[Public-List] Last, last Misery Trip of 2011

[PIM VAN DER TOORN]

Thanks Gord, a great read, it's like i was there! oh wait....I was!
 
I'll just add that the daytime high on Saturday was 9c/48f and on Sunday 3c/37f before any windchill factor, and there was plenty of wind. It was true Misery Cruise weather and the best sail of the season for me.
Gord's mention of the uncharted-yet-massively-visible navigation aid reminded me that as we approached this particularly nasty, shoal-laden stretch of the Bay we had a snow squall off our port quarter that continually threatened to overtake us - advance guard snowflakes streaked horizontally through the cockpit - visibility would have been reduced significantly, it had completely obscured the shoreline in that direction. It being my boat, and Gord being the Navigator (he bills himself too humbly as "simple crewperson"), I'm sure he would have encouraged a DR through the hazards had the squall caught us. And being half-frozen and eager to get somewhere warm I might have acquiesced!  I'm glad it eventually passed astern.
Can't wait until spring.
Pim 


________________________________
From: Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net>
To: Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all <public-list at lists.alberg30.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 10:14:12 PM
Subject: [Public-List] Last, last Misery Trip of 2011

Friends,

I will start this by pointing out that I know how irregular it is for a
simple crewperson to assume the responsibility of writing up a ship¹s log.
I was not in command on the Last, Last Misery Trip of 2011.  The
owner/skipper of the yacht we made the trip aboard was ­ yes, I¹m referring
to the owner of WINDWARD.

It occurs to me to be kind to him;  after all he was served SURPRISE well on
many occasions, usually in terrible weather because I rarely remembered to
invite him sailing until after the end of September.  Furthermore, he was
one of the leading men weilding hammer and saw after the call went out for
the barn-raising bee that threw the building up over TOUCH WOOD.  And he
came back repeatadly both to touch up the building, and to work on TW
herself.  Only three days ago he was working beside me cutting out and
fitting her decks (what a morale-boosting moment that was, seeing her bare
bones covered again at last).  Yes, I should be kind to him.  But for one
thing.  I threatened that if he didn¹t write to you about the Last, Last
Misery Trip.... I would.    So here I am.  There was a time when a shipmate
could throw a fair challenge down before a shipmate, and expect that
challenge to be taken up.  Well looked upon in that manner, what choice have
I but to assume that the challenge was thrown back to me.  Aye, I¹ll take it
up.  So here we go.

This fall, after much toiing and froing, Pim, WINDWARD¹s owner/skipper, and
I settled upon a date for the Last, Last Misery Trip of 2011.  For a time
it appeared that it would be possible for WINDWARD and SURPRISE to meet in
the cold Canadian autumn but something made me organize a business trip to
southern California, consequently I had to have SURPRISE hauled out early
this year so I wouldn¹t be distracted from what I was accidentally seeing on
the beaches around San Diego and Los Angeles by worrying about SURPRISE
freezing something off and sinking on me.

Also for a time, it appeared that WINDWARD¹s co-owner/skipper, Pim¹s brother
in law John, was going to join us, but somehow at the last moment he had to
do something like trim a hedge or winterize his lawnmower and he couldn¹t
come.  We reckoned that two might not be enough for a crew so I fell to
casting about for a scratch third to join the expedition on short notice.
Our friend Jon was snapped up like a fresh trout with the lure of Guinness
beer obscuring the reality of what he was really volunteering for.

It was important to apply subterfuge for a very good reason.  Earlier Misery
Trips the three of us had done on various occasions aboard SURPRISE had all
begun and ended in the balmy southern reaches of Georgian Bay in 44 degrees
north latitude.  WINDWARD makes her home in the port of Parry Sound, many
tenths of a degree north of us ­ much much closer to the pole, polar bears
and other indications of late season misery.  By the time Jon clewed in to
the peril he was locked onto, it was too late to back out because I
volunteered to drive him in my car.

So, on a Friday evening we bid farewell to our families and drove north on
Highway 400... Called by some the Highway of Adventure due to the fact that
it skirts one of the finest cruising coasts in the world.  We set and made
a rendezvous at Wellington¹s Pub in Parry Sound, where the comely waitresses
sling foaming jars of Kilkenny and Guinness beer and serve the best prime
rib between Toronto and Baffin Island.  As the prime rib, the beer and
whatever else I could get my hands on was sliding down my throat,  I noticed
a slight nervousness in our skipper.  (Pim, I did threaten that my version
of this story might cast you in a different light than you might prefer)
Clearly, he wanted to cast off lines and set sail for the Œoutside¹ as
sailors of our coast refer to The Void.  Thinking swiftly, I reckoned he¹d
cottoned onto my plan to stay in a hotel the first night and sail in the
morning rather than spend a night at the marina in an unheated Alberg 30
with the frigid air misted with the snoring breath of my companions.  Even
more urgently, I wished to avoid the horror of the morning visit to the
head, where the close confines of an A30¹s head compartment would create one
of the most fear fogs known to northern sailors.... I¹m referring to the
rising mist create by hot urine hitting a toilet bowl whose temperature is
just about freezing...a malignant mist that has no place to go but up into
it¹s creator¹s face.  Urgh.

We didn¹t go to a hotel.  We went back to the boat.  After much grumbling we
all turned in.  I slept well but I heard complaints in the morning about
snoring.  I can¹t imagine where that came from.

