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PUFFIN:An Intracoastal Waterway Log

or 28 Days Before the Mast

Lawrence Zeitlin

Prolog:

We bought Puffin from Charlie Moore for $22, 500. Puffin was a1974 Willard Vega Horizon, a 30 foot long heavy displacementmotorsailer that looked a bit like Tubby the Tugboat with a mast. It seemedquite seaworthy with its high bow, double ended hull and pilothouse. Itwas handsome in a very traditional sort of way.

Charlie's advertisement in the Soundings magazine classified sectionappeared in February, 1995. I had just retired from 32 years as a collegeprofessor and was at loose ends. I missed not having lectures to prepare orbeing paid to pontificate to a captive audience. Maggie, weary of having

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me underfoot 24 hours a day, urged me to get involved in some project, nomatter how impractical. I had long fantasized about buying a boat andsailing it up the Intracoastal Waterway and she challenged me to put up orshut up.

Late in February we took a quick drive down to Florida to look Puffinover. The trip offered the additional side benefit of a few days respite fromfreezing weather. Charlie's asking price was about a third less than forother boats of its type so we were a bit suspicious about its condition. Thesuspicions were partly confirmed when we had a close look at it. It hadbeen in the Florida sun for 22 years and, like most mature Floridians, itsskin showed signs of deterioration. There was a network of very finecracks on most surfaces and some blisters on the hull.

Blistering is a disease of older fiberglass boats. Water enters thefiberglass through tiny pores in the material and forces the outer skin awayfrom the lower layers. Like human blisters the damage is unsightly butrarely life threatening. The problems with Puffin seemed mostly cosmetic.The Willard Boat Company had a reputation for building very sturdy craft.The structure appeared sound and the lines were good. The boat had beenwell cared for, although obviously heavily used.

Maggie liked Puffin because there were plenty of comfortable placesto sit on the deck and even a few spots to set up an easel for her painting.We made Charlie an offer for the boat if it passed a survey. The cost of theboat was roughly equivalent to my settlement for unused sick leave andvacation time. It seemed like a good trade.

February was too early for a boat trip back North. There was still icein the Hudson River. Our mooring at Croton Point wouldn’t be put in foranother three months. We would leave Puffin in Florida until warmerweather. This would give Charlie time to get Puffin ready and for us to getused to the idea of buying another boat. On the drive home we had plentyof time to think about the wisdom of our decision. As we reentered thedomain of snow and ice, the thought of sailing in Florida grew ever moreappealing.

Late in March we packed a large duffel bag with everything wethought we would need for a month of boating. We had the usual stuff forcamping out, towels, sheets, a couple of sleeping bags, plenty of sweatshirts and pants, and one nice looking set of civilized shore going clotheseach. I packed the specialized nautical gear including a handheld marineVHF radio, a newly purchased GPS electronic satellite navigation receiver,a bundle of old charts of the East coast, and a copy of Chapman'shandbook, the mammoth sized bible of boating information that everyyachtsman cherishes.

In my pocket I carried the Multi-tool that my department had given meas a retirement gift instead of a gold watch. This surrogate toolbox was thesize of a large pocketknife which unfolded into pliers, a wire cutter, severalscrewdrivers, two knife blades, a can opener, a corkscrew and other things

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that a handyman might need. It was my security blanket in case thingswent wrong. Maggie, ever the artist, packed paints, drawing pencils,canvas, art boards, and a plastic drop cloth to protect the deck from overenthusiastic paint spatters. All our travel needs fitted into the trunk of ourone way rental car for the return drive to Florida.

Charlie was anxious to sell. His wife, his constant boating companionfor the previous decade, had died several months earlier of a lingeringillness. He implied that the memories connected with the boat were nowpainful. It was only after we got to know him a little better that wediscovered that he had just become engaged to an attractive woman whowas not all that keen about stepping into his dead wife's boat shoes. Toadd to his desire to sell, his best friend, several years younger than he,dropped dead of a heart attack while both were vacationing in the Bahamas.It happened only a week before we returned to Florida. Charlie wasdetermined to go for the gusto before it was too late. He also wanted tobuy a bigger boat.

After a bit of negotiation, we closed the deal, subject to a survey, in aJacksonville diner over a meal of red snapper seasoned with the ubiquitouslocal red peppers. "Red on red" was what they called it in that part of town.I wrote the sales contract out by hand and we signed it with Charlie's friend,a retired shrimp boat engineer, as a witness.

Everyone seems to have a different idea about what constitutes aproper motorsailer, and in truth, there are as many different types ofmotorsailers as there are ideas. My own definition is that a motorsailer is aboat with enough power to make headway against strong winds and heavyseas, and enough sail area to get you to safety if the engine fails. This is abelts and suspenders conservative approach.

Most yachtsmen classify motorsailers by their approximation to theextreme ends of the boating spectrum, a pure sailboat at one end and apowerboat at the other. By this reckoning, Puffin is a 30/70 boat, 30percent sail and 70 percent power. It is essentially a powerboat withauxiliary sail rather than a sailboat with auxiliary power. A 30/70motorsailer uses its engine most of the time although it can makereasonable progress under sail if the wind is favorable. On the whole, itssailing performance would be roughly equivalent to one of Columbus'scaravels, hardly state-of-the-art high technology but adequate for long,slow voyages. Still, with the sails set and the engine ticking over at amoderate speed she should be able to keep up with most cruising sailboatsand, of course, outdistance them if the wind died.

I first saw a boat like Puffin moored near my parents’ Floridacondominium in the late 70s and lusted after one. I liked it because itseemed to combine the virtues of a sailboat and a trawler, disregarding thefact that it also combined the liabilities of each type. Both the boat and Iwere newer at the time. The name Puffin so obviously suited the look andcharacter of this boat that we decided not to change it. This both pleasedCharlie and saved us the trouble of painting a new name on the stern.

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Our log of Puffin's journey to its new home in the Hudson River tellsthe story much as it happened, expletives deleted, of course. The log isboth a record of our personal experiences and a condensed travelogue ofsites along the ICW. If some of the nautical terms seem unfamiliar, bearwith me. All will be explained in due time. If on the other hand the story isnot salty enough for you - you can always turn to Moby Dick.

March 25, 1995

Puffin was docked at the Marineland marina. The marina was just offa narrow and relatively uninhabited portion of the Intracoastal Waterwaybetween St. Augustine and Daytona. The Marineland Oceanarium was thefirst place to stage live dolphin and whale shows. Now over 50 years old,it looked small and unpretentious compared to the bigger Sea Worldoceanariums in Miami and San Diego. The grounds were well kept withflowers and palm trees. A small zoo with alligators, snakes and tropicalbirds surrounded the show amphitheater. Marineland exuded a certain rundown charm which extended to the Marineland Motel across the street andthe marina itself.

Marineland is on a sandy barrier island nearly 20 miles long and aquarter of a mile wide located between St. Augustine and Daytona. Theeastern side of the island fronts the Atlantic Ocean, the western side, theIntracoastal Waterway. Other than Marineland and the motel, there waslittle development along this stretch of the Florida coast. The beach frontwas sandy and extended in both directions as far as the eye could see.There were very few bathers. Just sea birds and acres of shells.

In addition to its cosmetic defects, the boat had a couple of apparentproblems. The floor was damp and there was some oil in the bilge.Charlie kept a dehumidifier on all the time at the dock to keep the interiordry. We contacted the Jacksonville branch of the Society of AccreditedMarine Surveyors and requested a rush job. They sent down a young manwith the evocative Southern name of Downing Nightingale. He crawledinto every compartment and tapped the hull repeatedly with a hammer. Heran the engine through its paces and pronounced it mechanically OK. Hecommented that Puffin had fewer blisters than would be expected for anolder boat. He suspected that the wetness came from a leaky fitting on thewater tank and attributed the oil to a sloppy filter change. Finally he gracedthe boat with an acceptable survey.

We made whatever repairs we could on the spot. I tightened the watertank fittings and replaced a cable from the steering wheel to the rudder.Charlie put in the new autopilot that he had ordered but never found anoccasion to install. After selling the boat he would have had no use for itso he threw it in with the deal. We made arrangements to have the bottompainted with new anti fouling at Peterson's Boatyard located in acommercial boat construction area near St. Augustine. There has alwaysbeen a Peterson's Boatyard in every city in which we have lived. It seemsto be a generic name.

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As we motored Puffin to the boatyard in St. Augustine for its antifouling paint job, Charlie asked me if I would like to try the sails. Heseemed surprised when I said OK, and even more surprised when I turnedoff the engine and made reasonable progress on sail power alone. Charliewas not a sailor and preferred the certainty of power to the ambiguity of thewind.

I can't remember actually learning how to sail. In fact I have better andmore traumatic memories of learning how to ride a bicycle. Sailing musthave been picked up through osmosis at one or another of the summercamps my folks sent me to when I was a kid. I certainly didn't get it frommy parents who were Midwestern hydrophobes. In the mid ‘50s I earnedcollege tuition as a sailing instructor at the Culver Naval Academy on theshores of Lake Maxinkuckee in central Indiana. The Academy maintaineda fleet of wooden E and C class scows. Don't be misled by the name. Thescow is a blazingly fast boat, literally a racing hydroplane powered by sail.In my youth scows held all the sailing speed records and usually were ableto outrun the spectator powerboats. Puffin was definitely not a scow!

