Day 279, Year 7: The Dilemma of Weather and Currents
Date: Monday, August 13, 2012
Weather: Partly Sunny
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The weather can drive you crazy when you are not a sailor, but when you are
a sailor, it can drive you totally insane. We’re trying to plan a sailing
trip the latter part of this week with our friends Alan and Helaine
Kanegsberg from New Hampshire. They and we don’t care where we go as long
as we can sail, but that is not as easy as it might appear. The currents
rule in this particular little corner of the earth, so even when winds and
weather are favorable, often the current is against you and you can’t easily
get to where you want to go. And then there is the fact that the weather is
constantly changing. A couple of days ago the forecast was for less than
five knots of wind on Thursday and Friday. Now the forecast is for a little
more wind, but from a different direction. Tonight, Sunday looks like the
sailing day if you were coming back to Woods Hole from Nantucket BUT the
current wouldn’t be with you until after 2 pm. We talked to Alan and
Helaine tonight and tentatively set Wednesday as their arrival date. But if
the weather forecast stays the same, Wednesday and Thursday could be rainy.
I know Alan and Helaine are reading this log, so I’ll just add that in my
thinking, we wait until Tuesday morning, check the weather, and make the
decision about WHEN we will sail at that point. Then when Alan and Helaine
arrive here, we’ll make the WHERE decision.. This all reminds me of the
days and days of planning meetings when we were trying to find the ‘just
right’ time to leave Tonga for New Zealand. They sold a t-shirt in Tonga
with a picture of a porthole and around it was written ‘Weather Window.’
Sailors are always looking for those perfect weather windows when sailing is
good. We’ll just have to hope that we get one later this week.
Mark made a little road trip to the other side of Buzzard’s Bay this morning
to take our Balmar alternator in for a little repair. The positive post
broke off and needed to be drilled out and replaced. He took it to a little
shop in Mattapoisett and the service was excellent. He got back and had it
reinstalled by early afternoon. On Monday morning, Heather takes the boys
to school and is then on the air by 9:30 am. Jed stays home with Oliver and
then brings him to Woods Hole for an 11 am feeding. He hands Oliver over to
Heather and he goes to work. Then I take Oliver for the next hour or so
until it is time to go pick up the boys. This morning that plan went
pear-shaped. Jed was driving Heather’s sixteen year-old Honda to Woods Hole
and about half-way here, the car just stopped. When Jed looked at the gas
gauge, it was on empty, but he had just filled the tank a couple of days ago
and hadn’t driven the car since. He was able to push the car off the road
and call the tow truck, but they wouldn’t tow it until the fire department
came and deemed the car safe as there was an obvious fuel leak. Oliver lost
it during all of this and Jed had to call Heather to come get him. She then
had to come back to Woods Hole to finish a few things at work while I took
care of Oliver. Jed stayed until the car was towed home and he headed to
work when we got home with the van. What a morning! The car will have to
be dealt with later as Heather and Jed are headed to Maine tomorrow. So
that was our excitement for this Monday.
