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<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0There have been some unsettling moments over the last few weeks, and that is usually what takes me away from blogging.\u00a0 We have had some sad news from several friends who are having health issues.\u00a0 I am so worried for each of them and waiting for news is so stressful that it is very hard for me to concentrate on anything else.\u00a0 I hate to even bring up this kind of thing here, but it has taken up so much of my daily thoughts I will just say that I am willing<\/i> good friends to regain their health.<\/p>\n
Also, we recently had two very frightening sailing incidents.\u00a0 I hesitate to spend time describing what happened\u2014this is, after all, a blog about weaving and other handwork, not about sailing!\u00a0 But sailing is a major part of my life each year, and while sailing, Pandora<\/i>\u00a0is my floating studio. \u00a0Every sailor encounters bad situations.\u00a0 I\u2019m often reminded of the old adage:<\/p>\n
Good decisions come from experience.\u00a0 Experience comes from bad decisions<\/i>.<\/p>\n
After 40 years of sailing together, \u00a0I hope that we have gained enough experience, and made enough bad decisions, to be guaranteed in only making good decisions now.\u00a0 Alas, not so!<\/p>\n
Bad decision #1 is not one that carries much blame for us.\u00a0 I will always take the easy route to get somewhere, so if it were up to me, I would spend our whole trip motoring and sailing up and down the Intra Coastal Waterway and never go out in the ocean!\u00a0 Bob, on the other hand, would always choose to be out in the ocean, so he tries to pick the days that will cause me the least stress.<\/p>\n
Going out in the ocean from coastal US below New Jersey involves using inlets because the entire southern coast has barrier islands.\u00a0 Inlets are a sailor\u2019s challenge.\u00a0 Some are better than others, but since they are all dicey, \u00a0it\u2019s better to avoid the bad ones entirely and to be cautious of the \u2018good\u2019 ones.\u00a0 We have used Ft. Pierce inlet over the past few years since it is well known as one of the \u2018good\u2019 ones.<\/p>\n
However, about a month ago, there was an accident in this inlet where a barge in tow sank and one person died.\u00a0 This sunken barge is a significant hazard in the inlet, and the inlet has been closed since the accident.\u00a0 We recently heard that the inlet is now open during certain times each day as salvage operations have begun.<\/p>\n
So when Bob wanted to have a good day of sailing up the Florida coast from Key Largo to Ft. Pierce, he contacted the Coast Guard to see what the situation is with the Ft. Pierce inlet.\u00a0 The Coast Guard told him that on the day in question there would be divers working on the wreck during the morning, but that the inlet would be open to small vessels by 11am.\u00a0 We hit the high seas to make passage to Ft. Pierce.<\/p>\n
When we arrived about 2.30 in the afternoon, we called the Coast Guard again for instructions on how to proceed into the inlet.\u00a0 We had been told that the wreck was marked off with buoys to prevent boats passing over that part of the inlet.\u00a0 But the Coast Guard then informed Bob that the inlet was closed until the end of the day because salvage operations, including divers, were still underway.\u00a0 Ugh!<\/p>\n
We noticed two other sailboats nearby us; one was a boat we have crossed paths with several times over the years in the Bahamas.\u00a0 In fact, they had just sailed overnight from Chubb Cay based on the same information about going through this inlet by late morning.\u00a0 They had arrived at Ft. Pierce at 11am and had been anchored off the beach all day.<\/p>\n
This was one of those times when there were no good choices.\u00a0 It\u2019s never a good idea to anchor on a lee shore, which is what they chose to do. \u00a0But the other options were not good either: to sail back and forth near the inlet waiting for it to reopen which is exactly what Bob and I did.\u00a0 For our friends, who had already been up all night for their passage from the Bahamas, this was not such a good choice.\u00a0 Another option would be to keep sailing to another inlet.\u00a0 The next inlet north is Cape Canaveral, and it was closed for the upcoming rocket launch.\u00a0 So, given this lack of good choices we all did the best we could.<\/p>\n
The third boat waiting for the inlet was not known to us, but after a chat on the radio we learned that he was onboard alone and had sailed from Miami with the same information that the inlet would be open by late morning or noon.<\/p>\n
It was 6pm by the time the divers were up and the salvage barge with a large crane aboard had been up-anchored and moved to a safe location inside the inlet.<\/p>\n
Here are the guidelines we always use for entering inlets.\u00a0 It is best to go at slack tide.\u00a0 Water does not like to be restricted\u2014and that is exactly what inlets are.\u00a0 The water approaching the east coast of the US has come all the way from Africa and is suddenly coming in contact with shallow coastal areas and then being funneled into a tiny inlet.\u00a0 Just imagine what happens to all that water\u2014it gets very agitated.\u00a0 So it\u2019s best not to add any further agitation such as flooding or ebbing tides.\u00a0 Slack tide will have the least additional agitation. Wind also plays a significant part at inlets.\u00a0 Never go into an inlet when the wind opposes the tide.<\/p>\n
