Besting Chtulhu

It has been my experience that seasoned sailors address their difficult first passages in rough weather with practiced nonchalance.  Certainly there are those that found themselves in ten foot seas and felt no adrenal spike, and those who felt it and enjoyed it.  I find myself wishing that those experienced sailors I talk to would say, "We were in 30 foot seas in a 30 foot boat, and I was terrified."  Fear does not have to incapacitate us; I think often I am most effective when motivated by pure survival instinct.  Perhaps on some level to acknowledge fear is to give it leave to take root inside us, or perhaps that silence is motivated by machismo and shame.  Whatever the reason, I'd like to come out to anyone who aspires to venture outside of their comfort zone but is afraid:  the ocean scares me.

When preparing for our trip I was asked, "Aren't you afraid?"  And I could honestly answer, "no, but I'm sure I will be."  Having very little experience on the water I had a hard time imagining scary scenarios outside of some abstract vision of Cthulhu pulling a wooden ship down into the deep.  But, I knew that with knowledge and experience would also come concrete and rational fears.  I knew I would find myself in a situation that I felt was beyond my control*, and I knew that I would be scared.  

And sure enough!  Our second day out we motored out of the Vortex of Doom and into 8 foot seas, having missed the small craft advisory in the weather report (it's easy to miss it if you fail to check the weather).  I grappled with sail changes, navigation and skippering the boat while in a situation completely out of my frame of reference.  Then there was leaving the Moriches Inlet - the 7th Deadliest Inlet in the USA (hardy har har) - with 8 foot swells breaking over our bow and 2 feet of water below the hull.  Then there was night sailing.  Then the tornado-warning-thunderstorm.  Then too much wind.  Basically, I've spent a good 50 percent of our time out here being pretty scared.  I trust The Captain, and my ability to deal wtih dicey situations has increased considerably, but on some level the ocean is still f$%#ing terrifying.  

I don't want it believed that this has been a horrible death march of misery, because even in the midst of the scariest moments (excepting that thunderstorm.  that thunderstorm can go f#$% itself) I thought, truly, there is nowhere I'd rather be.  Sometimes going back out after a rough day is hard, but we still do it, and we still make it back to port that night.  Sometimes we take a break and get off the boat for a couple days.  Sometimes I might blubber a bit.  But that's just part of what makes it awesome.  

Yet, two nights ago, after a pretty windy sail on a tight haul from Charleston to wherever we ended up, I realized I'm sort of tired of being afraid.  No, of course it's not that easy, but on the other hand, it sort of is.  To some extent I can't change the situation.  I can't simply will the ocean and weather to give us 2 foot seas and 12 knot winds out of the North every day.  Sometimes, and it's pretty frequent at this time of year, we'll get southwest wind that kicks up to 25 knots in the afternoon, and 5 foot seas.  Pretty much every day there is a chance of thunderstorms.  I can't control these things, but I can control how I deal with them.  Easy enough in theory.

So yesterday, we set out from wherever we anchored that night (I honestly can't be bothered to look it up, but it was gorgeous and we were just off a sandy beach and we had a wonderful, still, restful night) and we had a really, really great day.  Again the winds came from the southwest and picked up to 20 knots in the afternoon, and the seas were 3-5 feet.  Remember what I said about our wet boat?  We were soaked for 10 hours yesterday with spray off the boat.  Soaked.  All of our windows are leaking, and everything in the cabin is soaked.  Our dinghy filled with water and had to be flipped over while the autopilot kept us on course at 7 knots. Due to the wind direction we were hard up for headway and ended up travelling 60 miles to go 30.

In the afternoon, after we'd put two reefs in the main sail, pulled down the jib, then decided to put up the storm jib when we couldn't hold a course with no jib, we sailed through a storm.  I was cursing and wrestling with the storm jib in building winds and seas when Cody called up to me, "Hey, Mar, when you get that on, just secure it and come on back.  We'll wait to raise it."  I looked ahead and saw the dark clouds and hollared, "WHY?" somewhat irritated that I'd been struggling up there for nothing, and knowing full well why he didn't wantto to raise the jib, but wanting to hear him say it.  "Because we're going to go through a little storm," he hollared back.  Yes, I knew that.  After finishing my struggle with the storm jib I headed back to the cockpit, fastened safety lines to the rails and clipped us both onto the boat.

To add to the conditions, we'd decided to skirt inside the Great Northern Shoal (it sounds so dramatic!) and hope to cross at the only deep channel - 8 feet at low tide instead of 1.  As it grows shallower the waves tend to build a bit because the water gets pushed up by the ocean bottom (as I understand it, I really have a very poor grasp of wave science).  If it gets shallow enough they break.  A 4 foot breaker in 3 feet of water leaves us high and dry.  I take comfort in knowing that if we run aground I can basically touch, and the beach is but 50 feet away.  Anyway.

We caught the edge of the storm as we skirted the shoaling area.  The wind didn't behave as we expected, becoming undefined and somewhat weaker, not favoring any one direction.  It rained, heavily at times, but we were already soaked so that didn't matter so much.  The worst part was that the air temperature dropped about twenty degrees and we were shivering and wishing we'd dug out our four wather gear.

We emerged from the storm into the sunshine as we had to begin serious navigation of a very narrow channel.

Side note:  we use NOAA or Maptech charts, which aren't updated every year.  Sand bars tend to move a lot in rough weather.  Hurricanes can create new inlets and completely reshape the landscape, and it doesn't even take weather that severe.  In Essex Bay we've seen Cranes Beach be gradually pulled into the water and make navigation on anything bigger than a kayak tricky during low tide.  Just in the time I've been sailing in there it's changed dramatically.

What's my point?  We can be in water that the chart says is 20 feet deep and run aground.  Which we did!  We generally just try to read the water and avoid the places you can see breakers or irregular wave patterns, but we were sticking to the chart and, just as Cody said it was looking shallow, we hit our rudder.  Okay, we've been through the rudder drill before, no big deal.  Sail out, steer with the motor (we were motorsailing at the time), stay away from the breakers.  We made it over the shoal and into the refreshingly deep channel leading to Port Royal Sound.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we had a challenging day with potentially frightening moments and we, and most particularly I, were/was smiling and joking the whole day.  It was an incredibly good feeling, and situations out of my control magically feel more in control when I choose my own approach.  I'm also beginning to trust my judgment for knowing when Tri-oomph is sailing fine and when it's time to make changes like sail reductions. So cheers!  To taking control of our fate, and still thinking the ocean is full of monsters.

*Beyond my control based on my knowledge and experience, but in all likelihood not beyond The Captain, who has spent his life on the water.  

Raising sail before a lovely and challenging day on the water.

After the storm. I'm not actually as miserable as I look. But exactly as indignified as a cat in a bath.