Author Archives: erica

Pedals to Fins

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For those of you who have just about had it listening to my road cycling stories, fear not!  A new sport has come to town.  Since I am going to be (mostly) taking a hiatus from cycling this year, I have decided to focus on running and swimming.  And you know what happens when someone runs, swims, and cycles.  You guessed it.  They do triathlons.  Well, let’s not put the cart before the horse, or rather the bike before the goggles, just yet.

 

My old kind of swimming: sunglasses on, hair staying dry.

While I know how to run (kinda), I am not a freestyle swimmer.  I can swim all day long, staying afloat, staring at my toes as I lie on my back.  But I’ve never been a fan of freestyle swimming.  I’m averse to water going up my nose.  I just don’t like the feeling.  It’s a fear that I can’t quite put my finger on.  I don’t consciously think I am going to drown, but I do get the sensation that I won’t be able to breathe if there is water up my nose.  So I usually take a big gulp of air, dive under the water, and swim like a frog until I need to come up for air.  Apparently, that is “Not Fast”.  I can also backstroke okay, but that’s not going to cut it in a race, either.Last fall, I took a swim “lesson”, talking to a swimmer friend about my fears, and getting in the water to practice getting over them.  In one hour, I made a huge amount of progress.  Since then, I have tried swimming whenever I could, but in the winter in New Jersey, you can guess how many times that was.  So when we left on our trip two weeks ago, I made a goal to get in the water every day I could for the entire year.  Even if it was only to swim one time around the boat.  I figure if I swim for 365 days straight, I’ve GOTTA make some improvements.  Maybe even become an actual Swimmer.

So far, so good.  It may be a bit of a challenge to swim every single day, but I’ve gotten in the water almost every day so far.  I quickly learned that “open water” swimming is quite different from swimming in a pool.  And salt water is way different than chlorine water.  The open water has waves and current, so when you turn your head to get air, you will most likely swallow a fish.  I was told to really rotate my body so that my face is practically looking directly up at the sky when I open my mouth to take a breath.  That seems to be working.  (Although today, I was talking to a lifeguard and he told me that in open water triathlon swimming, you want to lift your head up forward, so you can see where you are going.  I’m going to have to YouTube this, unless any of you avid swimmers want to weigh in.)

 

swimming against max current in Piscataqua River (Portsmouth, NH)

Open water is also not clear, like a pool.  They don’t paint those cute little lane lines at the bottom of the ocean so you can see where you are going, make sure you stay in a straight line, and know when the “end” is near.  In the open water, you can’t see if some creature is about to eat you for lunch or sting the bejesus out of you.  There is also a distinct lack of a pool edge to hold onto while you hyperventilate every 25 meters.  However, I am quickly discovering that the salt in open water is my new BFF.  The extra buoyancy that the denser salt water provides is just enough to allow me to focus on stamina and technique, rather than fighting to stay afloat.  Add a wetsuit to the equation and I practically feel like a hydroplaning high-speed ferry.  I have only used my wetsuit once, since it is quite an ordeal to put on, take off, and wash down, but it was an absolute joy to use.  Once we get to Maine, I think I will be relying on it daily to steel myself against the infamous brisk waters there.Today I got to use the pool at a yacht club in Marblehead, MA, thanks to our new sailing friend Alec, who offered to have us use the facilities as his guest.  I spent the early morning and evening using the laundry room there, so I took advantage of the long wash cycles to swim laps.  After two weeks of open water swimming, where you have no idea how far you have gone, I was so excited to see that I could now swim 350 meters freestyle (with aforementioned hyperventilation breaks, of course).  In the evening, I had time for an additional 200 meters before the pool closed.  I was so jazzed about my improvement from just a few weeks ago that I could have done more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjskhoGHlBU

It’s a good thing I have a whole year to practice, though.  I still feel like I’m flailing around quite a bit.  And I have no idea what my kicking situation is.  I can’t stay in a straight line (unless I’m in a pool with the cute little lines).  Sometimes I have to stop and clear the water out of my goggles.  I certainly can’t do that cool turn around thing at the end of the pool to go back the other way (if I can manage that someday, I will be so impressed.)  But I’m on my way, and I love being on my way.  I love learning new things and practicing them until I can see improvement.  I especially love fun ways to exercise that allow me to eat ice cream at every port along the East Coast.  And you should hope that I stick with it, because I think reading about swimming is probably about 6 million times more exciting than reading about running…

Oh, and in other Sports News, there will be a slight delay in learning to do a yoga head stand on our new inflatable stand-up paddle board.  One of the seams exploded in Newport and we are waiting for a new one to arrive.

