No Rest For The Weary

South Burlington, VT

(8/29/05) Sigh. After writing the "Tuckered Out" article the other night, little did I know that there would be no rest for me that night. The nice anchorage I picked out sheltered from a south wind, turned out to be terribly exposed to a southwest wind.

Around 2300 the wind picked up from zero to 25 knots. Around midnight I sensed that the anchor was dragging. I had to wake Libby and get out of there in a hurry. We pulled anchor. It came up all covered with weeds. The weeds were what caused it to drag.

I thought that the simplest thing to do in the middle of the night was to pick up an unused mooring nearby. We didn't have permission to use the moorings but in the middle of the night there is little chance that the owner will appear. However actually doing it in the face of 25 knot winds proved to be very difficult. Tarwathie needs speed to steer, but one has to stop to pick up the mooring pennant. Every time I did that Tarwathie's nose blew away from the wind and we either missed the pickup or had it snatched out of our hands by the force of the wind on the boat. We tried and failed 4 times.

Tarwathie is much bigger and heavier than any boat I've every owned. It is futile to try to use muscle to hold the boat against wind or waves.

We gave up and we sailed up the bay to a more sheltered spot. When we got there, it was too full of boats to approach in the dark. Back to the mooring spot. We tried the fifth time and succeeded. I sat up the rest of the night making sure we didn't drag again.

Sunday we went to Burlington to leave the boat for a few days to visit Jenny and take care of business. The winds were still fierce and it took us three tries to catch the mooring pendant at Burlington.

Oh well. The point of our new life style is adventure. Midnight Chinese fire drills are adventure. It could have been worse. If we had continued with our original plan to do the great loop, we might have been meeting Hurricane Katrina later this week in Lake Superior. It never occurred to me to worry about hurricanes while sailing on lakes.

We are almost out of cash because of government requirements and bureaucracy. To withdraw money from my IRA the broker requires that I fill out a government form. It has to be on paper, no electronic submissions allowed. A month ago, we did that and sent it off. After several weeks, nothing happened. We called the broker and he said we forgot to include a voided check with the form, so they ignored it. The fine print in the form tells you to include the voided check even if you filled out all the blanks with bank and account number info. Flame!

We send a second form with a voided check last week. Still no money. Today on the phone with the broker, we found that we sent it to the TD Waterhouse address shown on the front of the form rather than the address listed on the bottom of page 2. There is no way to tell how much delay that may cause, perhaps infinite. Flame! Flame!

So that we can pay our bills next week, I'm going to have to drive from Burlington down to Albany tomorrow to make a withdrawal in person. Then drive back to Burlington. Seven hours on the road and needless depletion of our oil reserves. Flame! Flame! Flame! There's a chance that when I arrive in their office that I'll find that the transaction cleared overnight and that the whole trip was unnecessary. If that happens, I'll have words stronger than flame.

Tuckered Out

Shelburne Bay, VT, N44 25 W 73 15
(08/27/05) We spent last night at Deep Bay near Ponte Au Roche, NY. The cruising guide said that is was the best, most scenic
anchorage on the lake, and that there was a free pump out station. Wrong wrong wrong. The bay has been taken over by a state
park. They installed moorings everywhere so that there is little room left to anchor. They charge $12 for the mooring. The pump
out fee went from $0 to $7, that's more than the commercial marinas charge. Libby went looking for the office to pay our mooring
fee and it took her nearly 2 hours to get back. She had a double dose of walking today.

Anyhow, it was interesting to see all the other boats come in, moor and go about their evening activities. Unfortunately, once
again very few of the neighbors spoke English. It's a shame. I bet the Quebecers would be fun and interesting people to know, but
the language is a barrier. The percentage of French-speaking Quebecers who also speak English much be smaller here than in Europe.
Probably smaller than in France.

Anyhow, I couldn't help but notice that the majority of the Quebec wives on these boats were young, lithe, blonde (natural blonde of
course), and partial to itsy bitsy bikinis, even in cool weather. Even Libby would point out new arrivals if I failed to notice. I
guess the guidebook was partially correct. It was scenic.

Today, Saturday, we sailed South again against a 20-25 knot wind from the South. We had a chance to meet Mary Ann and John Undrill
if we could make it to Essex in time, or a chance to meet up with Jennifer if we could make it to Burlington in time. Alas, we were
too late for both. It was 1730 before we got to Shelburne Bay, and we were both exhausted. It is physically demanding to beat
upwind in those conditions. We did it for 10 hours covering about 40 nautical miles made good (probably 60 miles linear). Libby
conked out around 1830 and she'll sleep till morning.

A side benefit to the strenuous day was that we out-sailed several bigger and faster boats. I had the most fun with one particular
boat. It was a racing boat, and had some kind of low friction silvery coating on the hull. He came up behind us out of nowhere and
was gaining speed on us fast while on the same tack. As we approached Valcour Island, he tried to pass me on the leeward side.
That's when I had the fun. As he pulled abreast, I changed my course 2 degrees to leeward. That gave me another 0.75 knots speed
which matched his speed. It also set me on a course to just clear the cliffs at the south end of Valcour by less than 100 meters.
The guy in the silver boat had the choice of trying to point higher than me, thus loosing speed, or to run his boat onto the rocks
of the island. Hee hee. He chose to come about and abandon the impromptu contest. Probably with a few choice cuss words in
French.

