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| "Dream Catcher" |
Shortly after posting our last entry, Lyn and I were
finishing our dinner when we heard someone rapping on the side of our
boat. We went up to the cockpit and were
surprised to see … Burt! You may
remember Burt from an earlier entry, the hard-luck sailor we first met at the
commercial fishing dock in Hobucken, NC.
He had been stranded for 4 days on a shoal in the Neuse River and was
towed to the same dock where we had taken refuge from a day of storms. He had repaired his boat “Dream Catcher” in
the day or two after we left Hobucken, and continued his northward journey toward
New Jersey. We passed him again as we
were leaving Norfolk harbor last Thursday.
He was sailing because his engine didn’t work. We thought that was the last we would see of
him as we headed to Cape Charles on the eastern shore of the Bay, certain that
he would stick to the ICW route and stay close to the western shore.
Well, Burt’s hard luck continues. He decided to cross the Bay and anchor in the
lee of a breakwater on the eastern shore about 5 miles south of Cape
Charles. At some point during the heavy
winds we have been having, his anchor dragged and he found himself up against
the breakwater, which fortunately was made of sunken concrete boats, Liberty
ships from WWII, rather than piles of boulders.
He called the Coast Guard (his radio is working again, fortunately) and
they towed him the 5 miles up to Cape Charles, where they are stationed. So Dream Catcher is tied up on one of the
docks near us, and has a bit more damage that needs fixing. He recognized the name “Kite” on our hull as
he was towed into the harbor, and after Dream Catcher was safely tied to the
dock, he decided to come over to say, “Hi.”
Next morning Peter took a photo of Dream Catcher, because it appears we
are destined to keep meeting. Some
damage to the bow pulpit is visible, but the boat appears pretty seaworthy
otherwise. Peter let Burt borrow our
power drill/screwdriver to repair his bow pulpit, and agreed to tow him out of
the harbor tomorrow morning as we are leaving.
And before leaving Cape Charles we had to have a portrait of
Kite nestled among the crab boats, our home for this week.
Woke up this morning early so we could get going by 06:30,
shortly after sunrise. Burt was ready
and we passed him a towline, and began slowly towing him out the 3-mile channel
to the deep water. The wind had turned
to a southerly direction during the night, and was already blowing around 10
knots as we motored out the channel. It
took us about an hour, and when we got to the end of the channel Burt cast off
our towline, and we immediately headed up into the wind and put up our sail and
turned off our engine. The seas were all
of the 2 to 3 foot waves that were predicted, maybe even a little more, but
because we were going in the same direction, they did not slow us down. After about an hour of sailing, Burt had
fallen behind so far he was out of sight (visibility was about 2 to 3 miles due
to a light fog). We also had to change
course so that the wind was directly behind us.
Our jib started flopping around because the mainsail was getting all the
wind, so we furled the jib and sailed on just the main. We were still making more than 6 knots! Lyn heard a Coast Guard transmission that
they had a sailboat in tow in the channel of Cape Charles, so we guessed that
Burt decided that the wind and sea would be too much for his small boat. He was probably right. The wind kept increasing to about 20 to 25
knots, and we were nearly flying, surfing down 5-foot waves at 9 knots. We had decided to go directly to Crisfield,
MD instead of stopping at Onancock, VA first, and we were making great time
getting there, totally under wind power.
We entered the channel to Crisfield at about 15:00, still under sail and
sailed half way up the channel until Peter found a semi-protected spot where we
could head upwind and take in the mainsail.
We started the engine and motored the last 15 minutes of the channel
into the protected harbor basin at Crisfield.
We were anchored by 15:30 and needed a rest from all the strain of
controlling the boat under such strong wind and in such large waves. It was a fairly warm, sunny afternoon, even
if very windy, so we relaxed outside in our sheltered cockpit. Lyn fixed a scrumptious chicken alfredo for
dinner and we decided to wait until tomorrow to inflate our dinghy and go see
what Crisfield is all about.
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