Mer Sea

We left Portsmouth on a lovely, calm day, with up to 5 knot winds predicted for the Chesapeake. Waves maybe one foot. Sort of a perfect boating day. We decided to spend some nights “on the hook” to enjoy some of the Chesapeake’s legendary nooks and crannies for boaters. Mer Sea was serviced, and had new, clean oil and filters and fluids, and life was good!

 

The lower Chesapeake still has a pretty hefty military presence (after Norfolk, where it is EVERYWHERE), so we were on the lookout for safety zones where there might be target practice, and other possible prohibited military zones. We were also on alert for tugs and barges in this heavily trafficked area of the bay. But it was a beautiful day, and we didn’t encounter anything untoward.

 

Roy headed to the salon for lunch around noon, and I took the helm. The bay was getting a bit choppy, but that’s not unusual as a day gets a little older and there’s more breeze and boat traffic. When Roy came back to the helm, he jokingly asked me what I’d been doing to effect the change in our seas. Then it was my turn to have lunch. When I got back to the pilothouse, Roy told me to secure the cabin. There had been a significant change in the weather, with 2 to 4 foot seas, and building, and substantial wind.

 

I pretty much thought that the cabin was secure, since we have a routine whereby we make it so before we even crank the engine. But I had a thing or two to learn about what “secure” might mean in more challenging seas! In any boat that’s actually seaworthy, the surface areas are all constructed with a lip all around so that things cannot just slide off. However, if you have anything stacked on top of something else, it can, of course, slide right off, and things can of course slide around on the surface within the confines of the lip. So as the beam (coming at us from the side) seas caused us to lurch from side to side, I scurried around doing a better job of “securing” the cabin.

 

And the weather continued to deteriorate. American Tugs are known as “wet” boats, which means that water will splash up onto the front deck, and maybe even hit the windows, with very little provocation. It’s not a problem, and actually kind of fun. But, you do have to watch which windows you have open when this is happening, and in our case, in these now 6 to 8 foot seas, we had to have the pilothouse closed up so as not to have water splashing into the boat. This created another problem for us: steam. The windows began fogging up, and our defrosters couldn’t keep up! Now we’ve got lots of wind, substantial waves, LOTS of rocking and rolling of Mer Sea, and we can’t really see where we’re going! We are both needed on the bridge. I’m watching our Maptech chart with our GPS-generated boat icon, the chartplotter, and the paper chart, and Roy is trying to give us the best ride possible while spotting and avoiding other boats, land masses, and crab pots! Meanwhile, periodically, we hear something CRASH – I look back into the salon and the thermal coffee pot has left it’s housing and is rolling around on the floor, the electric water pot is rolling around on the floor, the cruising guides have lurched hard enough to force their cabinet open and are all dumped out on the floor, and periodically a drawer with lots of heavy stuff in it flies open and then slams shut! Meanwhile, the water is crashing up over the bow and we’re basically boating blind. We kept up this intense activity for about two hours, until we could make the turn and enter the Piankatank River.

 

Almost immediately the situation changed. Because the winds were out of the northwest, they were blowing right down the length of the bay, which is what had caused all the trouble, but as soon as we were past the mouth of the river, we had the protection of land to break the winds, and it started calming down. Our anchorage was in a protected bay maybe four miles into the river, and when we got there, it was perfectly calm. No wind, water smooth as glass. Whew!

 

We set the hook, and began to survey the carnage. The most catastrophic damage was to the package of Oreos that had slid off the countertop. Many were broken. The captain was not amused! Other than that, it was unfortunate that there had been some residual coffee in the coffeepot, since there was a bit of a mess to clean up, but there was no actual damage, and it was an important lesson. We’ve revised our “securing” protocol for anticipated heavy seas, and I think we’ll ride better next time. We’ve also rigged a fan that can assist the defroster so that we’ll be able to see. That alone will make a big difference!

 

We took a peek in the engine room when we’d settled down, and found that there was a considerable amount of water in the bilge. We NEVER have water in the bilge, so were somewhat concerned. However, we remembered that a friend of ours had taken on some water in his engine room after being in some rough seas, and figured that we, like him, had taken some in through the vents. Roy got it all cleaned up and dry, and we put things to bed for the night.

