Good morning
everyone! Claire has been doing most of
the writing so it is my turn. Hang on. As the famous
singer once told the audience, “I have suffered for my music for many years; Now
it is YOUR turn!!”
I absolutely
cannot write without waxing a bit philosophic, but I am told that in a blog you
will lose the audience if you go on and on…
Oh great…. I am doomed from the
start!
Suffice to
say that starting out on a trip like this involves apperception… going from the
known to the unknown in steps. We don’t
like being surprised at the BOT (Best of Times), and when you are on the ocean
at night it is NOT in the “BOT” category. (Dark foreshadowing, you know something terrifying
is coming).
We started down the Delaware Bay on the 20th, headed for the Cohansey River, a very familiar place. The next morning, we proceeded for Lewes DE located at the mouth of the bay but half way there decided to end up at Cape May NJ, demonstrating flexibility. Mission accomplished. No injuries or major embarrassments. Prettiest boat in the anchorage. Ask anyone! Day three dawned sunny and hopeful. We headed out of the Cape May inlet northbound up the Atlantic coastline past throngs of persons taking pictures of the prettiest boat. The daytime sailing was perfect, with Moderate winds propelling us along over Moderate waves punctuated by Moderate gusts enjoyed by a Moderate crew enjoying Moderate temperatures. Dolphins jumped from the water to a Moderate height in order to get a good look at the pretty boat. You get the idea. The sunset brought with it a Moderate elevation in our level of care and preparation. We were ready for ANYTHING. Almost. (Second foreshadowing).
The biggest
risk in coastal ocean sailing is not getting lost, or big waves, or pirates….
It is all the OTHER VESSELS out there who want to use YOUR exact location in
which to accomplish their floating! Our
Garmin navigation suite (yes, Frances, we DO have a “suite”) includes AIS (Automatic
Identification System which plots the location, name, speed, direction, vessel size,
and such on your navigation screen) combined with Doppler Radar which looks out
for anyone heading in your direction and issues a warning. Getting a warning generated from a fast-moving
vessel at night might be considered a possible WOT event! (Worst of Times). It was 11 pm and time for Claire to take the
watch and for me to get some rest in anticipation of taking over the watch at 2
AM. Suddenly the chart plotter screen
erupted in an explosion of warnings, all accompanied by the color red! A suspicious looking (don’t most things look
more suspicious at night?) commercial fishing vessel was headed right for us at
high speed, and would be upon us in minutes!
With a voice tinged with fear, I said to Claire, “what do you think we
should do”? She suggested a turn. We turned Left. The phantom boat turned towards us. We turned right. The other vessel turned to intercept the new
heading! We turned further right 120 degrees
to completely alter our path. Once again,
they turned directly towards us!! Minds
rushing, we considered the possibility of Pirates, Bermuda Triangle Phantom
Ships, or the Coast Guard finally catching up with us! BOT or WOT?
What to do!!?? We realized that
since we were under sail so would have the right of way over a powered vessel. We returned to our original course. The fishing vessel passed behind us giving us
plenty of room. I remained fully awake
for the next two hours thinking about how the Fishing Vessel Captain must have
wondered if we were crazy. Or Pirates.
The lessons
learned? Well, following the navigation rules
comes to mind. It is easier to respond
correctly to any situation when you are calm and happy versus worried and
fearful. How to mitigate threats? Perhaps keep a reasonable perspective and don’t
have one set of expectations in the daylight and another in the dark, in spite
of how much easier it is to worry in the dark.
Don’t create a threat in your mind that does not exist in the world
around you. BOT or WOT? You get to decide.
-
Dave
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