2016 Boat Trip: Part 1

The day Kadin and I decided to make our relationship official, he asked me what I thought about living on a sailboat. I put exactly zero thought into my answer and said I was totally down.

Damned hormones.

Fast-forward a year, and we were driving to the northernmost point of the Eastern Shore of Virginia to look at a nearly derelict sailboat. It had been sitting in dry storage for ten years. Dry is a misnomer. Although the fiberglass hull is solid, various bad spots on the deck had allowed those ten years of rainwater to seep in. Consequently, the interior was intact in only the loosest of terms. There were a lot of rotting plywood bulkheads (walls, for my non-boaty friends) and a collection of wasps’ nests to match.

We bought it for probably too much money and promised the former owner that we would renovate it with love and care.

It’s a 1978 Hughes, 38 feet long, 10 and a half feet wide. It was now ours.

Several trips were made to get it in just-good-enough shape to go back into the water and motor it down to North Carolina. 

Now here we were, about to set off, a mere two years and one wedding later.

Adventures in the Chesapeake Bay

We left the remote harbor of Onancock, Virginia, to our first destination, Tangier Island. We anchored just off the island. This was our first time ever setting an anchor and it went more smoothly than we could have imagined. Sadly, this would not turn out to be a harbinger of good things to come. 

We hauled our dinghy off the forward deck and prepped it to go to the island. It was grey with a blue stripe, and I had taken to calling it R2D2, after the mouthy robot of Star Wars fame. We hopped in and glided over the shallow water, its surface calm enough to see the plants and fish gently swaying below us.

Tangier Island is a very small island in the northern Chesapeake. The rising ocean encroaches on its shores a little further each year. Soon enough, it will no longer be habitable. Locals are already being driven out, going to the mainland to create homes that won’t be washed away by the rapidly changing environment. That wholly unique accent* that marks a local will become as watered down as the land it came from until it, too, disappears. 

*( https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/unique-speak/ )

But on this evening, you wouldn’t know we were strolling through a dying land. The car-free streets were teaming with locals and summer-visitors alike. We stumbled into a random restaurant and splurged on a steaming crab dip, served in a bread bowl. We used even more bread to scoop it up, savoring the rich food, knowing we’d be eating mostly canned goods for the next few weeks. 

We finished out that evening with ice cream cones, trying to eat them faster than they could melt in the intense July evening heat. Children ran around our picnic table, then in and out of the street, screaming joyfully, no fear of oncoming traffic to stop them.

The next morning carried in a chilly breeze that pricked at our bare faces. We bundled up and jumped into the dinghy, which bounced along the little white-capped waves to shore. The tide had gone out and left behind it the smell of salt, fish, and rotting seaweed. We drifted through the small harbor, hunting for somewhere to purchase fuel for the dinghy motor. 

The local fuel dock was a shack that leaned dangerously to one side, which housed an old man who leaned even more. Maybe he got that way standing inside the shack for too long. Kadin looped a line around a piling and waved at the man.

“Good morning! We have a 2-cycle motor. Do you have mixed fuel?”

“Uh, uhuh, yeah, I got that.” the old man said, a shake in his voice.

He shuffled off to the shack for a few minutes. When he shuffled back, he was carrying a large paper cup. Kadin took it and looked at it suspiciously. Besides the fact that we were being fueled with a cup instead of a fuel can, it was unusually dark in color.

“Um, are you sure this is the right ratio?” he asked, a note of hopelessness in his voice.

“Uh, uhuh, oh yeah, that will work.” the old man said.

We shrugged it off for lack of options and tried to get most of the fuel into the motor.

Back at the sailboat, which had waited for us patiently, softly bobbing at the end of its anchor line, we hauled the dinghy onto the forward deck and prepared to leave.

Kadin went into the cockpit and turned the key. Nothing happened. He checked things over, including the connections to our battery. He tried again, and again, nothing happened.

He determined that the battery had died. Because we were only moving the boat with plans to renovate it completely, we hadn’t invested in solar panels. We tried to be careful about our power use, but we must have enjoyed our reading lights and fans a little too much.

