Abandoned... part 2: Running Aground

[continuation...]

Santa Barbara Harbor was less than 90 minutes away.  I searched my chart plotter for "Santa Barbara Guest Slips" which it found, but it refused to "guide to" and it refused to "route to" the only thing it would do is "go to" which steers a simple straight line between point A and B.  It did nothing to help me understand there was a fucking breakwater between those two points!  

Again, I was thoroughly exhausted, both mentally and physically.  I now have an alternate decision path with adjusted priorities, for if/when I find myself approaching that state.  I will also no longer undertake single-handed voyages over a certain length.  Live and learn... problem is, sometimes out on the water, staying alive isn't nearly as automatic as it is on land.

This time I was extremely lucky, this particular breakwater has about 150 yards of sandy beach, the autopilot drove straight to the middle of it.  75 yards to either side would've landed me on the rocks, my boat would've been destroyed and my dogs and I would've had to fight to survive.

I ran aground just before high tide.  SB Harbor Patrol tried but was unable to pull me off.  I called BoatUS, the closest was in Ventura. (Their office is connected to the work dock where we'd been staying for months, I knew all the guys that work there.)

They left me there to wait out the tide cycle, and arrived a couple of hours before the next high tide.  It was the sensible thing to do.  It was a light tide cycle, it only fluctuated by 2', yet another stroke of good luck. 

When the boat arrived we attached the bridle to stern cleats, established signals and and what to watch for, then they patiently applied as much force as my cleats would take without breaking.  Slowly but surely they inched me off the beach and towed me back towards the channel I should've taken.  No damage was apparent, though I'm pretty sure my antifouling bottom paint is scraped up.   Addendum: had diver swim the bottom, he said only the tip of the keel was scraped up, the rest of my anti-fouling paint is intact.

I got a guest slip and stayed for 13 days, very nice place, the most dog-friendly spot I've ever visited.  My dogs were welcomed by every business on the waterfront, including a very nice restaurant.  And the slip was reasonable too, only $33/day for the first 14 days.  Then it doubled for the next 14, but even that was cheaper than Ventura Isle ($92/day is pretty steep.)

Addendum: I have, over the last few months, relived the experience and my bad decisions, examined every aspect, extensively reevaluated my skill set and competence.  I must be able to recognize when I'm nearing a state of exhaustion, and must adjust my priorities to compensate for my aging capabilities.  Luck doesn't last forever.  I've tried very hard to learn as much as possible from my mistakes...

As for running aground, I need to try way harder to arrange for my first approaches to new harbors occur in daylight.  I'll never use the chart plotter's named POI's for autopilot destinations, must pick a point outside and negotiate the approach once I reach it.  And I must stop, analyze and backtrack any time the channel lights stop making sense.  I knew better, I knew what was at stake, yet I fucked up anyway.  If I can't think clearly enough to avoid that, I'll have to sell the boat and close off this era of my life, my last responsible act as a mariner, an explorer of the sea.

Addendum: My self-confidence was founded in countless outings and voyages, over decades with no incidents -- ever.  No boats lost, no injuries, no lapses of reason, no need to call for assistance, no situations that had completely escaped my ability to control, no responsibility that exceeded my endurance.  That confidence has taken a hit.... but it is still substantial  

I believe I've gained enough insight into my limits imposed by age, and adjusted my perspective accordingly, I believe I can still do this safely and expertly -- If I didn't I would hang it up now.  I may not be entirely objective, to give up sailing would pain me deeply.  But safety has been the prime concern of every single voyage I have taken.  If the captain loses confidence, the ship won't sail.

Abandoned ground tackle and other difficulties (part 1)

We set sail from Ventura to Santa Barbara because we had nowhere to stay.  The yard, having fixed the minor problem that forced me to turn back, kicked us off the work dock.  Of the three marinas offering guest slips only one had big enough slips available (the most expensive one, naturally) and we had used up the maximum days we were allowed to stay.