After hours the instructors would stage informal races. We got goodenough to challenge the local yacht club fleet with mixed results. Ourscows were kept in the water most of the summer and got well waterlogged.The club scows were hauled after each race and were light as a feather. Theresults were predictable. In light airs they tromped us. In heavy winds theweight of our hulls plus the added advantage of acrobatic crew members inwet sweatshirts perching out on the exposed leeboard kept us fromcapsizing when most of the club fleet found it hard to keep the sails out ofthe water.

By the next year we felt that we had mastered the art. As the result ofa particularly windy summer I was the lake’s C scow champ and a fellowinstructor was the leading E scow skipper. The local club was generousenough to send us and their A scow class winner to the Midwest regionalsat Lake Geneva. As luck would have it the wind was too light to blow out acandle and we finished far out of the money although the A scow did quitewell in a sparse fleet.

By the third summer I was good enough to win a series of regionalraces and placed high in the nationals. For a brief shining moment I wasrated the best C scow skipper in the country – until I was beaten by someupstarts named Melges.

I’ve sailed in other boats since but nothing beats the excitement of awell tuned scow in high wind, planing over the water, boards humming,always on the edge of catastrophe. I’ve tried to describe the feeling onegets in an A scow, skimming across the waves in a 38 foot boat at 20knots with only the wind for power but most of my younger sailingcolleagues don’t get it. The closest one came to understanding was acollege friend of my son who exclaimed “It must be just like hanggliding!”

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Maggie's water rat credentials were far more genetic than mine.Viking blood runs in her veins. She spent her early childhood near theNorwegian fjords, her father was a shipyard carpenter and her brother wasa lifelong merchant seaman. She was raised on tales of exotic climes anddistant places.

Much of our 40 year married life had been spent messing around withboats. The first picture I ever took of my wife-to-be shows her in boatyardgarb, face covered and eyes behind goggles, wielding a bottom sander, aswe struggled to rebuild an old cruising sailboat that was our engagementgift to each other. Our gift boat was in such a sorry state that a determinedperson could stick two fingers between gaps in the planking. With asummer long effort we ultimately turned it into a seaworthy little craft. Ourchildren, Mike and Karen, learned to walk on boats lurching from step tostep with each roll. Even my professional career was wet, containing longstints as a consultant to the Marine Board, the U. S. Merchant MarineAcademy, MARAD, the offshore oil drilling industry and the Port ofNew York. At one point we even owned a company devoted to maritimeresearch.

The trouble is that we don't look or act much like sailors. I appear tobe what I am, the prototypical college professor, tweed jacket andpolysyllable words. The word nerd comes to mind but it is one I avoidusing. Maggie is a talented artist, a frontier woman born in the wrongcentury, an enthusiastic mother and an occasional homemaker.

Peterson's Boatyard, barely more than a hard packed field next to thewaterway, was cluttered with boats in various states of construction andrepair. There were commercial shrimp boats, runabouts, motor cruisersand fairly large sailing yachts. The yard was run by a man and wife team,not much older than our children. It was obviously their first businessventure. The foreman, a senior and more wizened hand, understood ourdesire to start for home and marshaled his forces to get us out of the yardin a single day. The bottom received a new coat of toxic anti fouling paint,each quart about three times more expensive than a bottle of good Scotchwhisky.

Provisioning Puffin for the trip up the ICW took two days of drivingback and forth from Walmart to supermarket in our rental car. Puffin hadno refrigeration so most of the food was canned, boxed or packaged inplastic. Canned stew, soup, beans, and dried fruit made up the staples.For snacks we laid in a supply of crackers, nuts and other edibles thatwould keep in a humid environment. Of course, we included a few bottlesof wine. We also stocked a small supply of fresh fruit and vegetablesexpecting to buy more produce along the way. For emergencies we boughta very small Zodiac inflatable dinghy at a boat store in Jacksonville. Ourentertainment center was a car radio with a cassette player that we picked upat Walmart. To organize the provisions, Maggie bought some plasticboxes for storage.

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A previous owner of Puffin had added a large swim platform to thestern, reaching across the width of the hull and extending about three feetback. He was an independent film producer and the platform served as acamera mount for filming marine scenes. The platform and the bow spritmade the overall length of the boat about 35 feet. Charlie warned us thatwe would need at least this much space to tie up alongside a dock butalways to state the size of the boat as 30 feet, the true length of the hull, toany marina manager. Marinas charge by the foot.

Our insurance company reluctantly agreed to insure the aged Puffinon the basis of the survey. The agent told me in confidence that the onlyreason they did so was that I was such a long time customer. Besides, wehave had marine insurance on Quark, our other boat, for 25 years andhave never filed a claim. The insurance papers would take a few days toarrive so we used the time to get familiar with the Puffin. In the evenings,we explored the area, walked the beach, gazed at the Marineland exhibits,and enjoyed the lovely view of the Atlantic from our motel window.

March 26, 1995

A checkout ride on Puffin on the ICW adjacent to Marineland showedthat we had much to learn about heavy displacement boat handling.Compared to the other boats we have owned it was lazy and slow torespond. I suppose it should be a little sluggish. It weighs 16, 000 poundscompressed into a pudgy 30 ft. hull. Quark, our twin keel sailboat, isonly seven feet shorter, but displaces less than 4, 000 pounds.

After a while I got the hang of maneuvering Puffin in tight quarters.The trick was to anticipate what you wanted to do long before you did it,then do it and hope that you made the right decision. The inertia of theboat hindered any quick corrective action. Actually, with the rightcombination of rudder, reverse gear, and throttle, and the dexterity of asix ball juggler, Puffin could be made to turn in its own length. At the endof our checkout ride we worked our way to the marina fuel dock and filledthe 120 gallon diesel fuel tanks and the 70 gallon water tanks. This addedanother three quarters of a ton to the boat's weight. Charlie claimed thatPuffin could carry a lot. He used it to smuggle building materials andcases of beer to the motel his son ran in the Bahamas.

More frightening than docking the boat was lighting the alcohol stove.It was about the size of a small kitchen range with three burners and anoven. The procedure for ignition was to build up pressure in the alcoholtank with a bicycle pump then allow alcohol to drip from a burner into alighting pan. A long match ignited the alcohol, which flamed up heatingthe burner. Just before the alcohol flame went out, the burner knob wasturned in the other direction, allowing alcohol to vaporize in the hot burnerand burst into flame.

At least that's what it was supposed to do. We could only manage toget one burner to light reliably. Charlie admitted that he could never get the

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oven to work. Alcohol burns with a weak flame and it takes forever to heata pot of water. Also the smell is oppressive in a closed boat. Fortunatelywe didn't plan to cook a turkey this trip.

March 27, 1995

The ICW is an interconnected chain of waterways, largely shelteredfrom the open sea, stretching from the tip of Florida to the coast of Maine.Old timers call it the ditch but that name doesn't do it justice. It is apassage of fascinating variety. In Florida and parts of Georgia and theCarolinas, the ICW is shielded from the ocean by low lying sand bars andgrassy islands. Rivers heading in the general North/South direction makeup a lot of the route. Canals connect adjacent bodies of water.

The route that was to become the ICW was first mapped in the late1800s. It was later widened, straightened, and dredged by the ArmyCorps of Engineers during World War II to protect coastal shipping.While deep enough for our boat, or even an oil barge, it was certainly tooshallow for German submarines.

ICW buffs consider only the portion from Norfolk to Key West to bethe authentic ICW. The northern parts are mostly bays and sounds. Mile0 starts at Norfolk and ends at Mile 1200 in the Florida Keys. Since wewould be heading up to New York, the miles would decrease as we went.

After Norfolk the big water starts. The ICW runs the length ofChesapeake Bay then through the Chesapeake and Delaware canal anddown Delaware Bay. We would make a sharp left hand turn at Cape Mayand travel about 100 miles in the open ocean up the Jersey coast beforereaching New York harbor. Our plan was to arrive in time to attend nieceElizabeth's wedding early in May. If we averaged about 50 miles each daywe would need 24 days to get home at our cruising speed of a fast jog. Ifthe weather turned uncomfortably bad we would simply stay at anchor untilit cleared up. Our personal comfort was not too important but we were notmasochists either. Also, we couldn't arrive home in Croton-on-Hudsontoo soon or we would have no place to moor the boat.

Coastal, river and canal cruising was familiar stuff although neither ofus had done much do-it-yourself sailing out of sight of land. The boatingresidents of the Marineland Marina reassured us. Some of them had madethe trip a dozen or more times, despite being semi-invalids, genteel boatingbums and potential candidates for Alcoholics Anonymous. Actually, theywere very nice to us and gave us a list of favorite stopovers and anchoringspots. All agreed that March was too early to start. They told us that theweather could be very unsettled in the early spring and that we should hangaround Florida for a month or so. This was a very tempting suggestion.The spring weather in Florida was beautiful. The gentle warm winds wavedthe palms seductively and the marina lifestyle was a page from aHemingway novel. Expatriates lolled away the hours while the worldmoved on without them.