The only option was to haul the dinghy back into the water, re-mount the motor, and go back to Tangier with the battery. Upon our second arrival of the morning, we got lucky and came across a couple of guys working at the public dock who had a mobile charger. We paid them a cool $20 to throw our battery on. We walked the length of the island while we waited. 

When we finally reached Cape Charles, Virginia that afternoon, we had to dock the sailboat ourselves for the very first time. The propeller transmission was wonky and did not shift gears smoothly. You had to jiggle the lever and get it juuuuust right for it to switch from forward to reverse.

The slip we were assigned to required one to “back-in”, but the transmission refused to switch into reverse. Remember, friends, there are no brakes on a boat (at least, not on this boat. I suppose there may be some kind of brakes on new boats. I certainly wouldn’t know). So, despite the motor being stuck in neutral, the momentum carried us forward, right toward another docked boat. A much nicer boat, in fact. A boat that would, most likely, cost a lot to repair.

Kadin bolted to the bow and put his foot on the stationary boat in front of us, pushing against it in an attempt to arrest our motion. I jumped to the side and wrapped my arms around a piling, pressing my feet against the side rail of our vessel. (Kadin insists that I looked silly and that it didn’t accomplish anything, but it sure felt like I was about to be pulled into two pieces, which sounds like something to me.) We managed to slow it down just enough to barely tap the bow of the other vessel. We ended up scraping off some sea growth, but no paint. I took that as a win. 

Our heart rates were through the roof, so we went below deck to take a minute and calm down.

That’s when we noticed an aggressive dripping noise. To an untrained ear, it may have been mistaken for pouring. We knew exactly what it was, but that didn’t make it any better. 

In the briefest description possible, there is a piece called a packing gland, or sometimes a stuff box, that prevents seawater from backflowing into the boat where the propeller shaft enters and connects to the motor. (There’s a lot of dirty jokes to be made in there, but I digress.)  They are usually made out of a mixture of wax and flax (I’m endlessly pleased that the ingredients rhyme). It’s supposed to allow an inconsequential amount of water to drip while the prop is in use, but very little or none at all when it’s not. Based on the amount of water we could hear, the nut on the gland needed to be tightened.

Of course, it’s located in a nearly impossible position under the prop shaft, which sits under a section of floorboards that can be removed for this exact activity.

Kadin’s big, meaty man hands barely fit the space. On top of the adrenaline from the near-miss, he was beginning to exhibit that anxious panic one gets when overwhelmed. Lucky for him, I am my most high-functioning when someone else is stressed out.

I shoved him aside and took the wrench. Using my best yoga skills, I made my way onto my belly, trying not to mar the sundress I had just changed into. I reached down as far as I could, barely managing to get the wrench on the nut. One turn, two turns, three. The drip stopped. My hands came out smudged with grease, and we both drew a sigh of relief.

Our big plan for the afternoon was to go grocery shopping, but the nearest store was a Food Lion that sat 2 miles away, on the oposite side of a highway. This was contrary to our advanced research of the area, which had us believe that there was a grocery store within a safe walking distance.

We decided to use a rideshare app, which at the time was a brand-new concept. It cost a small fortune to get to the store, and we were dreading the additional fortune that would be required to get back to the marina. 

In the checkout line, a man with white hair combed into a perfect pompadour stood behind us.

“Are you two sailors?”

“Um, kind of. We came in on a boat, but it needs a lot of work before we can actually sail it. We’re motoring it closer to home. How did you know?”

“Enough people come through here, you start to recognize what they buy. Lots of bottled water and canned food. How’d ya get to the store? You didn’t walk, didya?”

“No, no. We called a taxi service. We didn’t realize how far the store was from the marina. We probably would have walked if it wasn’t 95 degrees out.”

“Well, I can give you a ride back if ya want.”

Kadin and I looked at each other skeptically. Kadin is the sort of person who makes friends everywhere he goes, sometimes against the other person’s will. He will wear you down with friendly conversation until you’ve forgotten what you set out to do that day. But even he was wary of getting into a car with a stranger. Years of childhood programming made us both want to say no.

However, we were now adults who were quite poor. Every dollar we could save might be worth the risk.

“That is really generous of you. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all! I’m retired and I make my own schedule these days. I’d be happy to help you young folks out.”