The app I used to find the guest slips in Ventura (dockwa or some such shit) indicated there were no guest slips in Santa Barbara, but that turned out to be incorrect, the marina there is municipal.  Such marinas don't tend to be represented well on the web.  Maybe I'll create another website with no income potential, to list them all... someday when I'm not so busy.

Based on this incomplete information my plan was to stay in the free anchorage off of Santa Barbara, and take the skiff to the beach to get supplies.  As plans go, this one was fucking weak!  Getting in and out through the breaking surf would've been unpleasant and dangerous.  Luckily we didn't make it that far into execution of that plan.

Right out of Ventura Harbor the seas were a little rough, 3-5' waves from two directions, predominantly almost perpendicular to our course.  This was my dogs' first experience in the ocean, we had been living on my sailboat in the marina, making quick trips within the harbor, they had even ridden in the skiff several times.  This was new, they were getting tossed by the boat rolling in the seas when they tried to walk.  They were trembling, which was heartbreaking.

We sat together and I reassured them, slowly they became less afraid, as long as I was near.  I couldn't tend to the sails properly, couldn't even get anything to drink, but it was only a 5-6 hour trip.

As soon as I saw boats anchored along the shoreline near Santa Barbara I headed for them, which was foolish, it was rougher there than it was underway.  Turned out that the north end of the anchorage, near the pier, would've been way more comfortable, much more protected, though not fully so.  I dropped my anchor and we tried to settle in, which was impossible as hard as we were being rolled.  

I got on the VHF and discovered there were indeed guest slips available!  All I had to do was smash the windlass foot switch to the deck, haul in the anchor and head for the comforts of [what we had been calling] home.  Unfortunately a problem with the anchor, left by the previous owner, complicated this plan.  I was aware of it, but had forgotten to do something about it.  Probably would've bought me a few more days on the yard's dock, but it slipped my mind.

The problem was some kind of bow roller mismatch/misconfiguration, there was nothing to guide the chain the way it was run.  It fell to the side and jammed about every 10 seconds.  I had been able to cobble past it in 15' of water a week earlier, I was now in over 30', the chain was too fucking heavy to man-handle.  I couldn't get the anchor up.  Fuck!

I worked on the god damn thing for 4.5 hours, let all of the chain and rope out to re-route it through a channel that would control it, and was big enough to pass both the rope and chain through, onto the windlass and down into the anchor locker.  And it was working, got all 100' of rope back onto the boat easily.  

Then I encountered another previous owner fuckup, that made me want to strangle him with his own tongue:  when you have a windlass the rope and chain are supposed to be spliced together, so the transition fits the windlass gypsies.  The idiot assholes joined them with a shackle, that jammed hard in the channel.  

Addendum: a skillful mariner on top of his game would've used the Makita angle grinder I had onboard to cut the shackle off, and used halyards to haul up enough slack chain to reave the bow roller and get it to the gypsy.  It took me a couple of months for this to occur to me, I was thinking it back over... a better solution was at hand. 

I felt like I was on top of my game 30 years ago, I taught intermediate sailing for 2 seasons.  One class we were going over anchoring, and the anchor got snagged in derelict ground tackle (in the then-free anchorage off of Shelter Island, San Diego Bay.)   Went through the range of tricks, finally got it free.  When I apologized for getting them back 45 mins late they all said it was the best class ever, watching me problem-solve vs a planned lesson. 

I'm working my way back nearer to the top of my game... it seemed more intuitive back then.  It now requires more disciplined thought processes.

By this point I was exhausted.  The shackle pin threads were frozen solid, I couldn't get them to budge.  Even if I could've broken them free I didn't have a practical plan to manage the weight so I could feed it through to the windlass.  To make matters worse I now had 300' of rode out, no longer anchored the same as the other boats in the anchorage.

Boats anchored with different amounts of scope swing across a different radius, so if they are near each other their anchor lines get wrapped around each other as the forces upon them change direction -- which is a huge mess!  When anchored in a bay the predominant force is typically the tidal currents as the tide cycles between high and low, 2+ times per day.  Sometimes the wind is predominant, pushing the anchored boats to point into the wind.  If all the boats swing across roughly the same arc they will all swing clear of each other.

