Chesapeake Bay is replete with thunderstorms. This was evident from the first time Charlotte and I cruised the bay over thirty years ago. We, or I should say I chartered a rotten little sailboat. It did not even have a compass. Lucky for us I had my Silva hiking compass, which I taped to the deck. This was in the days before GPS, so a magnetic compass was essential for navigation.
Amongst other issues, the boat had as many leaks as it had containers. If remembered correctly, it was thirteen. Each day brought a new anchorage or marina, and each late afternoon a new thunderstorm. All day the billowing clouds would coalesce into towering thunderheads, and then expend their energy in a tumultuous twenty minutes. Somehow, we were fortunate to be either in a marina or tucked into a secure anchorage before the outburst, and so, if a little nervous, enjoyed the show.
The bay has been our home for 7 weeks and the thunderstorm count kept climbing. Several nasty ones had been successfully negotiated at anchor, and a few others while Carrie Rose was tied to various docks. Two formidable looking storms never materialized. Mammoth black clouds blotted out the sun and filled the air with rolling thunder. But then, when about to descend into wind, waves, and fury turned away and dissipated.
It is impossible to predict this, so if anchored more chain is let out; if at a dock more lines and fenders are added, laundry taken in, windows closed, etc., etc. The extra chain in the water provides more weight and helps the anchor lay flatter, and thus it is less likely for the wind and the waves to pull it out of the bay’s mud.
Carrie Rose has had a few ailments this year. The first week of our cruise, the batteries we rely on for house functions decided to die. They were new in 2008 and so we came back to the marina to have two new ones installed. We went out again, much further this time to where Maryland changes into Virginia. The heat was relentless and while transiting from one point to another, usually over 40 nautical miles, the generator ran to power the air conditioner. Then I noticed the batteries were being overcharged.
If you are not interested in batteries, please skip the next couple of paragraphs. Carrie Rose has AGM batteries. AGM stands for absorbed glass mat. I am old enough to remember pouring distilled water into the car’s battery; well this is not necessary in AGMs. The trade off is that they need to be recharged slowly at low voltage not to boil off the water absorbed in the fiberglass mats. To cut to the short of it, if the charging voltage is too high then the batteries are toast, literately. What to do?
We were in Solomons, Maryland, a yachty place if I have ever seen one but no one responded to my calls for help. Our home base, Island View Marina, was another 43 NM north. We left early and made it back to our home slip by two in the afternoon. Other than Mike and his stressed out dog camped out on a large damaged powerboat, we are the only ones living on a boat. It is quiet during the week and not much more active on the weekends.
The sunsets across Crab Alley Lane, the small body of water we are floating on, have a nice crimson hue to them. On our second day back Charlotte noticed the sky darkening to the NW. The radar app showed yellow blobs with bright red centers cutting diagonally across Crab Alley. I tried to ignore it then realized the futility of this approach and got off my rear and tightened the dock lines, rolled up the sunscreen, took in the deck chairs and started a storm vigil.
As predicted, the sky turned many shade of gray with the approach of a long sausage shaped cloud. The ragged ripped apart low level clouds contrasted nicely with those above. A few raindrops appeared on the water and the wind died. This is not a good sign. Then the trees across the creek started to gyrate. The gust ruffled the surface of the water and Carrie Rose responded with taut bowlines.
The wind steadied her at first until the waves began to build, then she started to hobbyhorse in the whitecaps. The rapidity with which wave size can increase in response to the wind is sobering, from flat calm to racing whitecaps in minutes. On a large body of water like Lake Michigan, waves can go from nonexistent to six to eight feet in moments but here on this little creek off the Eastern Bay it is not as dramatic.
Once the wind passed the rain began, torrents of water obscured the far side of the creek. The rain came down with such force that the environment, including Carrie Rose, was scrubbed clean. When the storm finally moved on the air was crisp and the sky crystal blue.
We emerged from the pilothouse and marveled at the change. I got the squeegee and the chamois out of the aft dock box, and cleaned the windows and dried the boat. The air conditioner was silenced and the windows were opened. We relished the moment for we knew it would not last.
No comments:
Post a Comment