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.

Cetacean Captivity Is Wrong!

Imagine your family gathering with everyone present, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, siblings and little babies, all together enjoying the love.  A group of terrorist thugs, that call themselves “hunters” comes crashing in, armed with LRAD sound weapons.  The weaponized sound is so loud it hurts everyone’s ears and heads, making it impossible to even think.  The “hunters” use the terrible noise to herd everyone into a small alcove, and they drop a net across the only way out.  One of your relatives panics, runs headlong into the net, trying to escape, and hangs himself in it. The rest look on in terror and cry in despair.

More thugs called “trainers” enter the alcove; they don’t have any weapons but are still very creepy!   They examine and grope each of you without consent, for reasons not immediately clear. After they’ve finished molesting everyone, the “trainers” select you and two of your cousins to be “performers” because you are young and good looking.  You have no say in the matter, it’s a done deal.  Over time you will figure out that they have detained the three of you for life.

With their bounty now in hand (that would be you) the “hunters” then proceed to ruthlessly MURDER nearly ALL of the rest of your family, two or three at a time.  They have pointed steel rods that they shove into the backs of your loved ones’ heads as you listen to them cry and scream their last screams.  Corks are stuffed into the wound tracks to reduce the flow of blood, but even so the alcove runs red. 

The only ones that seem to be spared are the very young, but it’s only momentary as they too are doomed.  The “hunters” have a kill quota and the babies don’t have enough meat on them to be worth butchering, so the “hunters” chase the babies away and abandon them somewhere, leaving them to starve to death or to be eaten by predators.

In reality your murdered family members were the "lucky" ones, you’re going to be held captive for the rest of your life, forced to do the “trainers’” bidding.  You'll always be kept hungry so you're more obedient, forced to perform demeaning "tricks" on command and coerced into "kissing" degenerates that pay for you, like some kind of whore.  Your body is no longer your own, they do to you whatever they please.

You'll be exposed to chemicals that irritate your skin. The food they do provide you with won't have sufficient water to keep you hydrated, so they'll have to force a tube down your throat for that every few days so that you don’t drop dead.  They will inject you with mood-altering drugs, trying to compensate for all the stress they cause.

EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, YOU ARE LONELY, MOURNING YOUR DEAD FAMILY THAT YOU LOVED, IN CAPTIVITY, GROVELING FOR SCRAPS OF FOOD YOU DON'T LIKE, UNTIL FINALLY THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH IS YOUR REWARD.

That is EXACTLY how the captive dolphin industry works, no exaggeration, no drama, that is real life for the dolphins, beluga whales and other small cetaceans used, exploited and abused by marine theme parks and other tourist attractions.  Anytime you buy a ticket or attend a show, you are directly supporting this horror.  PLEASE BOYCOTT ANY CORPORATION THAT KEEPS EVEN ONE CAPTIVE CETACEAN, FOR ANY REASON!  

Even the so-called “rescue” organizations that aren’t truly dedicated to returning all of them to the wild, that don’t place them in marine sanctuaries as worst case alternative, and/or those that do put cetaceans on public display, for any length of time, ever – BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT!  (The ones that disingenuously pretend to be acting in the best interests of the cetaceans are the worst of the worst.)

Are torture, murder and destruction of families consistent with your values, all for the sake of mere entertainment?  Your actions are what truly define your morals and ethics.  Talk is cheap and words are meaningless when you are willing to overlook the brutality and injustice committed in the course of providing something you effectively support.  Your money and attendance are effectively an endorsement of one of the most heinous ongoing acts in the history of our species.  

Either you boycott 100%, or you cannot consider yourself to be a decent human, it really is that cut and dried, it really is that simple.  There is no middle ground!

The Legend of the Beer Clock

Circa 1985 my dad, my old friend Phil and myself were sitting in a dive bar called The Cabana in Chula Vista, drinking one-liter mugs of ice cold beer.  About ¾ the way through mug #6 dad decided it was time for him to go; I pointed at his not-empty mug and said, “beer clock.” 

Dad introduced us kids to the beer clock at an early age, the basic premise is that the beer clock reads “time to go” when the pitcher or glass is empty, and most importantly, not before.  When I invoked it he laughed, acquiesced to the authority of the beer clock, chugged the rest of his beer and stayed to drink three more liters of beer with us.

I told him that I was carrying on the fine tradition of the beer clock with my kid, who was about five at the time.  Dad wasn’t often given to displays of emotion, but on this occasion I saw him hurriedly brush a tear away, a couple more streamed past… I don’t know why but my eyes started to leak too… he said something funny that included the word fuck, gave me a hug and the moment passed.  But every once in a while I wonder what touched him so deeply, on that drunken night so very long ago…

Many years have come and gone, dad passed away (RIP Old Dude,) my kids are now grown, but despite consuming extreme amounts of alcohol that day, the memory of the moment remains clear as day in my mind.

A side note: I lived 20 miles away from Chula Vista.  We had just drank 9 liters of beer in a sitting, we were well past the legal limit; Phil had driven flawlessly over 19.9 of those 20 miles...  Literally a block from where I lived, Phil punched the accelerator momentarily to spin his rear tires in the gutter we were crossing.  A cop that happened to be there noticed his “exhibition of speed” and red-lighted us as he parked across the street from my apartment.  But of course it didn’t matter, we were fucked up, Phil was arrested for DUI, and I, unable to STFU, had to spend 6 hours in detox. 

(Doesn’t if fucking matter that we live right the fuck here?  As it turned out, no, it did not.  Phil was booked, released and set free to roam the city street hours before I was.  I wasn’t charged with any crime, but the detox people held my driver’s license and I was told I’d be prosecuted for drunk in public if I left early.  Talk about a buzz kill… I was pissed the fuck off, and then some.)

