Frazzled

Port Judith Pond, RI
N 41 24.299 W 071 30.324

Port Judith is not where we planned to be. Here's what happened.

When I post blogs when at sea, my software first sends the outgoing blog, then it downloads incoming weather reports. After posting yesterday's blog, I got a nasty surprise on the weather. The forecast for Monday changed from 10-15 knots of wind to "Tropical Storm Force Winds." That means 45-50 knots if I remember right. On the other hand, I had other weather reports that contradicted it. We decided to wait until Sunday morning's report to decide.

Today at 0800, I woke and before standing watch I got the new weather report. Now, they added more adjectives for Sun, Mon, Tue on top of tropical force: thunderstorms, torrential rain, fog. When I looked up from reading that report, we had just entered a fog bank. Wonderful. Our radar is not working. I still thought that I was being hoaxed by alarmist weather bureau writers, but if even half of what they said came true, it would be dangerous to continue. We headed for the nearest port,
which happened to be Port Judith, 15 nm away.

On the way, I tooted my fog horn every 30 seconds, and listened keenly for other horns or calls on the radio, or the most dreaded sound -- diesel engines. Imagine my surprise when I got called on the radio and told to watch out for the divers diving on a German U boat wreck right ahead of me. What irony it would have been if I ran over a diver while worrying about getting run over by a ship.

Visibility was about 1/8 mile. What are the chances of seeing another vessel in such a small patch of water out in the vastness of the open sea? Would you believe 50 vessels? As we approached Port Judith we saw more an more vessels appear out of the fog. One or two of them also sounded fog horns. As long as everyone goes slow, fog horns are a good way to navigate in those conditions. We could also hear the fixed fog horn at the end of the jetty. Unexpectedly, we also heard a railroad train
clear as a bell. Ah yes, sound travel. The forgotten factor was that this is a Sunday in July. All the yahoos in R.I. were not about to change their weekend plans just because of fog. One more reason why we shouldn't be out there today. It frazzled our nerves.

Coming in, we passed the fuel dock where we picked up Carmello and Diane two years ago. That brought back memories.

If we had been bold, and ignored those dire weather warnings, we might have been able to reach Portland, Maine by Monday night under sail. Now, I'm afraid we'll have to stay here 3 days, then spend 5 more days motoring (with $5/gallon diesel) to get to the same place. Bummer. The motivations to take changes and to ignore weather warnings are strong.