He introduced himself as Bruce Brinkley, a local artist, writer, and apparently the self-appointed welcoming committee. 

We finished checking out and wheeled our cart to his SUV. He insisted on putting the heavy cartons of water into the trunk for me, demonstrating that chivalry is not yet dead.

Not only did he drive us, but he helped us unload and get everything into the boat, too. Once we were finished with the chore, we asked him if we could offer anything for his help.

“It was nothing. Do you two have any plans for the afternoon? I’d love to take you into town and show you my art studio.”

He drove us into downtown Cape Charles where we toured his art studio, an old building full of fantastical sculptures made out of upcycled objects. After the visit to his studio, he took us around town in his golf cart, pointing out the best places to eat, occasionally stating facts about historic buildings here and there. He was an exceedingly charming man, and he would be the first in a line of kind and helpful strangers we would meet as we ambled southward.

The next day, we set off to Kiptopeke State Park.

Kiptopeke was on the southernmost portion of the Eastern Shore, not far from where the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel connects the Eastern Shore to Virginia proper. Kiptopeke has a unique shoreline. The beach has especially calm water because of a man-made reef, consisting of 9 World War II–era concrete ships that were strategically sunk. According to our charting software, sailors should be able to anchor inside their protective barrier. 

When we arrived, we were disappointed to find that all of the water between the concrete ships and the designated swim area was littered with crab pots. Crab pots are traps that sit in shallow water, tethered with a rope to a float on the surface, marking where the traps are and enabling them to be pulled up by the crabber. These tethers have an awful habit of tangling in boat props and anchor lines. When you're anchored long enough, your vessel can make a full rotation around the anchor point, much like a drawing compass. If we anchored inside the safety of the man-made reef, we feared we would wake to find dozens of crab pots twisted around our anchor line. We decided to pass through and anchor just outside the reef instead. 

We took the dinghy to shore and enjoyed a few hours on the warm sand of the little beach. As the sun began to dip low on the horizon, we jumped into the dinghy to head back.

It wouldn’t start.

We worked at it for half an hour, pulling the starter, tweaking anything we could. It was no use. Chekhov’s-suspicious-fuel had made its act II appearance.

Just as we were starting to panic, a sporty motorboat pulled up to the dock, carrying a family and a stack of wakeboarding gear. As they emptied out, they overheard us cursing and struggling. The dad approached us at our place further up the dock. 

“Are y’all having a hard time getting your motor started?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we got some bad fuel. I’ve been at it for over half an hour now. I don’t think it’s going to start.”

“Is that your sailboat out there?”

“Yeah, we’re trying to get back to it. I think we’re going to have to paddle.”

“Jump in with us, we can tow you out there.”

It was getting dark quickly. They hitched the dinghy up to the motorboat and we jumped in with them. They hauled us out into the open water as quickly as they could. By the time we reached our boat, I was shivering from the breeze created by the speed of their boat and the lack of sunlight.

We thanked them profusely for saving us and waved back to their kids who watched us as their motorboat receded to the dock.

When the last sliver of sunlight disappeared beyond the horizon, the wind picked up.

Soon, we were rolling in 3-foot waves. The boat pitched in a nauseating fashion, throwing things out of cupboards and sending us rolling around anytime we tried to lay down. I couldn’t eat the canned ravioli Kadin had miraculously managed to heat on the stove-top. Instead, I climbed into the cockpit and vomited over the side.

As I lay there, all I could think was how much I regretted ever saying yes to this. No man was handsome enough to make this experience worth it. The thought was interrupted by another violent expulsion of my lunch.

 Kadin came out to check on me. He sat on the opposite settee, and we watched in silence as the moonlight glinted off the roiling water. I took a break from sending my stomach contents into the bay and lay down on my back, looking up at the dark sky. The Milky Way was like a paint stroke of glitter above us.

The sky burst into a green light like nothing I had ever seen before, so bright it reflected in the water around us. For the briefest moment, the entire world was a glowing emerald. When the flash faded and our eyes could focus, we saw a meteor streaking through the sky, throwing 4th of July sparklers behind it as it traveled the length of the Chesapeake Bay.

I sat up to watch as it faded away, holding back another roll of my stomach.

“Now that almost makes this worth it.”