40 Knots

Twice now, in the space of a week we have had storms gusting to 40 knots. The first one already alluded to happened suddenly at three in the morning. The second is happening as I type and mercifully is from the south.

Northerly storms, especially 40-knot winds from the north are not advantageous for this marina. I’d say they are down right dangerous. It was lucky there were no calamities considering the dark and the number of poorly secured boats.

The lack of drama was due to the diligence of the marina staff. Aware of some of their clientele’s shortcomings, they were on the docks with wheel barrels of dock lines, going boat to boat retying and adding lines as needed. I passed muster or so I thought. For an old man I have been sleeping well here. But at three AM, my semi-circular canals woke me up to a rollicking pitch-black scene reminiscent of trips through the Manitou Passage on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. Except here were standing still and not moving at 8 knots.

A huddled figure in orange was working his way flashlight in hand up the dock. A dock that even though it lies a few feet from my dry vantage point in the pilothouse seemed a mile away. The couple in the small sailboat next to me was quickly preparing to abandon ship with their mop of a dog standing guard.

The huddle figure turned out to be Dan, the marina’s owner. He appeared at my door and in a voice loud enough to be heard above the gale and clatter of halyards clanging against aluminum mast informed me he moved CR back a foot so the anchor would not hit the dock. Hit the dock! The anchor is five feet from the water, so we were in 4 to 5 footers while sitting in the marina.

Inspecting the gyrating docks from my roost, I made an executive decision to stay put. I am not as spry as I use to be and I had secured CR well before the blow but I grabbed my Surefire flashlight to survey the scene. Its high beam cut through the fog and the horizontal rain. Everything appeared intact. I went to bed. I might have stayed awake but those same semi-circular canals that woke me were now working on overdrive and I began to feel the queasy, greasy, unsettling feeling of bile in the back of my throat.

Down I went and fell asleep. A sleep, if it can be called that, with one ear listening carefully for changes in the amplitude of the chaos just outside the few centimeters of fiberglass that separates me from the bottom of Lake Champlain. My unconscious must have deemed the rest of that dark morning safe for I woke to the cold clear blue skies of a northern front.

The wind still had its hackles up and the boats continued to shimmy. Daylight makes even a dire situation (and this was not one) look better so, I started to contemplate breakfast. First though I gave my surrounding a second look. The sailboat to my south had the oddest mixture of lines that I have seen in years. Including the lines that the marina staff had place there were probably eight. There were long lines and short lines; there were thick and thin ones; there were what looked like clotheslines and braided lines that could have held a 60 footer in place; and there was one bright yellow three stranded line.

You know the type: they float, cannot hold a knot, and deteriorate in the sun. If any rope is not suitable, even in pristine shape, for a dock line this is it. To add to the insult the cleat was packed with the remnant of it where it must have broke off before, so the line’s loop was looped over this mess.

Trying not to be pushy when my feet became tangled in the extra ten feet of it cluttering the dock, I mentioned that basically this was a piece of sh-t and it might be wise to change it. I got what I can only describe as a clueless smile back from the diligent young man who was scrubbing the boat.

So, now looking from my safe haven, still in my bed cloths I saw two of its three strands lying in the lake. Here was the stern of a 30’ Morgan held in place by one taut thin unraveling strand. Okay I thought breakfast would have to wait. I dressed, climbed out back (it was forty degrees), retrieved a dock line, and tied off their boat. It was the only neighborly thing to do.

There is a silver lining to this story. Through the ministrations of several of the staff, the boat is now well secured to the dock. There still is an odd mixture of lines, sans the yellow one, and the spring lines are oddly placed but we all had to learn. As I sit here bobbing to the gusty southern wind I think of all the foibles I made in the past and the many more I will make in the future. And I hope that two 40-knot storms in a week will qualify as this summer’s cruise quotient of nasty weather. I will get back to you on that one…