The Fool or The Foolhardy

At Sea
N 41 22 W 071 17

Well, we sat two days at Point Judith waiting for the apocalyptic weather to pass. Strange thing thought, both days were beautiful with no bad weather at all. Once again I feel the fool because I heeded dire warnings from NOAA weather.

My friend Les Pendleton said, "Anyone who listens to the local NOAA weather will never leave the dock with their boat." There's obviously a lot of truth in that. But then, in his book, Les tells a story of ignoring the weather reports and leaving Beaufort for Charlston just ahead of a major storm. He put his vessel and his crew at risk unnecessarily and even prompted the Coast Guard to send out a boat to make sure he got in OK. In my mind, that's foolhardy.

So how does one steer the narrow path between being the fool or the foolhardy? I don't have a really good answer. One either goes or stays in port. Either way, one can choose right or wrong. I think the real answer is more thoughtful and considered weather reports. In the Bahamas, I got used to listening to Chris Parker's weather service. After listening to him, I felt prepared to make the right choices, neither foolish nor foolhardy. Up here in New England, I don't know of any equivalent.
I'll try listening to the famous Herb Helberger on the SSB, but I believe that his forecasts are more focused on the high seas.

By the way, yesterday I mentioned coming near a vessel that was raising a German U boat. Listening to local radio, I learned that it is not a German U boat but rather a Russian submarine. There must be a very interesting story as to how a Russian submarine came to be sunk just off Newport, but I don't know what the story iz. But just the phrase Russian Submarine makes me smile.
You see; in the years that we lived in Sweden, there were hundreds of reports of Russian U boats (submarine in Swedish is U boat) invading Swedish waters. The Swedish Navy went crazy chasing those reports and sometimes depth charging what they called "definite contacts." One time in July when the Navy was on vacation, the newspaper said that they sent two sailors to Umea on the train carrying a case of hand grenades. They were to throw the grenades into the Umea harbor to scare away the U boats.
(I swear; I did not make that up.) In the end, no Russian sub was ever found (The Whisky on the Rocks incident preceded this whole series of incidents.) After the fall of the USSR, and the opening of KGB files, the truth coming from Russia was that their subs never did invade Swedish waters. The most amusing theory of the Russian U boat incidents came from a professor in Stockholm. He thought that minks swimming under water make a ping ping ping call that sounds like a sonar contact echo. Ha
ha. I loved that theory.

Anyhow, one day in 1994, I was sailing with my buddies near Stockholm. They were below and I had the helm. I looked ahead and there came a submarine, heading right for us. I called to my buddies, "U boat! U boat! I see a U boat ahead." They answered, "Sure sure Dick. Can't you think of a better joke than that?" It turned out to be a Swedish Navy Sub and it passed within one boat length of us. I waved at the Captain as he passed and hoped that he couldn't see that I wasn't Swedish, because
we were inside a restricted military zone where no foreigners were allowed. I still smile every time I hear the phrase "Russian Submarine"

Today we were heading toward the Cape Cod Canal. The plan was to take advantage of a 2 day southerly wind window starting tomorrow. Late in the afternoon my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It wasn't a call. It was a reminder that our 43rd wedding anniversary is on the 24th. Hmmm, I thought. It will be windy for the next two days, but also chilly and rainy. I bet that Libby would prefer to not spend her anniversary cold and wet (I'm so smart to figure that out :) What is around us? Aha,
New Bedford is only 5 miles away and that's a nice place to put in for a couple of days. Therefore, we exercised the cruiser's privilege and changed our plans again. To heck with the weather window. We'll find another one.