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At dusk all the marina regulars gathered on the veranda with a can ofbeer, a glass of wine or a bottle of a stronger potable and swapped boatinglies until nightfall. One Canadian couple made the trip from Montrealevery winter and went back every spring. Eventually the Canadiangovernment told them they would have to spend more time in Canada orlose their medical coverage. Now they leave their boat in Florida, spendsix months and one day in Canada, and like geese, fly south every fall.

Another old-timer had a slow growing form of cancer that was quicklybeing overtaken by a speedy case of alcoholism. He was curious to seewhich would kill him first. Most of the veranda crowd were betting on thebooze since he would start drinking late in the afternoon and not stop untilhe had finished off an entire fifth of rum. At this point his wife wouldgently lead him off to bed. Curiously, he never appeared to have ahangover the next morning.

March 28, 1995

Today was engine recognition day. This is the first diesel engine Ihave been personally responsible for maintaining so everything was new -all except the engine. Puffin still had its original 21 year old Perkins diesel,an engine first designed to power London taxicabs. The engine was abouttwice the physical size of the one in our car and far heavier but only about aquarter as powerful. It was reputed to be extremely reliable although thebig supply of spare parts stashed in lockers and cabinets cast some doubton that reputation. Not to worry. Charlie was a retired auto parts salesmanand treated the engine with loving care, buying spare parts as a present forthe engine whenever he felt low. Unfortunately he only used the sails assunshades. The rigging was in as bad a shape as the engine was in goodshape. Any real sailing would be out of the question until we got around tomaking a few repairs.

Leaving Maggie to arrange our foodstuffs and belongings, I attemptedto change the oil and filter. Oil change is the curse of the diesel. Itinvolves sucking the old oil out of the dipstick hole with a vacuum pump,unbolting the filter case, replacing the filter element and gaskets, thenrefilling with a couple of gallons of new oil. Because the engine is belowfloor level, the process is conducted while kneeling with head and armshanging downward. Everything is artfully arranged so that black thickused oil spatters around the cockpit, covers one's clothes, or falls into thebilge. The manual said the oil must be changed every 100 running hours.We would have to make another oil change somewhere en route so Ifigured I had better get some practice in under the supervision of someonewho had done it before.

The next step was bleeding the fuel lines. It was a cleaner but far morefinicky job which must be done every time the fuel filter was changed.Every speck of dirt and minuscule air bubble must be removed from thefuel lines or the engine won’t run. Bleeding involves manually operatingthe fuel pump while letting fuel drip out of all the slightly openedconnections from the fuel tank to the engine until no more air bubbles

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emerge. The smell of diesel fuel has got to be one of the most pervasiveodors known. Multiple clothes washings won't remove it. I was told bythe marina regulars to learn to love the smell.

The insurance confirmation came in today so we had no more excuseto stay.

March 30 - Day 1

Puffin left Marineland bright and early and headed toward St.Augustine. It was a balmy day with bright sun. We were both a littleapprehensive now that the actual trip had begun. Neither of us lookedparticularly confident. Charlie suggested, more than once, that we simplyhave the boat trucked to New York. He also suggested that we take histoolbox containing an assortment of wrenches and other fix-it tools andthat if we had any trouble we should give him a call. Was he having pangsof conscience? Did he know something about Puffin that had escaped thesurveyor?

The marina regulars waved goodbye as we carefully negotiated thesand bar partly blocking the entrance to the ICW and turned north. Soonafter leaving Marineland we motored by the Fort Matanzas NationalMonument where a particularly brutal massacre occurred in one of the 16thcentury wars for the possession of Florida. On this spot in 1565, aSpanish commander ordered 250 French soldiers to be killed after they hadsurrendered. Legend has it that the river ran red with blood. Today,however, it was a brilliant blue. The sandy banks of the ICW slipped bysmoothly and the palms nodded to us as we passed.

The sun was nearly overhead as we approached St. Augustine. A 40minute wait for next Bridge of Lions opening gave us an opportunity todrift around the harbor. Our guidebook described St. Augustine as aproduct of desire for power, riches, adventure and eternal youth - allguaranteed to induce explorers to leave their homes and brave the savageseas. The area was visited by Ponce De Leon and first settled by theSpanish, taken by the French, retaken by the Spanish only to be sacked bySir Francis Drake. It was ceded to the English, then transferred back tothe Spanish and finally acquired by the United States. This schizophrenicpast was reflected in both the architecture and cuisine, although the maininfluence today appears to be sun seeking retirees from up North. "Hey,Mac! Which way to the Fountain of Youth?"

The Bridge of Lions got its name from a pair of granite lions guardingeach entrance to the ornate stone span. The bridge had a lifting section inthe middle which was raised once an hour. St. Augustine appeared to be avery pretty city from the water. The public marina was just south of thebridge and one could step right from the boat deck to the main street. Oldbuildings, church spires, and the Castillo dominate the view. The city wasthe start of Henry Flagler’s railroad to the Keys. This made St. Augustinea tourist destination, and it has stayed so to this day.

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Puffin motored slowly by the Castillo De San Marcos, the Spanishfort built of coral coquina rock. This massive stone structure, erected bySpanish explorers, stands much as it did hundreds of years ago. St.Augustine was established in 1565, three quarters of a century before thePilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Nine different wooden forts were builton the site to protect the route of the Spanish galleons loaded to thegunwales with gold and silver plundered form Mexico and South America.The wooden forts were attacked by English, Caribbean pirates, orSeminole Indians, and all eventually burned. The fort built of coquinarock was fireproof and is the one still standing. Maggie and I explored theCastillo just after we were married. It’s too bad we had such a long tripahead of us or we would have been tempted to stay a couple of days to sipthe water from the Fountain of Youth ourselves.

We anchored for the night behind a small island in a wide stretch ofthe ICW about 10 miles south of Jacksonville.

This was our first night aboard. The stove lit without an explosion andwe cooked up a meal of canned stew on the single functioning burner. Theboat rocked gently in the evening breeze as we sipped after dinner coffeeon the back deck and congratulated ourselves on successfully completingthe day's journey without incident. If things went this way every day, thetrip wouldn't be half bad.

March 31 - Day 2

The day started out dark and gloomy and promised worse to come.We were almost at Jacksonville when rain began to fall. Jacksonville is abig shipping town and the ICW was lined with commercial docks and othermarine facilities. Several sets of marker buoys indicated the variousshipping channels. This was no place to be without local knowledge. Itwas like being dropped in the middle of a highway cloverleaf with no roadsigns. The tachometer, the device that told us how fast the engine wasgoing, had been behaving erratically, the indicator needle waving all overthe dial. Our problems compounded when the tachometer cable brokeabout an hour after we started. This was a real handicap since Puffin, likemost slow boats, had no speedometer.

Actually a speedometer is just about useless for cruising since all ittells you is speed through the water. Generally the water itself is movingand not always in the direction you want to go. What the navigator reallywants to know is speed over the bottom and that is dependent on currents,tides and cross winds. Without the tachometer, we had to judge engineRPM by sound and guess at the boat speed.

The rain increased. Cascading water made it impossible to see out ofthe cabin windows. Puffin had no windshield wipers, something we hadoverlooked in our evaluation. The visibility was so poor that I steered theboat from the outside station, out in the wind and rain, wearing every bit ofrain gear aboard. I needed wipers on my glasses too but I finally figuredout a way to angle my hat brim toward the rain and provide some shelter

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for my eyeballs. Wind gusts blew the hat off every few minutes. AtMaggie's suggestion, I looped a cord from the brim around my neck so Inearly strangled. At least I kept the hat.

North of the naval nuclear submarine base at Mayport the cloudsreally burst. We couldn't see more than a few dozen yards ahead despiteMaggie handing up a constant stream of Kleenex to wipe my glasses. Itried to suppress the nagging fear that a submarine would surface rightunder our hull. Just before panic set in, a local sailboat passed us alsoheading up the ICW. I raised it on the VHF radio and asked the skipper ifhe wouldn't mind if I followed him. He was having the same visibilityproblems but at least he had sailed these waters before. We trailed him forabout an hour until he turned out of the channel to head for his home dock.Fortunately the rain lightened at about the same time and we could seeagain.

We anchored for the night just west of Amelia Island. It was a shamethat the weather was so miserable otherwise we would have liked to rowashore. We stopped here on the way down and explored on foot. AmeliaIsland proved delightful in an old building, quaint street, step back in timesort of way. It was like New Orleans without the sin. The floor was wetagain and we discovered that the rainwater was leaking in.