 

The next morning we re-entered the bay with some trepidation knowing now full well how wrong a weather forecast can be. The bay was, however, as predicted: calm with little wind. A few miles into our trip I put in ear plugs and took a peek in the engine room, just to make sure that there was no more water. Well, there was a bit. I climbed down to give a closer inspection, and found that there was a drip coming from one of the raw water hoses. Roy went below to investigate, and decided that he could make an emergency repair by simply adding an additional clamp. He did that, and the dripping stopped! Later, at anchor, he was able to replace the piece of hose that seemed to be causing the problem.

 

We made our way to one of our favorite anchorages from last fall. On our way in we bought fuel at a pretty reasonable price (how our standards have lowered on that score!), and then spent a quiet, calm evening surrounded by lovely houses in a small cove.

 

The next day was calm. Eerily so – and there was a lot of haze, which made visibility only moderate, but it wasn’t any kind of a problem. The only problem we had was with the vast numbers of fishing boats. We have NEVER seen so many, and they were trolling back and forth, slowly, and often crossing our path, or at least nearby. It was almost as bad as dodging crab pots, except at least crab pots don’t move! We had been told when we’d fueled up that there was to be a big fishing tournament on the weekend, and we figured that was the reason for all these guys being out. We finally altered our course to try to avoid being in the areas where they were concentrated, and were fairly successful at doing so.

 

We decided to try a new anchorage that night, and found it to be a gem. Quiet, well-protected, and lovely surroundings. Come to think of it, that seems to be the case with most of the anchorages we’ve used on the Chesapeake. And we’re often the only ones in a given anchorage, as we were in this case. It’s no secret why the Chesapeake is known for great boating!

 

There were a couple of local boats coming and going past where we were anchored, and one had a couple of kids on the bow. As they approached, Roy was in the cockpit, and they shouted as they motored past, “Hi, Mr. Mer Sea!!” Cute.

 

The next day we headed over to Chestertown, one of our favorite stops last fall. One piece of business we knew we needed to take care of upon arrival was a pump-out. We’d been at anchor for a few days, and our holding tank was ready! When I radioed the marina as we closed in, they told us we could pump out right at our slip, so that was good news. We got Mer Sea into the slip handily, and Roy started getting the pump out apparatus ready.

 

Pumping out isn’t the most romantic aspect of living on a boat, but it is a fact of life, and it’s always better to do it when you can. In order to monitor the progress of the pumping, I go to the head, stick my head into the bilge compartment, hold a flashlight up to the translucent tank, and watch the “stuff” exit. Sometimes a marina will be having trouble with their system, and I can then say that, no, nothing’s moving. I can also see the top of our tank, and when it’s empty, and I see the tank start to pull inward, it’s time to tell the boys to STOP! In this case, in Chestertown, I stuck my head in the bilge compartment, heard and saw lots of activity, but when I looked at the top of our tank, it wasn’t collapsing, it was BALLOONING! Wait a minute – they’re blowing stuff INTO our tank!!! STOP!!!!!!

 

Yikes! What a potential disaster!!! Thank God I was watching – can you even begin to imagine the mess?? First the toilet, then the holding tank itself, I’m willing to bet…Need I say more? Fortunately, we had minimal mess, and were finally able to effect a proper pump-OUT (the operative part of that word!). Once again, our luck held. Merci to whoever’s in charge up there!!

 

We recovered from that adrenaline rush, got Mer Sea cleaned up (I don’t think she’s ever been so filthy, what with all the seas crashing over her and several days out of port) and headed out to enjoy Chestertown a bit. It truly is one of the most charming small towns we’ve visited. We had a great dinner at a restaurant we’d discovered last fall, and slept the sleep of the just.

 

The next day we planned to head over to Rock Hall, another favorite little town. We expected to enjoy it even more now that we have bikes to explore with. Because the forecast was for a Small Craft Advisory from 10:00 AM on, we planned to leave early so that we could be in and out of the small part of the bay we’d have to go through before things started picking up out there. We were able to accomplish exactly that, and arrived in Rock Hall unscathed, in calm seas.

 

We had a nice couple of days in Rock Hall, rode our bikes all over creation, found ourselves in the midst of a “bike fest” (the motorized kind) which was accompanied by lots of loud music and, of course, loud bikes, and managed to survive it all!

 

On our way in to Baltimore, a couple of days later, we stopped and had Mer Sea hauled so that her bottom could be cleaned and her zincs changed. We’re now in Baltimore, having a wonderful time with many old singing friends at a festive weekend, and looking forward to a short trip to the Chester River to see my parents and a dear old family friend. We’ll then visit our son and daughter-in-law in the Cayman Islands for a week, and resume the Great Loop at the end of the month. Keep your eye on our float plan page for the latest.