Tarwathie loves the heavy weather, and our skill at handling her improves all the time. Libby is getting to be a better helmsman
than me. Her secret is concentration. When I steer for long hours I daydream and forget to steer the optimum angle.

Reunited

Plattsburg Bay, N44 38 W73 23
(08/26/05) Shame on me. It's been several days since I wrote a blog article. On Wednesday Libby drove her car up to Vermont and we
were reunited. We took the opportunity to go ashore to mail letters, post blogs, and run errands.

We tried three stores to buy a snorkeling mask, but no luck. Today all the stores are stocked with fall goods and no summer
clothes or gear are left. It's frustrating.

Wednesday night we anchored near a place where we could park the car. It was also near the place where the super rich Vermonters
like Howard Dean live. I was afraid that Howard's primal screams would keep us awake but that didn't happen.

Our anchorage gave us a bird's eye view of a Lake Champlain Yacht Club sailing race. Right around 17:30 many sailboats came out of
the yacht club. By 1815 the bay was crowded with perhaps 75 of them. Each boat had 5 or more crewmen. That means that over 350
people were taking part in this race. They all looked enthusiastic.

As we watched the boats jockey for starting position, it looked like total chaos and constant near collisions. When the race
started, we watched but we couldn't understand what the goals were. It was too confusing. Both Libby and I wondered why those
people thought it was fun. We never sailed in a race in all these years and we have no desire to.

At the end of the race many of the boats drifted over near Tarwathie to take their sails down and pack them away. I was impressed
by the number of different ways to rig a boat, and also by the apparent professionalism of the crews. They looked to be very
experienced in their tasks.

Thursday we sailed north toward Valcour Island. On the way we stopped at the mooring at North Burlington to see if we could dive
down and retrieve the mooring chain on the bottom. It was sunny and still and the water is only 10 feet deep. No luck though. We
couldn't see underwater without a mask.

Last night we anchored in Sloop Bay on Valcour Island. Valcour is one of our most loved placed in the world. We've returned to
Valcour year after year to sail sometimes and to camp other times. Sloop Bay was very crowded and the bottom was overgrown with
milfoil weeds. It took us four tries to get the anchor to hold. The weeds prevent the anchor from reaching the bottom.

This morning we walked on the Island and visited the campsites we used in past years. It made us miss our dog Pup very much. Pup
loved Valcour as much as we did.

I'm sure we'll return to Valcour several times in the coming month. Hopefully, after Labor day it won't be so crowded with boats.

My wiring repairs are not 100% successful yet. We still don't have wind speed indication.

Interrupted Sleep

Shelburne Bay, VT, N44 25 W 73 15
(08/23/05) I somehow keep one ear open for strange sounds when sleeping on a boat. When I went to bed it was calm but soon a mild
wind came up. Last night I heard a thud from the starboard stern quarter. A while later I heard another strange sound. I got up
and looked. The mooring had moved 20 feet. I had to leave immediately to prevent moving it more and risking being blown
aground.

The moorings at that place are just inadequate for a boat the size of Tarwathie. I can't trust them except in nearly still
conditions. Neither can I anchor there except in still conditions, because it's too exposed. Too bad, the exposed position is
precisely what made those spectacular views possible.

Anyhow, I had to get up, get dressed and leave at 0200. I headed for the nearest anchorage sheltered from a west wind. That was
Shelburne Bay, about 6 miles to the south. Moonlike made navigation easier. The lights on buoys in Lake Champlain are not the
best. It turned cold and the waves increased to 4 feet. It took me about 90 minutes to get to the new anchorage and drop the hook.
I lost about 4 hours sleep total.

Today I repaired the wiring broken when the mast was down and I varnished the dinghy. Tomorrow Libby will rejoin me.

Beauty

North Burlington, N44 30 W73 15

(08/22/05) I find myself alone tonight. Libby went back to NY to fetch her car and to work on the house a little bit. I also find
myself back on the mooring at North Burlington. I just watched the sunset. Once again the beauty of the view from here stuns me.
The weather today was fall-like. Huge cumulus clouds filled much of the sky leaving big blue breaks for sunshine. The lake creates
a microclimate so that there are fewer clouds directly above the lake than above the surrounding shores. That allows one to see
distant cumulus clouds from their bases to their tops. Some clouds create vertical walls 20,000 feet high. They look spectacular.
One day I saw a wall of cloud on the western shore that created a virtual cliff face 40,000 feet high.

An hour before sunset, the sun brightly illuminated some of the mountain slopes in the Adirondacks. They shone bright green while
the shaded slopes were gray. As the sun set, I could see streamers of mist rising from the mountains colored pink by the sunset.

On the shore, little kids swam unsupervised. That surprised me. Their parents must have great confidence in their water skills.
There were two men throwing sticks into the water for their dogs to fetch. There was a woman with a camera on a tripod taking
sequential pictures of the progress of the sunset.

I stopped at a marina on the New York side before returning to the mooring and chatted a little with the nice young woman there. I
said, "You have such a beautiful place to work here." She replied, "Thanks for reminding me. Sometimes, I forget to look." Now
that would make an excellent slogan to hang on the wall, "Don't forget to look," or better still, "LOOK"

On a different note, I pulled a dumb stunt today. I tried to hook the dinghy anchor line with the boat hook, but the line was too
taught and it yanked the boat hook right out of my hands and into the lake. Darn. That was an all aluminum boat hook and probably
more rugged than any replacement I'll be able to buy.