April 1 - Day 3

April Fool's day was much nicer. The sky showed signs of clearing.After our breakfast of oatmeal and fruit we headed into Georgia to begreeted by the overpowering stench of the paper mills near Brunswick. Inthe distance we could see the towering stacks of the mills, each belching itsplume of white smoke. The ICW meandered through marshy canals withbanks covered by green wavy sea grass studded with a few gnarled mosscovered trees. It was hard to get lost because navigation markers wereplentiful and the waterway here was only about a hundred yards wide.Going North, green channel markers are on the left and orange markersare on the right. You just need to know your right hand from your left tostay in the channel. The green markers are square and the orange markersare triangular so I managed OK. Maggie, the artist, served as my instantcorrector of color errors.

Off to our right was Cumberland Island, a wildlife preserve protectedby the National Park Service. It is a subtropical forest and uninhabitedexcept for the rangers. Within the woods and dunes are wild horses, deer,armadillo, wild turkeys, wild pigs, and alligators. The horses and the pigsare said to be descendants of domestic animals that swam ashore whenSpanish galleons were wrecked off the Carolina coast four hundred yearsago. Through the trees we could just glimpse the crumbling remains ofDungeness, the home of Thomas Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie's son.Philanthropist Andrew gave his money to charity. Thomas, on the otherhand, built a huge mansion on this barrier island, surrounded by mosshung oaks. Unfortunately, his children found better uses for their share ofthe fortune and the home is now a ruin.

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Just north is Jekyll Island. This was the site of the Jekyll Island Club,winter home of America's rich and famous for 56 years. Some wealthyindustrialists from the northeast bought the entire island for $125, 000.They wanted a place with seclusion and warmer winter weather than NewYork or Boston. The water flowing from the island’s artesian wells wassaid to be "healthful" in curing gout and other diseases associated withhigh living. The island was covered with live oak trees draped in Spanishmoss and it must have been quite a change from Newport, Rhode Islandand New York City.

William Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, AndrewCarnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were all charter members of the club.The collective fortunes of the 100 members were estimated to be 25% ofthe entire world's wealth at the time! Invited guests were welcome, butanyone not a member was called "stranger" while visiting. It was a selectgroup indeed.

The “cottages” of the Jekyll Island Club members, built in the late1890's through the early 1930's, hardly fit the normal conception of acottage. Club rules dictated that cottages were not to be larger than theClub House. Still, the Rockefeller "cottage" was 12, 000 square feet inarea, about the size of five or six ordinary houses.

Eight hundred servants saw to the needs of the members and theirfamilies. These were mostly personal servants brought with the groupfrom "up north". A typical picnic prepared for noon at the beach includedwhite jacketed waiters serving a five-course luncheon on tables spread withlinen cloth. The menu might feature crepe suzettes, lobster Newburg,oysters Rockefeller and flaming baked Alaska. This is better than weusually eat aboard Puffin.

The start of the end of the Jekyll Island Club began with thedepression of the 1930's. Roosevelt's New Deal income taxes made JekyllIsland an extravagance that even the rich couldn’t afford. In 1942 aGerman U-boat torpedoed and sank an oil tanker in nearby St. Simon'sSound. The club members feared for their own personal security. Therewere other ways to avoid cold weather. Florida offered a warmer winterclimate. The children of the original club members wanted moreexcitement than taking high tea on the veranda. Life in Palm Beach wasmore appealing than the isolation of Jekyll. The Club officially closed in1942. In 1947, the state of Georgia bought the whole island andeverything on it for $650, 000. No wonder Roosevelt was called a traitor tohis class.

We found a good protected spot just behind St. Simon's Island toanchor for the night. This is another site with a ripe history. John andCharles Wesley preached here. This is where Aaron Burr hid out after hisduel with Alexander Hamilton. Even John J. Audubon painted some ofhis best portraits of native birds here but only after killing and stuffingthem.

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We were near the channel, so we raised our battery powered anchorlight up to the spreaders and hoped it would make us visible to thecommercial traffic that operated day and night. The nautical Rules of theRoad are kind of vague on this point. The only requirement for a boatanchored in a waterway is the display of a light or lantern in the rigging,visible from any direction. The rules were obviously written in sailing shipdays when a single candle could be seen for miles along an unlit shore.Against a background of illuminated homes, strip malls, and autoheadlights, a 2 watt bulb seemed scant protection against 40 knotspeedboats and 1000 ton oil barges.

Our navigation equipment for this trip consisted of a strip chart of theICW in booklet form, sort of like a motor club Triptik. We also had alisting of buoys and critical markers, and a marina and facilities guide. Asa backup we had the GPS receiver but we hadn't used it for anything moredemanding than finding the location of our house. To further complicateour navigational chores, all distances on the ICW are measured in statuteor land miles while most other distances over the water are measured infifteen percent longer nautical miles. This made for an exercise in mentalarithmetic when we wanted to compare our ICW strip chart with othermarine information. The strip chart was based on a Corps of Engineerssurvey done in 1948. The marina regulars told us that since the ICW wasin a constant flux of silting up and being dredged, any year's chart wouldbe as inaccurate as any other.

The only tide table we had was in a travel booklet picked up in HiltonHead on our way down. The VHF radio that was our primary means ofship to ship communications had a line-of-sight range. That means if wecouldn't see who we were trying to raise on the radio, we probably couldn'ttalk to them either. Our secondary means of communication was byyelling.

By this time we had worked out a routine for the navigation chores.Often Maggie told me where we were and I steered the boat. Lessfrequently I told Maggie where we were and she steered the boat.Sometimes neither of us had any idea where we were.

April 2 - Day 4

Puffin made a good run today along the ICW as it twisted its waythrough low lying islands on the Georgia coast. We had pleasant weatherat last. Colors were soft and diffused by a very slight haze in the air. Thegrass along the shore was brilliant green, the water various shades of blue.Orange waterway markers shimmered as if they were internally illuminatedby neon lights.

The ICW in this part of Georgia has about as much direction as abowl of spaghetti. We traveled ten miles North then nine miles South,sometimes seeing the very same trees and houses from the other side. Wepassed many small fishing boats and shrimpers.

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On one fishing trawler a young girl and her dog were seated on thecabin top waving to passing boats. She was not more than seven or eightand dressed in a summery pink frock. Her joy was so contagious that eventhe most dour fishermen smiled and waved back. I waved too, thenreached for my camera to record this lovely scene. By the time I got it outand focused our boats were too far apart for a picture. No matter, it wasone of those lifetime memory images like the ferryboat girl in the whitedress in Citizen Kane. My only regret is that I can’t share it with anyone.We ate lunch as we motored, usually cranberry juice and veggies with ahandful of peanuts as a snack.

Our anchoring destination for tonight was near Ossibaw Island.Along the way we were joined by a small pod of dolphins that traveledbeside us for a couple of miles. They swam parallel to the boat, then doveunderneath and came up the other side. What a fun game. Too soon theytired of us and went looking for a slicker boat, or perhaps one that dumpedfood scraps over the side.

A number of wider spots along the ICW near Savannah were to beused as the sailing venues for the upcoming Atlanta Olympics and therewas much construction of docks, boathouses and other facilities. Finelooking houses were being built as well, almost certainly to be rented forexorbitant prices for the Games. If we stayed anchored here for a coupleof months we would have prime seats for the Olympic sailing events.

Savannah is located on the highest point above the river. JamesOglethorpe, a member of parliament in England, had a mission. A friendof his had died in debtor’s prison. He wanted to establish a place in theNew World where another "chance" could prevail. He persuaded KingGeorge III to grant land for such a safe haven and Georgia was established.The King didn't have debtor’s relief in mind. His intention was to providea bulwark against the Spaniards in Florida.

Oglethorpe was given no pay and little authority but supervised thecolony for ten years. He laid out the City of Savannah based on designsfrom the Roman Empire. Savannah, like Rome, featured central squaressurrounded by homes, businesses, meeting halls and places of worship.These squares were decorated with fountains and statues.

The original laws of the colony were very strict and specific. Therewas no hard liquor, no slavery, and no lawyers. These restrictions quicklychanged. Eventually Savannah became a center of the slave trade, tavernsflourished and debtors were thrown in prison. I am told that there are evena few lawyers in town.

April 3 - Day 5

The full scale northward migration of boats on the ICW had not yetstarted but we still had plenty of company. Fast motor cruisers zoomed byus, leaving us bobbing in their wake. The bigger boats, or those with

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more daring skippers, took the outside passage in fair weather.Commercial traffic was mostly barges and tugs except near fishing ports.We passed and were passed in turn by many of the northbound boats.

Our maximum speed was seven knots, a landlubberly eight miles anhour, though we usually cruised at six knots. This was slightly slowerthan some of the accompanying trawlers. But since we kept at it a bitlonger eventually we met again.

Once in a while, when we were close enough, we tried to start aconversation with our fellow travelers. The conjoint noise of our motorsmade anything short of a shout inaudible. We did find out that many wereretired and were cruising from winter homes in Florida to spend time withtheir children and grand children in the snow country. One man was aretired German engineer who told us in a Bavarian accent that a cruisingretirement was much nicer in the USA than on the terminally pollutedwaterways of Europe. The costs were less here too. At last we havebecome a Third World retirement haven where foreigners come to maketheir money go further.

