Nov 14-15
We woke up to a much calmer day – but couldn’t see anything. Thick fog had come in. We got everything ready to go, thinkig it would break up as the sun grew higher, but no. So we did the next best thing and went to the local coffee place for a latte! The fog seemed to clear and return a few times. Then around 10:30 it had lifted – or so we thought. Off we went thinking we could still make our destination – Surf City! All was going well and then we started to get that sinking-into-the-fog feeling. There were a few other boats around and we could use each other as reference points. Then the others turned off the waterway. Rats! By now we could not see the next channel markers and the channel here is really narrow. Shirley and I got busy on making sure we stayed safe in the channel. She began measuring bearings from the chart and giving them to me at the helm - she even put her glasses on (see picture). I was working hard at trying to make my pupils bigger so that I could take in whatever there was to see ahead. After a stressful time of this “blind navigation” the fog actually started to lift for real and the rest of the journey was a relief. Good thing we took those navigation courses! Luckily this is not a section of the waterway that is used by ships. Although we did have to travel through a marine corps base where they conduct live firing. We heard on the VHF radio that they were holding off until the fog lifted. I guess firing live amo into an area you can’t see is deemed to be a hazard.
By late afternoon we docked in at Surf City. We spent the whole next day there exploring the beach. The really high winds made for some spectacular waves. And being Surf City we were treated to a large group of surfers doing their thing. The weather was in the mid 70s so hanging out on the beach seemed to be the right thing to do.
We woke up to a much calmer day – but couldn’t see anything. Thick fog had come in. We got everything ready to go, thinkig it would break up as the sun grew higher, but no. So we did the next best thing and went to the local coffee place for a latte! The fog seemed to clear and return a few times. Then around 10:30 it had lifted – or so we thought. Off we went thinking we could still make our destination – Surf City! All was going well and then we started to get that sinking-into-the-fog feeling. There were a few other boats around and we could use each other as reference points. Then the others turned off the waterway. Rats! By now we could not see the next channel markers and the channel here is really narrow. Shirley and I got busy on making sure we stayed safe in the channel. She began measuring bearings from the chart and giving them to me at the helm - she even put her glasses on (see picture). I was working hard at trying to make my pupils bigger so that I could take in whatever there was to see ahead. After a stressful time of this “blind navigation” the fog actually started to lift for real and the rest of the journey was a relief. Good thing we took those navigation courses! Luckily this is not a section of the waterway that is used by ships. Although we did have to travel through a marine corps base where they conduct live firing. We heard on the VHF radio that they were holding off until the fog lifted. I guess firing live amo into an area you can’t see is deemed to be a hazard.
By late afternoon we docked in at Surf City. We spent the whole next day there exploring the beach. The really high winds made for some spectacular waves. And being Surf City we were treated to a large group of surfers doing their thing. The weather was in the mid 70s so hanging out on the beach seemed to be the right thing to do.
1 comment:
Your spot at the Santa Claus parade on Broadway was vacant on Saturday. It was raining pretty hard - lots of vacant spaces. It only took me a moment to recall that you were elsewhere. A month or two ago, I got the Jock Tulloch message. Small world.
Looks like you're still having fun. 10+ cm of snow here on the weekend. Yikes!
Willie Brown
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