If we had been in a bay, my logic would've been sound, prudence warranted.  But we were anchored off a beach head, waves crashing on the beach are predominant most of the time... but that wouldn't occur to me for several days.  So based on the information I had available, I decided the best course of action was to cut about $3500 worth of ground tackle loose, letting all of it sink to the bottom.

I thought I should be able to hire a diver to help me recover it, but that perception wasn't tightly bound to reality either.  Bad decision, I could've gotten a few hours sleep and waited for daylight, set an anchor drag alarm on my GPS, maybe sought advice, maybe BoatUS would've lent a hand.  Now with no anchor my options were rather limited.

[continued...]

PSL: Blown Out to Sea (short version)

On a dark and windy September night in Port San Luis, at 3AM, headed for shore in my 10' inflatable skiff, my outboard motor's built-in (1/3 gal) tank ran out of fuel.  My external (3 gal) tank was full and on-board, but not working properly.  

In the time it took to try, but fail, to transfer fuel from one tank to another, I was blown out to sea and up the coast, past the end of the pier, past the breakwater, out into the open sea, a distance of about 1.5 nm.

Shortly before dawn I had enough light to see, and managed to pour enough fuel into the built-in tank to get us back to shore.  It was a cold and wet trip, into the wind that was still pretty frisky, and the 2-3' wind waves that had cropped up.

Failure to maintain the external tank in working order, failure to drop anchor the moment the outboard died, failure to maintain awareness of my location and the forces that were propelling me and failure to bring any way to communicate on this seemingly routine trip all combined to place my dogs and I in a dangerous situation.  An ordeal that lasted for 4.5 hours..  

If I hadn't managed to get the engine running again, we would've ended up miles out to sea by the time the weather changed.  We were lucky nothing else went wrong.  

A boat that was headed straight at us on its way out to sea either didn't see or ignored my distress signal (SOS with a 1000 lumen flash fight.)  When you go out on the water, you are on your own. 

I now have several new personal rules to prevent such misadventures.

And I fixed the external tank.

(See the long version for full details.)

Blown out to Sea, Port San Luis

I'd really rather forget this incident than share it, but it taught/reminded me of several very important considerations.  Retaining self-confidence in a discipline after years of unuse is a dangerous thing, the marine environment is inherently unsafe -- combine the two and you are depending mostly on luck... not a best practice.

Living on a mooring is not easy!  I fell asleep early that night, at about 7:30 PM, didn’t make our usual evening trip to shore for my dogs to do their business.  I woke up about 3AM to a couple of very agitated dogs, so we hopped into the dingy, headed for shore.  The wind was pretty frisky that night. 

We’ve been having an ongoing difficulty with the outboard motor’s external (3 gal) fuel tank, which forces us to rely on the internal (1/3 gal) tank — it doesn’t take us very far. 

With the external tank full and onboard, we ran out of gas. Nothing about either tank lends itself to transferring fuel between them, best case is you spill gas all over the outboard to get 1/4 gal into it. Worst case, the dingy burns to the waterline and you end up in a burn unit.  One spark is all that separates those potential outcomes.

We have performed this awkward, messy, dangerous refueling operation a few times in the daylight, this time it was pitch black. I did have a flashlight but couldn’t hold it, position it or prop it up to make it useful. I wasn’t getting any fuel into the tank, just all over the motor, myself and the dingy. 

I couldn’t say how long these attempts to transfer fuel took, clearly way too long. I have a small anchor in the dingy for precisely such occasions but the dogs were on top of it. Never would I have dreamed how big of a mistake it was, to fail to drop that anchor when it would’ve been effective. When I realized we were in trouble the water was too deep. 

As I looked around I was in denial, surprised that the pier would be so dark. But the depth of the water and the nearby sound of the whistle buoy brought it home, we were way past the end of the pier, beyond the breakwater, in the open ocean not far from the start of the harbor’s marked channel. The wind had blown us more than 1.5 nautical miles. God damn it! In a tiny little inflatable boat, that’s a very long way!