In the morning we were driven from our sleeping bags by the cold, each
braved the horrid rising mist, then set about preparing WINDWARD  for her
expedition.  Pim displayed admirable courage letting us drive into town to
have a hearty breakfast in a restaurant ­ I could have bolted and headed for
home and warm wife in a bed, but although the prospect was hard to resist i
stayed with the project and went back to WINDWARD.

Away we went Saturday morning, casting furtive glances at the Canadian Coast
Guard establishment at the entrance to the harbour half expecting (hoping?)
that an aggressively handled red vessel would come charging out and demand
where the heck we thought we were going this late in the season....it didn¹t
happen, alas.

We set a course across Parry Sound itself, heading for Killbear Point and
soon enough Red Rock came into sight.  Red Rock deserves some description.
It¹s huge, built like a Martello Tower (google it) surmounted by a
helicopter landing pad.  It¹s one of the great lighthouses of the Great
Lakes ­ visible for miles and a comfort to generations of anxious mariners.
Sadly for us it is preceded, on the course we were steering, by a derelict
lighthouse no longer considered a working aid to navigation, that for the
last twenty five odd years has panicked me as I tried to find this clearly
visible land mark on the chart.  Some day I will remember to mark it
manually so that next time I don¹t feel that clenching sphincter of Œmaybe
we¹re not were I think we are¹ fear that all sailors know at one time or
other, some more often than others.

Once well out of the Sound, we eased sheets somewhat and bore away for
Franklin Island.  Does that name sound familiar?  It should.  Franklin
Island was named in 1821 for Sir John Franklin, who in or about that year
passed through these waters on his way overland to the arctic looking for
the North West Passage on foot.  Yes, he had nearly two thousand miles to
walk and canoe before he got up there, but he gave it the old Royal Navy
try.  (google his name, you¹ll see what happened to him on his next try...)

Franklin Island, the name and the connotation chilled us as much as the
freezing rain that had begun to fall.  WINDWARD close reached at over 6
knots under working jib and full main, savaging the waves that were marching
in from the Outside past Red Rock, every second or third pitching up over us
in the form of freezing cold spray.  This wasn¹t a problem, however.
WINDWARD is equipped with a fine dodger and that sheltered us completely.
One of the features of this dodger is that it is made with circular
Œwindows¹ port and starboard.  Jon, sitting to leeward in complete ease,
commented that lounging there with all the discomfort missing him was like
sitting in an air liner looking out the port.

This saddened me.  I reflected on the decline my principals have made in the
past ten years.  There was a time when I despised fibre glass hulls,
standing headroom, inboard engines, wheel steering, aluminium spars, heads,
full length bunks with mattresses... And now here I was with all those
things with a dodger added in to make my comfort complete.  I opened my
jacket and stood up to face the reality of sailing in the fall in Georgian
Bay.... I didn¹t like it and sat down behind it again; trying to cope with
the secret coveting for one of these things for SURPRISE.

By mid afternoon we¹d reached up leaving Franklin to starboard and began the
all to familiar second guessing of the eye-ball navigator sailing in the
Thirty Thousand Islands.  The night before I¹d declared Œdon¹t worry Pim,
it¹ll be easy as pie.  We¹ll just reach up till Hannah Rock is abeam, turn
ninety degrees to starboard and run down into the apparently blind dead end
cove with waves breaking on rocks all around.  At the last minute the
channel leading south will appear and we¹ll slip in easy as pie.... We¹ll be
at anchor sipping Demerara Rum before you know it¹.    Well now here we were
in the reality of reaching at high speed in biggish waves past black rocks
being covered and uncovered with big waves.  Is that one Lowther Rock or
Hannah?  No, that one must be Hannah.  Are you sure?  It has to be.... We
all tried not to think too much about how often conversations like that must
have gone on just before shipwrecks...

We made our turn, and surfed down running into what always appears to be
certain disaster... But low and behold the channel appeared just when our
nerves were ready to break (ŒLet¹s go back and try the next cove¹ was I¹m
sure just on all our lips).  We dumped the sails and glided into the
absolute magic of one of the most secure anchorages I¹ve ever seen.  Gone
was the howling wind, grey waves and black rocks.  We ghosted in through
crystal clear water (yes those are house sized rocks sliding by beneath us)
with knarled jack pine trees and Georgian Bay Rock.  We went in through the
narrower narrows and into the pool at the end, there dropping two hooks.  My
cell phone caught a signal so I phoned Caroline to tell her we¹d got there
safely.  A good sailor herself, she¹d already been looking at the weather
radar on line and was able to confirm that the west wind was going to go
north by morning.  We put the second anchor to the north and sure enough
that¹s the one we were swinging by in the morning.

Pim served drinks all round and we toasted the end of the 2011 sailing
season.  We sat admiring the savage beauty of the rock and pine... Jon said
loudly ŒI want to see penguins¹.

It got cold that night, it rained, and for a time the wind howled, but we
were quite comfortable after our feast and story telling session.  In the
morning, Pim produced scrambled eggs with hot sausage and coffee ­
wonderful.  It was a shame to leave but after recovering our anchors we
glided out toward the tumoult.

The sail home was everything we hoped for.  The wind had enough north in it
that after we turned east below the southern end of Franklin we were still
reaching.  We dipped the rail occasionally but to put it simply we galloped
home to Sound Boatworks.  We stripped her rig for haul out, packed our gear
then drove home down to Midland.  I soaked in the bathtub for 45 minutes
before I fully thawed out.

What a terrific end to the 2011 sailing season ­ can¹t wait for spring.
Thanks Pim -  your WINDWARD is a great boat and I can¹t wait to try SURPRISE
out pacing her.

Gord  #426 Surprise



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