Bridge openings were a challenge. Most opened on the hour and if wedidn't arrive just before the opening, we had to wait, with a growingaccumulation of boats, until the clock chimed again. Here was where thatturn in your own length practice paid off. The turning basins on both sidesof the bridge got crowded as all of us tried to hold our boats off each otherand the piling lined shore until opening time. Our best strategy was toadjust our approach speed so that we reached the bridge just before itclosed.

The timing was critical but it was better to be too late than too early.When we saw the bridge start to open about half a mile ahead of us wefrantically radioed the bridge tender imploring him to keep it up until wepassed through. Most of the time the bridge tender complied if we werewithin five minutes of the zero hour. We sped through the span withoutpausing, oblivious to the glares of waiting motorists. But we alwaysremembered to thank the bridge tender on the other side. A little politenessnever hurts.

That night we anchored in Jarvis Creek on Hilton Head Island. Ourtourist office brochure told us that the tidal range was nine feet. We arrivedat our anchoring destination near high tide and looked around for a spotthat had at least nine feet more water beneath us than necessary to float theboat.

To keep the anchor from dragging, we always need to let out at leastfive to seven times more anchor line than the depth of the water. Allowingfor the tidal range and the draft of the boat meant that we would need atleast 75 feet of anchor line and that the boat would swing around in a circle150 feet in diameter. This was too much for a narrow creek a bit more than100 ft. wide. To make sure we didn't drift into either bank, we set twoanchors to restrict our swinging range.

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The procedure for anchoring in a tidal creek was quite simple althoughI had only done it a few times before. First you set an anchor near one sideof the creek, and then you move to the other side and set another anchor.Finally, you haul in both lines until the boat is near the middle. If the windshifts you will not drift too close to either shore. When we dropped thehooks at night, the creek looked broad and the land flat. Unfortunately,the battery in our anchor light was flat too. It had lasted only two nightsand the bulb was now about firefly bright. I managed to jury rig asubstitute anchor light by wrapping wire around the terminals of a spare 12volt bulb, taping it as high as I could reach in the rigging. I then pluggedthe other end into the cigarette lighter socket. It was much brighter than thebattery powered bulb.

On out first drive down to Florida, we detoured to Hilton Head to seewhat this popular resort was like. A thousand years ago this island wasparadise to the Escamu Indians. In sequence, it became paradise to theYemasee Indians, to the Spanish conquistadors, to the French Huguenots,to English plantation owners, to freed slaves, to housing developers, andfinally to franchise owners and mall rats. Every fast food establishmentthat you ever dreamed existed was located on the main street, every shoestore, every toggery, every Gap, TJ Max, Victoria's Secret, Body Shop,ad infinitum. What distinguished it from a massive outdoor shopping mallwere some very nice beaches and a lot of humid air.

April 4 - Day 6

The world was different at low tide. We awoke to find ourselvesanchored in a narrow stream with small, low islands all around. When thetide dropped, the land emerged. We chose our spot well last evening. Thedouble mooring held us in the middle of the only deep water in the creek.We could hear and see small fishing boats puttering around the shallowwater between islets, setting and retrieving fish pots and crab traps. Afterbreakfast we continued northward while the weather became moreunsettled. As we rounded a bend in the ICW we saw a trawler, one of ourfellow travelers, lying on its side on the muddy bank. Apparently hewasn't aware of the 9 foot drop in tide. He had a six hour wait until hefloated free. We couldn't get close enough to ask if everything was all rightbut we felt reassured when the embarrassed skipper appeared on the tilteddeck, shrugged his shoulders and waved us on.

Puffin cruised slowly through more wandering waterways in the SouthCarolina low country. The ICW passed close by Beaufort and by EdistoIsland south of Charleston. Beaufort was once called the most aristocratictown in the Old South. We have it on good report that quite a fewresidents are still waiting for the return of the Confederacy. The town wasestablished in 1562 by Jean Ribaut and a band of French Huguenots andwas the first Protestant community in the Americas. Had the Huguenotshad a better publicity agent than the Pilgrims, we might all be speakingFrench and eating crepes suzette on Thanksgiving.

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Beaufort is reputed to be a favorite layover destination for ICWboaters fleeing the cold weather. It is known for its Southern hospitality.The town Fathers (and Mothers) have established a marine WelcomeWagon which hands out goodies in the hope that boaters will leave thetown with fond memories while spending some money before they go.The Welcome Wagon lady hands a rose to every woman on board andgives a smile to every gentleman.

Before the advent of nylon and dacron, Edisto Island was the mainsource of sea island cotton which was the American version of Egyptiancotton, which in turn replaced flax for making sails. How's that forbringing a nautical theme into geography. Now Edisto Island is apparentlyone huge real estate development and signs posted along the channel offerhome sites and condos for the travel weary.

Charleston looked picture book pretty from the water with its rows ofelegant pastel colored houses bordered by carefully tended gardens. Ourtourist booklet said that it was founded by English aristocrats loyal to KingCharles II. In gratitude for their support, he deeded them all the landssouth of the Virginias to the Georgia border. At the time this was lookedupon as a largely symbolic gift since the King's surveyors said the marshy,water soaked ground was worthless for any purpose.

To every one's surprise, the land proved ideal for growing rice, aswell as cotton and indigo. The Carolina lowlands, with the hard work ofAfrican slaves, became one of the major rice producing areas of the world.The wealth of the rice paddies, the booklet informed us, went right into thearchitecture of Charleston. It was the epitome of European luxury in theNew World. From what we can see from the deck of Puffin, it must betrue.

Charleston's historic district is much larger than Savannah's. Most ofthese old buildings were preserved because of Northern “retribution”following the Civil War. Since Charleston initiated the start of hostilitiesby firing on Fort Sumter, federal aid to re-build the city was a long timecoming. Charlestonians had to "make do" with what they had available.Since there was little money to rebuild, a large number of very oldstructures remained. An architectural board reviews any proposedconstruction or renovation planned for all buildings older than 75 years.You can do whatever you please on the inside, but the outside must lookjust like it did at the end of the Civil War.

At Charleston harbor the ICW markers headed straight out to sea.The weather had become blustery and the fresh wind coming off the oceanraised short choppy waves in the harbor. Our ICW navigational guidementioned that the waterway headed out into the harbor then made a sharpturn to the left at a numbered navigational buoy. It would be imprudent theguide said to save time by cutting across the harbor since there were manyshallow spots. We were unable to locate the turning buoy and began to getuneasy.

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Fort Sumter was less than a hundred yards off to the right. It was alow dark stone structure on a rocky island about half a mile offshore, noteven slightly resembling the story book fort of one’s imagination.

This fort was the direct result of lack of preparedness in the War of1812 when British ships of war bombarded undefended US harbors. The“Star Spangled Banner” is Francis Scott Key’s musical rendition of theBritish attack on Baltimore. To prevent this from happening again,Congress authorized coastal fortifications up and down the Atlantic andGulf Coasts. Fort Sumpter was built on a foundation of Maine graniteblocks laid on a sand bar in the harbor. Typical of most governmentprojects, construction was so slow that by 1860 only 15 of the planned135 heavy guns had been installed.

It looked like an unlikely place for the start of the Civil War. But onApril 12, 1861 Confederate forces fired shells at Fort Sumter for 34 hoursstraight while the women and children of Charleston lined the harbor towatch the fireworks. The fort finally surrendered with surprisingly littleloss of life. Maine granite is very strong. Southern troops held the fort forthe next four years.

We tried to feel a twinge of historic nostalgia at passing by FortSumpter but we had more immediate concerns. The ICW appeared to beheading straight out to sea. No turn in sight, no familiar waterwaymarkers, and dark clouds on the horizon. By this time we were convincedthat our next landfall would be Europe. Finally I recognized a familiarbuoy number through the binoculars and Maggie located it on our stripchart. It was the turning buoy at last. We made the appropriate turn andsoon were back in the narrow confines of the waterway.

By evening it was cold and rainy so we stopped for the night in OysterHouse Creek. This is a narrow stream on the western bank of the ICW.There was a cozy, well lit house on the shore and we envied the pleasuresof unmoving beds and TV. Fortunately, we were warm. The engine, afterrunning all day, acted like a big cast iron stove and the cabin didn't cool offuntil we are snug in our sleeping bags for the night.

April 5 - Day 7

We worked our way up the coastal islands on the South Carolinashore. From deck height we could look over and see the Atlantic. Therewas still plenty of damage along the shore from Hurricanes Andrew (’92)and Gordon (’94). Most of the beach front houses were built on stilts andhad survived the direct surge of sea water but the ICW was lined withwrecked boats and piers. The storm surge appeared to have torn looseboats and boathouses, carried them inland and dumped them, shatteringthe structures and breaking the boat hulls. Cleanup has been very slow.This may be a nice place to visit although you wouldn't want to live here - atleast not during hurricane season.

