the wind and sand, there was less than 3 1/2 feet.

We freed ourselves and took a tour of the town of Ewell on the Island. We were shown all the pretty little fisherman houses by the local dock dog, who we called the tour dog, as she showed us the place, peeing on the nicest places so we'd recognize them. We were also trying to buy some fish, apparently on the wrong day because we could not find a single fisherman to sell some to us. When I got back to the boat, I baited my trusty crab trap and began to catch crabs like crazy!

They must have lined up to get caught! At one point, I'd haul the trap up after only a minute or so in the water and there'd be two of them in it!!! Scurvy Dog #3 and I stuffed ourselves! Unfortunately the crab gods must have been listening. The next day we left, despite a howling 20 knot wind. On the way out, we ran hard aground again and sat helplessly for ten minutes until somehow we magically floated free.

I don't know how we got off, the motor was out of gear at the time and the sail furled, perhaps it was crabs pushing the keel free so we would leave and not kill more of their kind in their home waters. Perhaps it was crabs pushing the keel free so that we could get our asses kicked near their home waters.

The deck log for the day reads as follows:

-10:30 Leave Ewell

-10:35 Aground off mark 15, in middle of channel

-10:47 Crabs band together to free us, we're off to the harbor entrance. Winds 20knots +

-11:30 Clearing last mark into Ewell, surf breaking over bow of boat, estimate wave height at 6 feet. It's very rough. Wind will be on nose

-12:00 Motor sailing now, tacking back and forth to try to head south, wind on the nose. Impossible to punch through extremely heavy chop under power alone. Wind gusting to 35 knots. Waves occasionally 7 feet

-12:15 Heading towards west side of Bay to try to get some relief from incredible chop, now washing over deck to the dodger every 45 - 60 seconds and completely over boat and into cockpit and onto me and Scurvy Dog #3 every five minutes

-13:05 Shower bag washed off deck. Lost to the Bay

-13:15 Scurvy Dog #3 hangs head over side. Lunch lost to the Bay

-14:02 Wave crashes over boat, dinghy almost cuts loose, life ring decides that it's not staying. Life ring lost to the Bay.

-14:10 Scurvy Dog and I decide that the crabs have won the day and set coarse for nearest shelter, at Reedville. If anyone finds this log please tell Joni that I love her

-14:50 Finally safe, motoring into the stink of fish processing plants, hopefully crabs.

-16:00 Local man, Rick DeVivi, offers us the use of his house's backyard dock for the night, after he see's us run aground again trying to weasel a free night on the local Museum dock. We pray to the crab gods

Anyway, we survived, and called it a day after covering only ten miles closer to Norfolk and mile zero of the Inter Coastal, despite being pounded for over five hours.

Our trip to Norfolk Virginia, home for the US Navy's fleet, went without incident after we prayed for forgiveness from the crab gods.

There is more battle ships and war ships of every description in Norfolk than anywhere else in the world! For one hour, we passed the pale gray hulls of the US Navy.

If I could get the contract to sell gray paint in Norfolk, I'd be writing this installment on a much bigger boat! The day we arrived, (October 1st) there were at least six carriers, and seven nuclear subs at dock, surrounded by dozens of battle ships, supply ships, mine sweeper ships chocolate chips...you get the idea...and that was the current stuff. Around the corner from Hooters Bar and Grill and the Waterside Marina, the Navy graveyard stores thousands of vessels.

This is also mile zero of the Inter Coastal Waterway. From here exactly it is 770 miles to Miami, just under 550 to the Florida border! The days here are still warm, but the nights smack of fall, time to run!

Till the next installment!

 

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