Also, if you are NOT tired of hearing my road cycling stories, click on my Personal Blog to read about my riding from the first time I clicked in to my first century!

Disco Dancing, Dinghy Drama, and Downward Facing Dog

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Well, Well, Wellfleet…

We arrived on Thursday in Wellfleet, MA, on Cape Cod, after an eventful voyage through the Cape Cod Canal from Marion, MA.  The canal offered a good opportunity to start teaching navigation to Bryson.  We allowed the favorable current to sleighride us under bridges and passed a number of barges, which kicked up such a violent wake that you would have thought we were in the middle of the Southern Ocean.  We breathed a sigh of relief when we got through and enjoyed a pretty motorsail (more motor than sail due to the wind direction being right on our nose) all the way to Wellfleet.

We dropped the hook (anchor) in the Outer Harbor using 100 feet of rode (chain) because, on the charts, the Inner Harbor looked tight and shallow.  Chris took the dinghy in to check out the scene in town and came back over an hour later.  The dinghy ride in was really rough.  So rough that he didn’t think the kids would be able to do it.  Well, we didn’t come to Wellfleet to sit all by ourselves out in the middle of nowhere, so we rented a mooring from the Wellfleet Harbormaster and pulled all 100 feet of chain BACK into the boat.  The channel into the Inner Harbor was not as formidable as it seemed on the chart, and we had no trouble securing our mooring, once we found it.  The dinghy ride in was so short we probably could have thrown a ball to the dinghy dock (well, I couldn’t have thrown a ball to it.  Has anyone ever seen me throw a ball?)

We got to the waterfront and had a delicious dinner at Mac’s Seafood, right on the beach.  Reese and I enjoyed steamers and brothy clam chowder.  After dinner, we walked into the town of Wellfleet.  We don’t know anyone in Wellfleet, but our good friend’s cousin lives there and we were told to look her up.  Janet runs the cultural center in town, so we found her there and introduced ourselves.  Janet and I felt an instant connection and it was lovely to be greeted by such a lovely presence in such a beautiful town.  The cultural center was hosting a disco night, so we all danced the night away and then walked across the street for….wait for it……ice cream:)  It seems our freezer’s lack of freezitude will be more than made up for by the presence of ice cream shops at every seaside port we visit!

The next morning, I tooled into town to take a yoga class at Quiet Mind Yoga.  Zack, the instructor, is Iyengar based, and the class was amazing.  I felt two inches taller when I left.  Zack gave me some insights into gainer better alignment in several poses, which was fantastic.  Check it out if you are on Cape Cod: http://quietmindstudio.com/.

After picking up some groceries at the local market, we moved the boat back to the outer harbor for the night.  We wanted to check out the beaches on Great Island, and our mooring was reserved by another boat for the night.  After anchoring with 100 feet of chain, again, I took the dinghy into town to meet up with Janet.  Janet’s husband Paul was playing with his band at a beachside restaurant and I was keen on spending some more time with Janet.

Chris warned me about the dinghy ride, and he was right.  It was rough and bumpy.  As soon as I got to the NO WAKE bouy, I slowed way down and the engine died on me.  I couldn’t get it started for the life of me, and the current was quickly sending me out of the channel, towards the beach.  Once at the beach, I got out and dragged the dinghy up on the sand so that the incoming tide didn’t wash it away.  I unplugged the gas tank and hauled it across the waterfront to the harbormaster’s office.  I asked David for help and he drove out to the beach to take a look.  Unfortunately, there is no way to play around with an outboard motor unless the propeller is in the water, but the engine has to stay raised so that the prop doesn’t get stuck in the sand.