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Motoring up the waterway was very relaxing. Both of us would sit inthe upper steering cockpit, chatting and looking at the scenery. It was likewatching an interminable, but still enjoyable, slow motion travelogue. Theonly real problem was the sun. There was no cover over the cockpit and bynoontime we were usually baked and dehydrated. Hats and long sleevedshirts became the uniform of the day. Finally, out of desperation, werigged a beach umbrella to the boom, angling it to cast some shade in thedirection of the wheel. Every waterway turn meant that the umbrella wouldhave be readjusted. It couldn't be tightly tied in one place. The staff wasjammed through a loop of rope around the boom and the base of the staffwas held firm by the person whose foot was in the right place. This juryrigged bimini cover solved our problem until an unusually strong gust ofwind levitated the entire umbrella out of the cockpit, over the back of theboat, and into the water. It was impossible to make a quick enough turn inthe narrow channel and our last view of our sunshade was of the umbrellaslowly sinking beneath the ripples.

We stopped for the night at Graham Creek. By now our anchoringdrill was pretty routine. I yelled a lot and Maggie dropped the anchor.Maggie would haul the anchor in the morning while I maneuvered the boatto ease the strain. The hardest part was scraping off the mud and gunk thatclung to the flukes. Maggie would get the big globs then we would hangthe anchor from the bowsprit and let the slow forward motion of the boatwash it comparatively clean. When we set two anchors we had to doeverything twice. I often offered to switch jobs but Maggie seemed moreintimidated by the trivial task (for me) of clutch and throttle control than bythe backbreaking work of hauling 50 pounds of anchor and mud. Ofcourse she made the obvious joke that Puffin had an anchor wench insteadof an anchor winch. This did almost nothing to ease my guilt.

April 6 - Day 8

It was a truly miserable day. Rain, cold, and wind. We were in agood spot so we just stayed to wait it out. Fortunately we had packed apassel of paperbacks so we had plenty of reading material. That and a fewboat chores kept us busy all day. Maggie marked our strip map andidentified the critical markers in bold writing so we could see them in ahurry. The front opening ports were leaking and water dropped on ourfaces at night. We discovered that most of the wetness on the floor and theberths came from deck and port leaks.

Our temporary repair for the leaky ports was to tape plastic covers cutfrom Maggie's painting drop cloth over them. We also used a piece ofplastic to cover the forward hatch. I caulked every suspicious crack alongthe perimeter of the windows with a tube of bathtub grout that I haddiscovered in Charlie's toolbox. Maggie and I wondered if there was morehe hadn't told us. These temporary fixes made the sleeping areacomparatively dry but some drops still fell from bolts securing deckfittings. Removing and rebedding the fittings to eliminate the leaks wouldhave involved much more outside work than we were prepared to handle in

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this kind of weather. We opted for an expedient fix by cutting the tops offtwo empty plastic cranberry juice bottles and fashioning the bottoms intolittle buckets. We then hung the buckets directly under the leaky bolts. Nomore rain in the face.

People that have never owned a boat fantasize that boating is aleisurely activity. They couldn't be more wrong. No boat is ever in perfectcondition or even in really good condition. It is always a battle betweenmaintenance and deterioration, a labor of Sisyphus, ever fighting thenatural agents of decay. There is always a task to be done to make the boatmore seaworthy, and when that is accomplished, another task, and stillanother. The trick is to learn to love the process. It is the race that countssince there is never any ultimate victory.

Although Puffin was not a big boat, it had plenty of below deck space.There was a sleeping area in the forepeak with two full sized berths,hanging closets on each side and several dresser type drawers. From theforepeak, you climbed two steps to reach the pilothouse. The internalsteering station with instruments, electrical panel, Loran, VHF radio andbroadcast radio was on the right hand or starboard side. The port or lefthand side had cabinets for supplies and the water heater. The pilot househad its own ladder leading to the upper steering station. Lift a hatch in thefloor and you found the engine. Down two steps astern, being careful notto bump your head on a crossbeam was the main cabin with the stove, sinkand icebox to port and a dinette table and couch like seating benches tostarboard. Under the benches was still more storage space. Immediatelyaft was the bathroom with toilet, sink and hand held shower. At the backend of the main cabin was a short ladder leading to the rear deck.

All the below deck spaces had standing headroom, at least for us.This division of space made it possible for each of us to read draw or justsnooze without interfering with the other. The only thing we really lackedwas a gym. After being confined below for a rainy day it was necessary torun up and down the ladder to the deck a few times to work the kinks outof your muscles.

April 7 - Day 9

The ICW along this part of the South Carolina shore was straight andeasy to follow. We stopped in Georgetown, a little oasis between an agingsteel mill and a paper mill. Neither was in operation when we arrived. Thetown fronted a fairly wide creek extending west from the ICW. Justbeyond the paper mill the creek bent in a gradual arc to reveal a lovelyharbor with dozens of pleasure boats anchored in neat rows.

Georgetown was once the rice exporting capitol of the South and, inaddition to picturesque streets, featured a museum devoted to rice farming.Waterfront buildings were painted with large colorful murals showingscenes from the town’s early days. Georgetown had decided that it wasrisky to tie its future to the industrial age and had made a determined effortto attract tourists, even those arriving aboard boats.

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Our berth for the night was at a small marina and fuel dock along thewaterfront. We selected it on the spur of the moment because a near sistership of Puffin was tied along a neighboring dock. In topping off the fueltanks I somehow managed to spill about a quart of diesel fuel into thewater. It was panic time since the EPA mandates a big fine for fuel spills.

Fortunately, Maggie remembered that we had a bottle of dish washingdetergent on board. The dock attendant suggested dousing the deck andthe water surrounding the boat with the soapy contents of the bottle todisperse the sheen before the harbor police noticed. The sheen vanishedbut a halo of soapsuds surrounded our boat for some time. Lessonnumber one in fueling has been learned. Stop the pump before the tank isfilled!

A boardwalk ran along the harbor and was lined with shops and fancyeateries. The one we selected provided an excellent meal, fresh seafooddredged from the canal we had just traveled - a welcome change from DintyMoore stew. We engaged in a fruitless search for a tachometer cable,exploring the picture book views of the town in the process. The onlyominous sign was a street marker about six feet above ground levelmarking the height of the last flood. The flowers here were beautiful and itwas only April.

April 8 - Day 10

Today we made it to Myrtle Beach, renowned for golf, seashoresports and other sybaritic activities. The waterway here was largely manmade, a straight canal lined with big houses, still showing some damagefrom recent storms. There were few spots to anchor out of the trafficstream so we stopped at the Coquina Marina, an establishment so largethat we needed a map to find our designated pier. There were at least 1000boats here, some small and insignificant, others pseudo ocean liners.After calling the dockmaster on the radio we were assigned a berth only tofind ourselves lost in the dozens of possible passages. It was like beingtrapped in a watery Hampton Court maze. Eventually a dock boy noticedour confusion and directed us to the proper spot.

For dinner, we decided to hike to a first class restaurant several milesaway, highly recommended by a local skipper. It was a long walk downthe main highway. Certainly we needed the exercise after so many days ofconfinement. Golf courses were arrayed to the right and left of us alongthe way. The restaurant was supposed to be informal so we were still inour sailing clothes. When we entered the restaurant we had the suddenrealization that informal in Myrtle Beach, at least among the golfing set,meant tuxedos were optional. Though we were the most casually dressed,we were secure in our dignity and had an excellent, albeit expensive, meal.By the time we got back to the boat, it was dark.

We attempted to make our first phone call to our children to tell themthat we had survived so far. Turning out our pockets yielded just enough

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change for one call. Now the problem was determining which child to call.We finally decided that if we called Karen, she would probably call Mikebut we were not certain if it would work the other way around. Fumblingthrough a maze of common carriers we finally reached Karen. But ourtime ran out in the middle of the conversation and we couldn’t scrape upenough change to eke out another three minutes. So we left her hanging inmid-sentence. We hoped she would assume the best and not that we hadbeen zapped by a lightning bolt.

April 9 - Day 11

The ICW in North Carolina was close to the ocean with narrow, lowlying sandy islands acting as a breakwater. We could not accurately judgespeed, so we followed a sailboat that was going about as fast as we wantedto go. He reluctantly engaged in the usual ICW social chit chat over theradio because, as he indicated by hand signals, the battery in his handheldVHF radio was running low. There was a parade of boats at this point.Sometimes we got too close to each other, backing off when we could seethe whites of the other skipper’s eyes. ICW markers were often coveredwith bird’s nests so big that the number couldn't be seen. No problem. Itwould have been hard to get lost.

Our sailboat guide suggested that a good evening stop would theharbor in Wrightsville Beach. The town was off the ICW to the right,down a winding canal lined with condos. We barged our way through asailing race, contributing to a shuffling of the leaders, and found a wideharbor, perhaps a mile across, with expensive summer homes andapartments all around. Many yachts were moored in the harbor, somepermanently, and some transients like us. Our definition of a yacht, bythe way, was any boat larger than our own. Maggie and I have neverconsidered ourselves yacht people since that would violate the workingclass, neo-socialist values of our upbringing.