We planned our 2.30 arrival to coincide with slack tide.\u00a0 There was moderate wind out of the east (yes, all the way from Africa), but with no tidal activity we should have had a reasonable transit through that inlet. It is almost impossible to get all these variables to be in sync with each other, but we do aim for as many positive players as possible. \u00a0But at 6pm in the evening, when we were allowed through, a number of things had become rather worrisome.\u00a0 First, the sun was low in the west, right in our eyes, so it was quite difficult to see the obstructions that were marked in the inlet.\u00a0 Second:\u00a0 now the tide was at full ebb and the wind was from the east\u2014bad<\/em> situation.\u00a0 The water was very confused.\u00a0 Third:\u00a0 I really hate to admit this\u2014I have the highest regard for the Coast Guard– but on this day they were not giving out the best information.<\/p>\nOur friends on Five and Dime<\/i> entered the inlet first, followed by us, and then Morgana,<\/em> the boat that had sailed from Miami.\u00a0 The Coast Guard advised all of us to \u2018hug\u2019 the north side of the inlet and proceed close to that jetty.\u00a0 The wreck was on the southern side of the inlet. The waters were so confused we were all sluicing around and heeling over quite significantly in both directions.\u00a0 Pandora<\/em> was heeling about 30 degrees, first to port and then to starboard, so we were heeling a total of 60 degrees every minute or so.\u00a0 We needed almost full throttle on the engine to keep her going forward; otherwise, she just sluiced around from side to side.<\/p>\nShortly into the inlet Five and Dime<\/i> ran hard aground in the area we\u2019d been told to go.\u00a0 She was right in front of us, so it seemed likely that we would run right into her.\u00a0 It was harrowing to watch her pounding repeatedly on the bottom.\u00a0 She was heeled over quite far, so she was pounding on the side of her keel and hull.\u00a0 It looked terrifying.\u00a0 They made an immediate distress call to the Coast Guard who, along with the local harbor police, came out to help within a moment.\u00a0 A few big waves hit all of us then, and Five and Dime<\/i> came off the bottom and managed to get back underway.<\/p>\n
During this time, Bob saw no other option to avoid hitting Five and Dime<\/i> than to turn around and head back out a bit.\u00a0 The marked area we were to transit was a bit too narrow for turning around, so we ended up going over the sunken barge a bit, luckily with no incident.\u00a0 By the time we did an entire 360 degrees, Five and Dime<\/i> had progressed enough for us to continue forward.<\/p>\n
Morgana<\/i> did not have enough engine power to get through the inlet on power alone, so the captain, who was alone, had to go up on deck to put out his jib.\u00a0 Boy, did I suffer a heart stopping moment watching him do that.\u00a0 Our boats were all heeling and sluicing around, and I don\u2019t know how he managed to stay onboard.\u00a0 But after a tediously long few minutes, we were all safely in.\u00a0 Five and Dime<\/i> went to anchor near the Coast Guard station in order to be near help while they assessed any possible damages to their hull.\u00a0 Morgana<\/i> and we went further in to a protected anchorage.<\/p>\n
The winds had freshened quite a bit during the late afternoon.\u00a0 We set our anchor, but now neither of us remembers how thoroughly we backed down on the anchor to set it.\u00a0 Clearly, not well enough<\/em>.\u00a0 At just after midnight, which meant it was now Friday, March 13th<\/sup>, Bob got up to check things.\u00a0 He often does this at least a couple of times each night.\u00a0 To his horror he found that we were no longer even in the anchorage.\u00a0 We were dragging quite rapidly toward the bascule bridge that was just beyond this anchorage.\u00a0 He called me to come up on deck as quickly as I could.\u00a0 I also was horrified as I came up the companionway to see the bridge rapidly approaching our stern.\u00a0 Of course, it was entirely the other way around, but it did look like the bridge was bearing down on us, instead of us bearing down on the bridge.<\/p>\nI took the wheel while Bob went forward to assess the anchor.\u00a0 As he left the cockpit he warned me not to run over the anchor.\u00a0 Yikes.<\/i>\u00a0 I set the throttle at a moderate speed hoping it was not too much to overtake our anchor.\u00a0 Then I looked back at the bridge and was terrified to see that we were now very close to one of the huge abutments.\u00a0 Fear took over and I pushed the throttle to full forward.\u00a0 I can think of only one other time in my life when I was this scared.\u00a0 I could actually feel us hitting the abutment and our mast striking the bridge–although it never actually happened. \u00a0I was in quite a state! \u00a0Pandora <\/i>felt the kick of the full throttle and began making slow progress forward.\u00a0 I guess we were in quite a current pushing us toward that bridge.\u00a0 It was deadly dark, except for the excruciatingly bright lights on the bridge, as we tried to re-anchor in this overly crowded anchorage.\u00a0 This time we backed down good and long to make sure the anchor was well set, but neither of us felt confident enough to go back to sleep.\u00a0 It was a long night.<\/p>\n
I do not blame us for the harrowing experience of getting through Ft. Pierce inlet.\u00a0 We did our best to choose a safe sailing day for the trip, and we did due diligence by contacting the Coast Guard about the use of that inlet before setting out.\u00a0 Sometimes things just conspire against your best efforts.<\/p>\n
But the anchoring fiasco was entirely our own poor doing.\u00a0 And the danger of dragging rapidly back to that bridge was quite a bit higher than even the experience of a bad passage through an inlet.\u00a0 It still haunts me, two days later.\u00a0 I think it will haunt for me quite a long time to come.<\/p>\n
Over a decade ago Bob and I edited and published a book about a man who sailed the East Coast of the US in a very small sailboat.\u00a0 He had a marvelous ability for understatement and often referred to these harrowing experiences as a \u201cbusy cup of tea.\u201d\u00a0 The whole day was indeed a very busy cup of tea<\/i> for us!<\/p>\n
And I’ll end with another old adage:<\/p>\n
Boating is hours and hours of pleasure, interrupted by moments of sheer panic!<\/em><\/p>\nFrankly, I often feel it is the other way around….<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been almost three weeks since I\u2019ve posted anything here\u2014for various reasons.\u00a0 I have been pretty productive over the past weeks, so it looks like I will head home with three new sweaters, and I have made enough progress on my Portuguese Man of War tapestry to feel that I know where I\u2019m headed with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fine-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3256"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3273,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions\/3273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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