Sailing solo
Well, perhaps sailing solo is a bit of an exaggeration. With Rebecca having departed Georgetown yesterday bound for wintery Canada, ZTC is now extremely shorthanded. Barring any unforeseen weather anomaly though, the boat will stay put exactly where we anchored her, just off Volleyball Beach, so there will be no actual sailing going on.
While Rebecca is with her family, I am going to try to do as much of the prep work as I can to get ZTC ready to bug out of here when she returns. We each have a big list; mine full of boat chores and Rebecca’s full of things to purchase. The much-needed charts that we have been going on and on about are there waiting to be brought back to us. They, along with a dozen other things, both large and small, will be tucked away in her luggage when she returns to Georgetown on Valentine’s Day.
As for the sailing solo thing, we have met a great number of solo sailors since starting our journey. Interestingly, almost all of them have been men but we have heard of at least one woman who single-handed her boat down to Georgetown. Coincidentally, Livia, on s/v Estralita, recently wrote on her blog about single handing their boat. With our self-tacking jib rigged and all lines led back to the cockpit, our boat would be easier than most to sail by one’s self but that doesn’t mean that I want to try it yet. When all is well, it would be cool but when things go wrong, which they have a tendency to do all too frequently, having the two of us on board is more a necessity than a luxury. For this reason, if I do have to move the boat for any reason other than a get-the-anchor-up-right-this-second kind of emergency, I’ll be asking one of our buddies here to come on board and lend a hand.
Why you should NOT anchor in the shipping channel.
There was a bit of a “fire drill” going on this particular morning as boats hurried to move out of the way of these ships. The larger one actually ran aground a bit trying to avoid them.
This guy found that the water was especially shallow here!
More exploring on the eastern coast of Stocking Island.
Rebecca with our friend, Cass.
One of two local beers, the other being Kalik.
We even found a sports bar for the Super Bowl. We were cheering for the Steelers only because we knew that our friends Bill and Ana would be.
They have trained their little dog to growl when you say “Packers.”
Showering on the tramp keeps the moisture out of the boat,
and gives the neighbors something to look at.
Words to live by!
I miss you already, Rebecca!
Awww Mike, you guys are such a cute couple! BTW we trained Chopper to bark and growl at the word duck. You never know you know?
🙂
Mane n Tail?
It’s for our pony.
On a serious note, I am continually amazed at just how observant people can be when looking at these photos. 🙂
Love the picture of ya’ll on the swing! Wish we had a trampoline for solar showers, what a nice feature that our monohull does not have! Anchoring in a shipping lane?! I guess they’re either braver than us … or dumber!
So, Rebecca’s coming back on Valentine’s Day, glad to hear ya’ll won’t be apart for it. (Even though we kind of think the whole thing is so commercialized, it’s still nice to be together).
There is a dance here on Valentines Day and I’m sure she’ll have lots of energy for dancing after sitting on a plane for most of the day.
I’ve done thousands of miles single-handed and it boils down to one thing: planning. You think through all of the steps to do anything–setting sail, navigating, reefing, anchoring or docking–before you start and at least 20 minutes ahead. Everything that needs done or that you might ask someone to do, you must do in steps. Sit down and think it through.
For example, you might place the fenders and fetch docklines, or untie the anchor, while still outside the harbor. You might circle the anchorage or marina a few times to scope things out, go off to a safe spot and get rigged up, and then return ready. You reef earlier. You’re more careful about groundings. You may anchor-out instead of dock if the tide is tricky, or get dockside helpers. In someways it is easier, since you do not have the mental distraction of interacting with another.
Will anything go wrong? Well, yes. But very seldom anything where slowing down won’t give time to solve it.
To this point, there greatest single handed challenge, for me, is trolling. I generally fish under sail, as I do better. When a big fish hits I have to slow down, there are generally 4 lines out, and the autopilot generally struggles to maintain course when nearly stopped. Then, of course, as the other fishing boats see I have a fish on, they all come around just when I’m having control issues and cannot turn because I have 4 lines out. Easy enough when under power, but not purist.
It is an essential skill to be comfortable with, because injury or illness can strike with no warning; I’ve been there.
You’re ready. Just plan ahead.
But cruising with company is better!
Excellent post Drew. I know that we COULD do it but I also know that there is no way I’d be fishing with 4 lines out if I was single handing. 🙂
And I agree, having good company is better!
We have sailed the BVI’s twice with a friend from Ottawa on his 37′ cat. what I learned from him is to:
1. Turn on engines
2. hoist the main while still at anchor / tied to mooring ball
3. hoist anchor / drop ball and motor sail away
Tighten the main as soon as you clear the mooring field and commence sailing.
It is way easier to raise the main this way versus motoring into the wind on bucking seas.
Hi Greg
That is pretty much SOP for us these days too, if we are planning on sailing and if there isn’t anything crazy in the immediate vicinity of our boat at anchor that we have to deal with. Just the other day we were tucked into a VERY tight little hole in the reef and raised our main before picking up the anchor. It was a tad sketchy clearing the reef the way the wind was blowing as we find that our cat has a fair amount of weather helm until the jib is flying. Obviously we made it fine or you would have read about the calamity here. 🙂