David decided to go back to the dock and bring his boat around to tow me in.  While he did that, I attempted to row my way back into the channel.  No way.  The current was too strong.  So I got in the water and walked the boat out as far as I could stand and then jumped in the dinghy.  That got me far enough to throw a line to David in his boat.  We motored in and he started to take a look.  As happens in Cape Cod towns, along came John, a local and a fisherman.  He was amazing and took over without making me feel like the dumb broad I’m sure I looked like.

He got it going and I started off only to have it die AGAIN- this time, right in front of some rocks.  I fended off the rocks as the current drove me toward shore, but I ended up having to jump out of the boat to guide it as it headed for the boat ramp.  As I stepped on the slimy, slippery concrete of the boat ramp, my foot went out from under me and I slammed down into the water onto the rocks and concrete.  My whole left side was a mess and I was now completely soaked!  John said something very Cape Cod-ish, like, “You probably want to just stay in the boat next time.”  I would have been mortified, but the whole thing was just too funny, except for the throbbing in my foot, and I could already smell a blogpost coming on, so I was pretty psyched.

We messed about with the outboard for awhile longer and eventually John got it all better.  I got some gas for the tank and decided to walk on over to the restaurant to catch the last 10 minutes of Paul’s band.  It had taken over 2 1/2 hours since I left the boat and I had missed most of their set.  I was drenched and looking not-so-spectacular.  I’m sure I smelled like the harbor.  But it’s a fishing town for crying out loud, so I went for it.  I found Janet, who was with some friends and family and we ended up having a very special time, talking, listening to the band, sharing the story of our voyage, and connecting with our hearts.  I left Janet and her beautiful life with thoughts of seeing her again someday and having lots of time to talk about life and dreams.

The rest of the night was uneventful.  Seems Wellfleet had thrown everything it had at us and we passed some sort of test.  We were accepted and loved.  I even had a quick swim in the heavy current before bed!

whalewatching past provincetown

Today, we sailed all day and are safe and sound in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Chris worked on the head, we looked for whales, I worked on the teak (yes, still), and the kids worked on homeschooling.  It was really cool to see the Boston skyline appear on the horizon after seeing nothing all day.We already met some crazy sailboat racers who pointed out our Boston Yacht Club mooring among the thousands in the harbor and some really lovely sailboat racers who welcomed us to Marblehead and made us feel very much at home.  I remember the close-knit feeling of the boating community from our racing days, but it is turning out to be even more gracious, helpful, and supportive than I expected.

Adventures in Anchoring and Other Firsts

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So there are three ways to secure our boat each night in whatever harbor we are in. One is to tie up to a dock. Another is to tie up to a mooring, which is a large float attached to a heavy chain, which is attached to a heavy piece of metal/permanent anchor on the bottom. The third option is to use our boat anchor.

Docking is expensive, so it is not realistic for us to get dockage for 365 days.  A dock slip in Newport would have been $4.50 per foot per night.  Our 47 foot boat would fetch $211.50 for one night, plus surplus charges for electric and other marina amenities.

Moorings are a great alternative.  When we chartered a boat last summer for two weeks, we only used moorings. They are safe and well-positioned so that you are not too close to other boats.  They are heavy and strong, so you are almost certain not to drift.  Moorings are installed and maintained by local marinas and yacht clubs, who usually charge a fee for their use.  The average fee we paid last year was $35-40 per night.  Often, the mooring came with the use of a launch service.  A launch is a small, open boat that ferries boaters from their boat to the marina.  Using a launch is nice because you can give the dinghy a rest and don’t need to worry about the it being stolen or damaged at the “dinghy dock” while you are in town.

So far, we have used moorings at the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club, Port Jefferson Harbor, and the New York Yacht Club in Newport, although we now know that moorings aren’t without their own drama! (see post titled Now You See It, Now You Don’t!)