I did have oars but they are not my friends.  I bet we drifted another half a mile fumbling with and cursing at the damn oar locks.  Fuck those things!

So human propulsion engaged, time for navigation: I correctly identified the back side of the breakwater, and the work lights of a barge servicing it. At least I knew where I was.  Visually and audibly I seemed to be advancing at least a little bit, but the whistle buoy was a two-edged sword, it getting louder could indicate I was going the right way up the coast, but it could also indicate I was being swept farther out to sea. 

Aiming for the tip of the breakwater I understood that I had to keep myself between that buoy and the wind, even if I couldn't hold my position by rowing against the weather, tying to the buoy was my last hope, the last guarantee we would be spotted.  If swept past that, with no communications, we were just a speck in the vast sea.

During all of this I saw three boats going out, one of them heading straight for us, I could see its red and green nav lights as I flashed SOS at it.  I guess I should be grateful it turned to avoid hitting us.  It emphasizes the point that out there you are on your own!  "Hey what's a 10' skiff doing in open waters at 4AM, think they might need some help?  Nah, they could probably use a flashlight that doesn't blink, but we have fish to catch."

In retrospect we drifted quite a ways while trying to signal that last boat, how ironic would it have been if my attempts to signal for help had put us past my ability to reach the buoy? 

The approach of dawn brought with it the light we needed, I finally got the little fuel tank filled. The wind was still blowing pretty good so, of course, I was covered in gasoline spray by the time it was full. The bow always gets blown downwind, thus the motor is pointed into the wind with me right behind it.

But it worked!  The motor was running again!  We headed back to shore, getting drenched in sea spray as we motored into the weather that had transported us there.  A 2-3' wind wave had cropped up and any water that splashed up when we hit a wave was driven into us by the wind.  

The dogs were none too pleased with taking water over the bow.  And Daisy just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want her to lick the gasoline off of her little paws -- but to her credit she did figure out what I wanted and she complied. Aside from her couple of attempts to leave the dingy she was a little trooper -- both were!  Their resilience and ability to adapt continues to amaze me. The faith they have in me is profound, but it clearly isn't well deserved.

I didn't check the time at dawn, but it was 7:30 AM when we got to the launch dock.

Several new personal rules were born from this misadventure:

• Always, always drop anchor whenever the engine stops for any reason.
• Always pay close attention to the weather and consider where it will take the boat, if allowed to.
• Never leave in the dingy without mobile phone and/or VHF, nor without a handheld GPS at night.
• Never consider the dogs' comfort above safety. 
• Always correct equipment malfunction, don't depend on work-arounds.
• Don't disregard gasoline safety (even though this writing may seem to do exactly that... if it had played a part I'd probably have no fingers to type this, and I'd be praying for death.)
• NEVER TAKE FOR GRANTED THAT I INTUITIVELY JUST KNOW HOW TO SAFELY DO THIS SHIT, ALWAYS THINK EVERY PASSAGE THROUGH, no matter how short or routine it may seem to be!

Anytime any vessel is untied, lives are literally on the line!  My failure to follow any of these rules could easily have been fatal!  What if I had dropped the fuel tank trying to pour from it?  I might still be missing!  Who would've even noticed, until the 1st when rent was due?  How could they even guess where to look -- not that it would've mattered, we had no fresh water on board.  Eesh what a horrible way to die, baking in the sun, freezing at night, kicking myself for being so careless and stupid for 3-5 days, waiting for dehydration to finish us off... yikes!

Just how lucky it is, that I am still here to write this, is not lost on me in the least!  This activity was insanely risky in multiple ways, I should never have allowed it to happen! Devastation was close at hand, only barely did we cheat it. 

The object lessons are: 

• Stop the boat using any means possible whenever you lose control of its propulsion or steerage -- NEVER try to fix it first, stopping is job #1.
• Don't under-estimate how far the weather can take you, no water is truly protected. 
• Maintain awareness of where you are at all times, don't let yourself become completely distracted.
• A dingy is not a toy, it must be piloted responsibly, no passage is trivial.
• If left to its own devices, nature will have its way.