We found an open anchoring spot and dropped the hook. Bynightfall, the harbor was crowded with other transient vessels, some fromabroad. This appeared to be a favorite nesting ground even though it wasnot listed in any of our waterway guides. One person just tells another.That is how local knowledge, that store of miscellaneous information thatold timers have floating around their brains, accumulates. What a beautifulnight. The sky color deepened from robin's egg to azure to midnight blue.We sipped wine surrounded by twinkling lights. It was a thoroughlydelightful evening.

April 10 - Day 12

Puffin left Wrightsville Beach just after dawn. The morning wasfoggy and the winds calm. Soon after leaving, we were yelled at by adockside lounger not to make such a wake. I estimated our speed wasabout 4 or 5 knots. We must have spilled his morning coffee. Maggie andI alternated in steering the boat. Given the short spacing of the ICWmarkers, it would have taken real work to get lost.

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Canal cruising gives you the opportunity to see things close up and inslow motion, totally unlike driving. The closest analogy is biking leisurelythrough the countryside. The scenery flowed slowly by, the foliagechanged from palm to moss hung oak to pine as we made our way north.We decided to chart our progress, state by state, on an AAA Road Atlas.On the large scale map of the United States, the mark showing our presentposition was disappointingly close to our starting point.

The day cleared and the wind got blustery. It was cold and more rainwas predicted. We had made good progress today so we decide to stopearly and find a berth at the Dudley Marina in Swansboro. This was amedium sized service marina catering to motorboats and fishermen.Showers were available and welcome although Maggie found a peephole inhers used by the resident voyeur. She wadded up a piece of toilet paperand stuffed it in the hole adding to his frustration.

The marina lent us an automobile to do some shopping in town. Thecar was the mother of all wrecks. I expected it momentarily to collapse intoits rusted component parts as it sputtered and lurched along the local roads.We replenished our fresh food supply and bought a few goodies at a localcombination supermarket and dry goods store. Maggie picked up somenice white towels at bargain prices. I seem to recall that there were anumber of textile mills in this region and that Swansboro was once the siteof a particularly nasty battle between management goons and labororganizers. The town was also pickup truck heaven, but it worked to ouradvantage. At last I found the correct tachometer cable in the auto partsstore next door to the supermarket. It was a universal truck speedometercable, a part which must be special ordered in more civilized locations.That evening I cut it to length with my Multi-tool and installed it. Itworked.

April 11 - Day 13

The weather looked OK for a change despite a low lying fog thathampered visibility. It seemed a good opportunity to make up some timeso we left just after dawn. We headed east through Bogue Sound. This isa wide and shallow stretch of water, separated from the sea by a lownarrow grass covered barrier island. The deep channel threads through thesound in a serpentine manner and we had to keep an eye on the channelmarkers. The waterway made an unexpected turn just as a particularlydense blob of fog hid the markers. Within seconds the boat slowed, thenstopped abruptly and we found ourselves aground on a falling tide. TheICW old timers told us that hardly anyone made it through without hittingthe bottom at least once. Well, we've been baptized.

Fortunately the bottom was mud rather than rock. I used the dinghy toset an anchor in deeper water so that we wouldn't drift further ashore. Weprepared to wait it out until the tide came in. A passing commercial fishingboat skipper asked if we needed help and offered to pull us off. Hegrabbed the anchor line, wrapped it to his stern cleat and started to tug. All

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it did was tip our boat. Puffin weighed 16, 000 pounds and had beenaground for at least an hour.

The fisherman was challenged by the failure of his towing efforts andbecame obsessed with getting us free. He attached the line to his hoistingcrane, raised it well above deck level and hit the throttle. His boat hadplenty of power, as it needed to have, to haul fish nets. The rope stretchedbar tight. Maggie and I cowered back afraid that it might snap or the cleatspull out of the deck. But everything held. The high angle of the linecounteracted the tipping force and Puffin slowly began to pivot. Weassisted him with our own motor and slowly worked free.

When we offered to pay him for his salvage job, he wouldn't take anymoney saying that it was just a local custom to help another boat in need.He might require a tow himself one day and we might just be the ones thathappened by. To play it safe we decided to follow a commercial bargefiguring that its hull was deeper than ours and it would hit the bottombefore we did.

The channel made a sharp left turn at Morehead City and our blockerleft us. We were now headed north. Most of this area had modest housesalong the waterway, many built on stilts. Although the tides were less thanin South Carolina, storms sweep water inland from time to time and coverthe very flat ground.

We passed many fishing boats along the waterway and a couple ofoyster dredges. The oyster boats scoured the bottom with a conveyer beltsystem that scooped up everything on the river bed and brought it to thesurface on its moving belt. Crewmen picked out the desirable oysters andclams from amidst the old tires and shoes before the belt rotated downwardtoward the bottom again. The residue was dumped back in the water.These boats appeared to pay not the slightest attention to the signsprohibiting oyster dredging in polluted areas. Raw oysters and clamssuddenly dropped several places on my seafood appetizer list.

Several small boats were loaded so heavily with oysters that thegunwales were only an inch or two above the water. A slight wave wouldhave swamped them and liberated the oysters. We stopped for the night atCedar Creek, the last potential anchorage before crossing Pamlico Sound.

April 12 - Day 14

Pamlico Sound was choppy from a brisk onshore wind and, althoughthe water appeared wide and open, the dredged channel was quite narrow.Fortunately we left the open water by midday and threaded our way pastseveral small islands. North of Belhaven there was a strip of canal thatterminated in the Alligator River. It seems that every third waterway fromFlorida is named Alligator something or other. It tends to discourage youfrom letting your feet dangle over the side. The water in this river was thecolor of strong tea from the tannin in the decaying vegetation.

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Our search for an anchorage began about dusk. We tried a few spots,and eventually found one to our liking. The ideal anchorage for a smallboat is another one of those maritime Holy Grails. It must be protectedfrom the wind and strong currents, out of the stream of traffic, deepenough so that you will not touch bottom when the tide goes out but not sodeep that you need to let out an excessively long anchor line. The bottomshould have good anchor holding properties without any rocks to snare theanchor or abrade the nylon rope. The anchor must not lose its hold if thewind or tide changes although it should pull out easily in the morning.Finally, the anchor must come out clean without requiring messyscrubbing. A hard sand bottom is probably best but there are few suchanchorages this side of the tropics. Its no wonder we had to try a severalspots before we found one that even approximated our minimumspecifications.

The country was heavily wooded and the only signs of human lifewere the lights on a few nearby boats. We were told that there are blackbears in the woods who regularly swim across the river to reach the otherside. Maggie was sure that she saw one swimming across our bow. Thesunset was beautiful. There was a ring around the moon. Now if I couldonly remember what that means.

April 13 - Day 15

Dawn was announced by raindrops falling on our face. We hadforgotten to rig the mini-rain buckets. I finally recalled what the ringaround the moon meant. Despite our careful selection of an anchorage theprevious night, the boat rocked and pitched in the storm tossed waters.The anchor held firmly and there was no danger. It was just uncomfortableand a bit cold too. The weather radio told us of small craft warnings andeight foot waves on Albemarle Sound, our next destination.

The waterway guidebook noted that Albemarle Sound could beunpredictable and nasty because the shallow brackish water quickly builtup into steep choppy waves in an onshore wind. We decided to stay putfor the day. So far we have had three days layover and were halfwaythrough our reading material. By noon the rain let up a bit and a few boatspassed us to attempt the Albemarle Sound crossing. We decided to gotomorrow since the day was half over.

The weather along the North Carolina coast is particularlyunpredictable because of a peculiar meteorological phenomenon. Here thewarm Gulf Stream heading north meets the much colder Labrador Currentheading south. The conflict results in the frequent storms that plague theOuter Banks. So many ships have foundered in violent storms off theseshores that this corner of the infamous Bermuda Triangle is called theGraveyard of the Atlantic. There are about 5000 sunken vessels off theNorth Carolina coast and we didn’t plan to add to the total.

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Some boat housekeeping chores occupied our time. I adjusted theautopilot so that it would reliably steer the boat and Maggie reorganizedour supplies. By mid afternoon, the sun came out and the wind died. Theweather forecast assured us that tomorrow should be even better. Welistened to the radio to pass the time. All we could get near the ICW wasBible belt fundamentalism, country and western music and Public Radio.The prevalence of Public Radio was a surprise until we remembered thatevery small college probably had a FM station networking the PBSbroadcasts. We heard a lot of PBS and a few of the tapes we brought withus to play in the car.

When I drive, I like to listen to opera, usually concert performancesof soloists played very loudly. We slipped a couple of these tapes into thecassette player and treated the black bears to a stirring concert of LucianoPavarotti and Cecilia Bartoli.