Cleaning the lifelines

We arrived in Marion, Massachusetts yesterday after a lovely sail, during which I watched for lobster pots while cleaning the vinyl lifelines.  We pulled into the harbor at 1730 and decided to try anchoring for the first time.  Anchoring is an art, a science, and a test of faith.  It causes much anxiety and comes with a unique set of social rules and obligations.  Surprised?  We pulled into the harbor here and we were intimidated by the enormous mooring field.  We found a tiny area, marked by bouys, that designated the “Anchorage Area”.  There were already two boats anchored, but we circled around and figured out where we could safely place our Patronus.Anchoring is not like parking a car, where you simply drive to where you want to be and stop the car.  In boating, you steer to the place you want the anchor to be, and then drop the anchor on its rode (rope or chain) at a chain length to depth ratio of 5:1.  So a ten foot deep harbor would call for 50 feet of chain.  The anchor drops, the boat continues to drift around, and then when all the chain is down, you back the boat up hard to “set” the anchor in the ground.

If a real old salt read my simplistic description here, he would probably lose his mind.  There are many types of ground (muddy, sandy, etc) that call for different types of anchors and different ways to set it.  Current, tide, wind direction/speed, weather, and the location of other boats are all important factors that must be taken into account.  And etiquette plays a role as well.  Too close, just upwind, boats that run noisy generators all night…  For our friends who actually ARE old salts and would be totally interested, we are carrying a 55 lb. Delta on 250 feet of BBB chain and a 21 lb. Fortress as a backup.  For the rest of you, I know you just heard the sound of Charlie Brown’s teacher: “wah-wah-wah”.

So we pulled up to our chosen spot, I let out the chain and tried to eyeball what 40 feet might be, while Chris backed her down.  Then we stood on the bow together, wondering if there was any chance that it actually worked.  We had to wait for the boat to swing to the wind.  Boats will naturally face right into the wind.  We did not seem to be drifting, but we each must have checked our position compared to the other boats and the land 100 times over the course of the night.  I even got up at 2am and 5:30am to check on it.  For those of you who know how much I love my sleep, the only reason I was actually UP at those times was because my arms and neck were in so much pain from rubbing those lifelines!  By the way, it’s really scary to stand on the bow in pitch blackness trying to figure out where you are and if you are moving.

First Boat Dinner on our Voyage

All in all, our first anchor job seems to be a success, but we still need to pull it up tomorrow morning, when we leave for Wellfleet in Cape Cod.  Hopefully, that will go just as smoothly.  By the way, a well-worn boat motored up today while we were eating dinner and just dropped the anchor.  Literally within 3 minutes, the captain and mate were in their dinghy headed to town.  That’s experience for you!  They didn’t even look back to check on how the boat was settling!

First Boat Dinner on our Voyage

The day in Marion had other firsts, which is good because the town is not much to visit.  Last night, we had our first dinner cooked on the boat, thanks to Chef Mema, who made, vacuum-sealed, and froze about 15 dinners of meatballs, breaded chicken, and pork for us before we left.  We couldn’t believe that we hadn’t eaten on the boat until Day 10, but we were visiting with friends in the first three ports.  Before we left Newport, we bought some ice cream to see if our freezer could handle the delicate needs of my precious Haagen Dazs ice cream.  Our freezer could NOT handle it.  The ice cream was soft after only a day in the freezer.  Oh well.  I guess I will be forced to make some healthy dessert changes!Today, we took the dinghy into the town of Marion and visited the gift shop, the Historical Society, and the general store.  Then we had to walk 3/4 of a mile to the only restaurant.  On the way back, we stopped at Tabor Academy, a boarding school, to watch an orchestra play.  We happened to arrive during the Buzzard’s Bay Music Festival, so we had a little after-lunch entertainment.  Back to the boat for swimming laps, trying out our new hammock, and cleaning the floors.  We had another “Mema special” dinner tonight and the kids played one of their new games.

cooking in our little galley

New hammock hanging from the boom

Tomorrow, we are excited about negotiating the Cape Cod Canal and crossing the bay to Wellfleet, where we got engaged 15 years ago.  Keep tracking us on our Spot (click the link on the left that says Patronus’ Location).  Thanks to all our friends, neighbors, and new acquaintances who are checking out our website and leaving such nice comments for us!  We love to hear from you, so keep them coming.  You can also email us at conwaysailors@gmail.com.  Come back soon to see our Floatplan (Itinerary) and a new page on our website with pictures of boats with great, funny, or unique names.