First Post: Going to Sea

Living Big on a Little Boat

As the end of my first major sailing voyage approaches, I finally feel qualified enough to make my first blog post. I have always been of the opinion that in order to write, one must first do things worth writing about. While I cannot claim to have broken any new ground with my experiences, I hope the reader will find them interesting enough to follow along.

I left Pascagoula Mississippi on February 6^th, bound for Key West, 472 nautical miles across the Gulf of Mexico (America?) aboard my 28’ sailboat Persimmon. I budgeted 10 days for the operation, naively believing that 100 mile days would be the norm, and allowed 5 additional days to cover any spells of bad weather. 30 days and over 700 sea-miles later I dropped anchor in the the old seaplane basin north of Key West Naval Air Station. While I made a few vaunted 100 mile days, the bulk of my time was spent sitting out gales, (common this time of year) awaiting favorable winds (correspondingly uncommon), and taking time to explore the little anchorages along the way. The resulting trip was more than I could have ever planned for, and left me much improved as a sailor.

What follows is a vignette which should give the reader some idea of the flavor of this blog, as well as give a window into the little occurrences which color my everyday life.

The musician:

The sails hung limp, rubbing occasionally on the rigging as the mast swayed with the rapidly diminishing waves. The sun was setting on my first day at sea, and the time had come to find a place to spend the night. I kicked on the engine and steered away from the shipping channel which cut a narrow gap between the shallows of dolphin island and the marshes of Grand Bay. The anchor slipped into the water with hardly a splash, and the rattle of chain gave way to the lapping of little wavelets against the hull. A heavy fog set in with the fading twilight and the world around shrunk ‘till its boundaries did not reach beyond the projections of the cabin light through the portholes into the gloom. I wondered whether I was anchored too close to the channel, as before my departure a sailor told me of a tugboat running over a sailboat in the night, killing all aboard. The anchor light seemed pitifully dim, and the radar reflector but a piece of foam and foil, and the sound of condensation dripping onto the deck seemed determined to remind me of my vulnerability. After supper I removed my banjo from its case and spent an hour or so filling the little cabin with warm sound, before I turned in for a fitful sleep.

I woke a few hours later to a rhythmic scratching noise, like a bird rooting for grubs in a pile of dry leaves. I made a loud knock on my bunk and the noise paused briefly before recommencing, confirming my suspicion that the source was aboard and alive. Another noise joined the first, was that… a twang? I switched on the light and discovered the culprit: tucked under the strings of my banjo was a small crab, not more than 2” long. Whether he had stowed away in Pascagoula or climbed up the anchor rode could not be known, but as Captain of the ship I could not abide such musical interludes while the crew was sleeping. I convened a court-martial, found him in violation of the articles of the ship, and promptly threw him overboard. Justice done, I slept soundly until morning.

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