November 2008, Part 1: Cape May

You could say that November 2008 was in interesting month, on our calendar at least. But we did not know that when we set out.

We finally had the right weather window to leave Martha’s Vineyard, so we dropped our mooring and left the anchorage on a cool, blustery day, picking up the tide as we sailed down the eastern side of the island and towards Cape May. Winds eased then built again as we travelled, and we found ourselves preparing to enter the channel with reefed main and furled jib on a windy, grey day. Even the waters looked grey.

We sailed in as a coast guard cutter was leaving, keeping well to the right of the channel to allow it to pass before we tried to find a space in the many sport fishing boats cruising through to cross to the anchorage.

There were more boats there than we had anticipated, and manoeuvring was not as easy as normal with the mainsail reefed, but we dropped anchor on the inside of the other boats there, and then for safety we dropped another. The night passed without incident, and many of the other boats left come morning. We sat tight, waiting for the bad weather we knew was coming.

The day was spent as it often is, doing a bit of mending this and fixing that. The first night would be quiet, so we picked our second anchor up and swung gently to the first through the night. As the wind picked up the next day we dropped it again. Initial weather reports predicted no more than 30 knots, so we were watchful but not anxious.

As the day passed the wind built. A couple of other boats that had been anchored moved in to marinas. By the time we knew that the winds would be closer to 40 or 50 knots there were only three of us in the anchorage.

Late in the afternoon we noticed another boat moving, and hailed him on the radio. He re-anchored further out. We stayed put - for a while. Darkness was falling when we found ourselves moving too - towards the rocks between the two old jetties off the coast guard facility.

We scrambled. Foul weather gear pulled on but not done up, I worked the jib, trying to keep us off the rocks. Richard on the bow tried to get the anchors up. He got one up; the remaining one was still holding us every time we tried to move away from the rocks, and dragging every time we were pulled around toward them. The anchor was almost off the bottom when we found ourselves too close to be able to sail off.

With the keel rubbing the rocks on the bottom, Richard grabbed the ... pole and held the stern off the rocks. Inside on the radio I could hear every time we touched. I talked to the coast guard - they talked to us, seemingly with no sense of the urgency we felt. All we wanted or needed was to get off those rocks - where we would go after that was something we didn’t have time to consider.

The coast guard and I worked our way through the script - how many on board, any children, any health problems, did we have life jackets on, were we taking on water. Not yet, I said. The boat we had talked to earlier came on to plead our case for immediate help. The coast guard announced that they would have a team there in ten minutes. Then they announced that of course they would be there to help us, but were not allowed to help pull our boat off the rocks. In desperation, I called SeaTow.

It took what felt like forever for them to get there. In the meantime someone on the road that passed right by us asked if we had called in. Shortly after that three young coast guard men arrived, shone a bright light on us, and assessed our situation. One, in the water, checked for visible damage. Then, to our great relief, he came on board and helped Richard hold the boat off the rocks while I stayed at the radio. That act of kindness certainly helped us that night. After that it was a matter of listening to the keel bump and waiting for SeaTow.

The young men on SeaTow wasted no time once they got there. We clipped a line to our anchor chain, and in short order we were moving off the rocks. What a relief. Then it was time to figure out where to go. The wind was gusting at at least 40 knots, it was dark, we and the inside of the boat were rain-soaked. We needed a marina, but had no clue where we could be towed in to. We told them the situation, and left the final decision about where to go up to them.

They towed us away from the anchorage through a bridge and to a dock we could barely see. Then they spent long minutes trying to wrestle our boat to the dock against wind and tide. By the time they were done we had six lines tied to different points. Then it was time to sign papers, arrange payment and try to find a way to sleep. The next day it would be time to actually see where we were.

The wind was still blowing the next morning, pushing the boat hard away from the dock. The dock was part of a small and friendly marina, Two Mile Landing, off a quiet channel, which happened to have space. It was officially closed for renovations, but we were able to stay and, even more important, we were able to plug in and use our electric heater to try and dry ourselves and our clothes and our boat out. And there we stayed for another day.

When it was time to leave we decided it would be prudent to take another tow to get past the bridge, which we could now see was narrow. We arranged a tow for slack, and left the next day to take advantage of the next weather window. Our destination, so far as we could decide on a destination when sailing, was Chesapeake. There we might be able to make more progress with the boat engine - nothing for it in Cape May - and also meet one of the couples from the Cruiseheimer’s Net.

A digression: The Cruiseheimer’s Net is a morning net which unites cruisers up and down the east coast and beyond. As well as friendly greetings, useful bits of news and friendly announcements, this group helped us as much as they could with advice and ideas. You can find them on SSB radio at 08:30 US Eastern time, on 6.227.0 USB during the winter and 8.152.0 USB during the summer.