Dandiana and Captain Asshole

I was delivering a sailboat from La Paz to San Diego, circa 1990, they were building the first high-rise hotels in Cabo San Lucas at the time, and there was still an anchorage in the inner harbor (now long gone.) It was fairly crowded that day, all sailboats, enjoying the party atmosphere, when a 75' all stainless steel power boat named Dandiana comes lumbering in on one engine. Fuck!

Several of us hailed them but apparently they weren't monitoring VHF, all trying to tell them it wouldn't swing with us, there wasn't room. The captain was oblivious, dropped his hook and within 5 minutes multiple boats had to fend off the shiny monster. 

We finally convinced the idiot he had to move, as we all shifted fenders to the side nearest him, but now neither engine would start.  This left us to manage the chaos as best we could for an hour and a half, as the tide changed directions, until vessel assist made it over. 

As if on cue a fresh breeze cropped up as they raised anchor, this boat had a mile of freeboard, his exit was anything but graceful.  It did enough damage to one boat to disrupt their plans. 

The engine problem: silicon in the fuel.

So Capt. Asshole, as he came to be called, was stuck in Cabo for 3 days, anchored in the outer harbor,  while repairs were made.  He managed to piss off the whole town just about, in that short time. 

The minute his fuel system was cleaned out, he was late for the open sea. He throttled up before his anchor was all the way on board, snagged hawser lines of two separate moorings, each with a hapless boat attached. Those two boats converged as he tried to power through.

Channel 16 was exploding, as usual he wasn't listening. Someone in a dingy got in front of him (barely moving at this point) and he throttled back but apparently left it in gear. All the displaced and stretched ground tackle pulled him backwards into the lines as they were trying to settle, both props caught them and wrapped up tight!

He had already burned his bridges with the local repair and supply people, so they used their chance to even the score, forced him to pay the ones he had stiffed, plus some exorbitant charges for divers to get him untangled. 

The night of lawlessness on channel 16 was pretty comical, he likely never heard any of it... properly it would've been humbling (but he'd have to give a damn for that to be the case.)

He left the harbor the next day, angry as hell, but with no one but himself to blame.  And as we watched him rumble away, everyone in Cabo was hoping that awful boat would sink in deep water.

Reproductive Numerics (Math meets Sex and fucks it really hard)

Fertility clinics measure semen quality in terms of millions of spermatozoa's per milliliter. Good numbers are around 40-90 million, which means that 1 liter of jiz from a healthy, fertile man contains something on the order of 75 billion sperms. The typical human issue of semen is approximately 2 to 7 milliliters per ejaculation.

For the purpose of this theory we want a conservative male number, so let's say our conservative spudge factory makes it up to a production level of 15 million spermatozoa's per milliliter (15M spz/ml) by age 15, and produces consistently at this level until he's 40 (aka, for 25 years.) Let's further specify that he busts his nuts about 4 times a week, each shot yielding on average 3 ml of fluid.

(25 years * 200 ejaculations per year) * (3 ml * 15,000,000 spermatozoa's) = 225,000,000,000 lifetime sperm production. That's like 28 times the population of the entire earth! And it's much, much lower than real life, a typical male 40 years ago produced 10 times that at least... but for the purposes of this theory, it will be:

Male lifetime gamete production: 225,000,000,000.

Now for our hypothetical female subject, we want a very liberal estimate, so let's say super mom starts bleeding at 10 years of age, and ovulates until she is 60 -- 50 years. For round numbers let's say she produces 100 eggs per year, which would be 8 point something eggs each menstrual period. (In other words, 8 times as much as normal.)

100 eggs per year * 50 years = 5,000. In reality she could only possibly carry a small fraction of those eggs to term... but for the purposes of this theory, it will be:

Female lifetime gamete production: 5,000.

So, wimpy little namby-pamby conservative male, whose low sperm count would be seen as a real problem for a couple trying to have babies, out-produces super-fertile egg-slinging wonder-female, 45 million times over:

Gamete production mismatch factor: 45,000,000

Now, historically and in nature, what happens when a producer of something is effortlessly producing millions of times more of that something than it could ever use? Distribution, of course. Prices drop, and the main duty of that producer becomes getting rid of that something, any and every way it possibly can!

Oops, did we shoot 100 million of them on her belly? Uh oh, did we wipe-up 100 million with a dirty sock? So what, who cares, we'll make another 200 million by tomorrow. It only takes one: we send-up 100 million. For sure, best case, 99,999,999 are sent to die; worst case, they all die, but we make so fucking many of them every damn day, that it just doesn't matter.

The other side of the equation guards her eggs carefully, she has only a very limited number, she can't afford to waste any of them. Compound that with the physical burden of carrying a fetus to term, and the word 'selective' doesn't even begin to describe her mindset! When picking a sperm producer, she feels she has no room for error, she instinctively knows she's got to make each one count. (Ironically most women will tend to make stupid decisions for wrong reasons, but I digress...)

So what conclusions can we draw from these formulae?

We can estimate that females will be 45 million times more selective than males.

The female typically seeks a single male.

The male has no actual limit in mind, logistics and practicality are his only limiting factors.

The male will exercise almost no judgment at all when choosing a receptacle for his seed.

The female will be so selective, she may even change her mind while in the process of receiving an issue, and will play other bullshit games as well, in her confusion and fear that's brought on by her inherently intense selectivity. The level of judgment she will exercise is so extreme that it will all but consume her.