April 14 - Day 16

The hoped for good weather never materialized. We decided to goanyway. Albemarle Sound lived up to its reputation for roughness. Thewind from the Atlantic drove choppy waves of 4 to 6 feet right on ourstarboard beam. Their timing was perfectly synchronized with the naturalroll period of the boat. Like a child on a playground swing where correctlytimed small pushes can get the swing moving in a huge arc, the waves gotthe boat rolling from side to side about 45 degrees each way. I wassteering from the lower station trying to keep my balance as the rug slidfrom one edge of the wheelhouse to the other. Finally Maggie folded it upinto a two foot square pad and I stood on it behind the wheel. The sand onthe floor left over from the folded shag rug acted like tiny ball bearingsunderfoot. Maggie scrubbed up the sand with wet towels while we rockedand rolled.

After about three hours of cocktail shaker motion we finally crossedthe sound and entered the North River. The entrance required a sharp turnthat Maggie finally located. Just as we rounded the point and headed intocalmer water, a Coast Guard patrol boat hailed us and wanted to board foran inspection. The patrol boat had a crew of five or six young seaman, allequipped with lethal looking sidearms, and a drug sniffing dog. Thenoncom in charge told me that our dinghy, tied on the swim platform, wasobscuring our name and port and they wanted to see our papers. Since wedidn't have any papers yet, I got confused and couldn't even find the bill ofsale. Maggie told me where to look but naturally I couldn't locate it.

The guardsmen opened all the cabinets and hatches and the enginecompartment. Eventually I found the bill of sale, right where Maggie toldme it was and it satisfied the legal requirement. We got a clean bill ofhealth in the inspection too. The horn worked, we have the requirednumber of life preservers and fire extinguishers, etc. Our only defect wasthat we lacked a sign posted over the galley telling us not to dump garbageover the side. The Chief Petty Officer commanding the team graciouslyoverlooked that major deficiency and gave us an official satisfactory

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inspection certificate. He confided that they had orders to stop everynorthbound boat since a major shipment of drugs was expected up theICW. The CPO obviously decided that two senior citizens piloting anancient sailing trawler were unlikely suspects. The dog wagged its tail.

We continued on our way and, as we looked back, we could see thepatrol boat hailing the following ICW voyager. At Coinjock we stopped torefuel at Midway Marina. This was a small rustic looking place beingrehabilitated by a husband and wife team who retired from city living toraise their kids in a less toxic atmosphere. It was not much of a marina,basically a fuel dock and a log cabin type building containing a little storeand a lounge. It was extremely neat and hospitable. The interior wasfinished in varnished knotty pine with blue curtains and braided throwrugs. It served as the family's living room in the off season. We felt thatwe could use a little home style hospitality after the traumatic events of theafternoon so we decided to stay the night at the dock. The back yard wasplanted in flowers with a scattering of plastic children's toys. We borrowedthe marina car and drove to a local diner where we had a Southern Frieddinner.

April 15 - Day 17

Today's route was through the Albemarle Canal in Virginia, a narrowman made canal with sharp hull eating rocks lining each side. At one pointwe passed through an Army artillery range where traffic lights warned us ifthere was shooting in progress. Naturally red meant stop and wait or youmight have an errant projectile fall on deck.

By this time our days were pretty routine. We woke at dawn andstruggled into our boating togs. Maggie would wipe the condensation offthe deck while I would try to light our Kamikaze alcohol stove to heat waterfor coffee. Breakfast was usually of cold oatmeal, Parmelat ultrapasteurized milk and whatever fruit we happened to have. This was muchthe same breakfast we have had at home for the last ten years. There mustbe a virtue in consistency. Either that or the curse of little minds. By thistime the coffee was ready and we gulped it while planning our days run.Maggie would then haul the anchor while I tried to position the boat to easethe strain. Then came a long stint of morning motoring.

Lunch usually consisted of a handful of peanuts, some greenery,perhaps a slice of bread and a glass of diluted cranberry juice. Actually,the cranberry juice disguised the taste of the lousy Florida water. We havenearly 60 gallons of Marineland water on board and are consuming it at avery slow rate. Our pristine New York water has spoiled us.

About noon we saw a sign warning that the Dismal Swamp Canal wasclosed because of low water. The Dismal Swamp Canal is an alternativepassage from Albermarle Sound to Chesapeake Bay. This was a realdisappointment since the canal was reputed to be neither dismal norswampy. We were looking forward to cruising on one of the country'searliest and most picturesque public works. Young George Washington

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made some of the first surveys of the route and he owned property in thearea. The canal, dug by hand with slave labor and fed by rain waterthrough a feeder canal, was quite an engineering accomplishment.

During the Civil War Union troops tried unsuccessfully to blow upthe locks but it was too well defended, and the Confederacy kept it open asa supply route. Amazingly, most of the original bulkhead system, builtfrom local cypress trees cut in the 1700's, still exists in good condition.

The ICW guide noted that the canal was only 50 ft. wide in places,bordered by huge overhanging oak and cypress trees. Instead ofanchoring, a sleepy sailor could simply tie the boat to the nearest branch.George Washington's ghost is said to patrol the shoreline. That probablyexplains why the Corps of Engineers has seen fit to keep this passage opensince it is far too small for commercial travel. This excursion into the pastwill have to wait for our next trip.

Many of the homes fronting on the ICW in Virginia were very lavish,easily costing many hundreds of thousands. Equally impressive boatswere docked in front. Where was this southern rural poverty we heard somuch about? About 5 or 6 p. m. we started looking for a spot to stop.Tonight we stayed at a very large boatyard, the Atlantic Yacht Haven, arepair and construction yard near Great Bridge, VA where ocean crossingyachts make their final preparations before heading out to sea. It waslocated just before the only lock on the ICW, one which lowered a boat 3feet to reach the level of Chesapeake Bay. The main reason we stopped atthe yard was to buy a costly book of charts for Chesapeake Bay.Unknown to us, we could have docked for free just before the lock. Well,next time we’ll know.

Tied just ahead of our boat was a retired 56 foot ocean racing sailboatbelonging to a young couple who just bought it in Florida and werereturning it to their home in Long Island. At first I thought that we wouldhave company up the ICW but their mast was too tall to pass under the 65foot clearance fixed bridges. They will have to take it outside afterNorfolk. We strolled into Great Bridge to do a little shopping and havedinner. Crossing the road to walk back to the boat took at least fiveminutes. We were back in civilization; at least as far as auto traffic wasconcerned.

April 16, Easter Sunday - Day 18

This morning’s big event was the Great Bridge lock. Locking up ordown is very simple once you have done it a few times although we werecertainly anxious about it the first time. We have become old hands atnegotiating locks. About ten years ago we cruised the Erie Canal from theHudson to Lake Cayuga to visit Mike at college. After passing through 41locks, including the 200 foot climb of the five lock Staircase, we earnedour Lockmeister's degree. The most impressive of these canal locks wasthe poorly maintained Federal Lock at Troy with wall cavities big enough toswallow an ocean liner at a single gulp.

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A lock is just a section of a canal with upstream and down streamgates. In our case the water level was raised to the upstream height and theupstream gate opened. Our boat moved in and tied up along side the canalwall. Then the water was lowered to the down stream level as we adjustedthe mooring lines. Finally the down stream gate was opened and we exited.

After locking through the Great Bridge lock we worked our way up toNorfolk. Early on Easter morning we were the only moving boat on thewater. Norfolk is an industrial city and the waterway was lined withfactories and shipyards. The Naval fleet at Norfolk reminded us of theReserve Fleet of outdated WW2 Liberty ships that used to be anchorednear our home in the Hudson River. Whole flotillas of warships were tiedtogether along the shore with not a soul stirring. We passed by aircraftcarriers, nuclear submarines, cruisers, destroyers, and support ships ofall types, up close and personal. The harbor was narrower than I expectedand, with Naval facilities lining both sides, it felt like sailing in a canyon ofgray painted metal. This was an extraordinary sight. It also suggested thathere was a potential for another Pearl Harbor. Easter Sunday would beclearly the time for a surprise attack.

At last we were through Norfolk and headed for Hampton Roadswhere the Monitor and the Merrimac ironclads slugged it out during theCivil War. We had reached ICW mile zero. The full length of ChesapeakeBay lay ahead of us.

Again the weather was unsettled with a wind blowing from thenortheast and waves of about 6 feet. We headed up the bay, wind on thestarboard forequarter. After a while we were out of sight of land for thefirst time since starting on our trip.

There is a qualitatively different feeling about sailing offshore. Whilein the canals or bays trouble meant simply rowing ashore and seeking help.That’s not possible once land vanishes over the horizon. It is not thedistance from shore that matters as much as the isolation. We have beenon ocean crossing cruises where we felt as secure as in our own beds,confident in the seaworthiness of the ship and the competence of the crew.But here we were responsible for our own safety in an untested vessel, farfrom land, and certainly beyond the limits of our short range radio. I triedto exude a confidence, both in my seamanship and in Puffin, that I did notentirely feel, and I'm sure Maggie did likewise. I cranked up the autopilotand found that it could hold us on a reasonably straight course even in thewind and waves. The boat rolled and pitched, still going in the rightdirection. The weather forecast was far from encouraging, reporting smallcraft warnings all along the bay. We had learned by this time to take theforecasts with a grain of salt, but it was not reassuring.

The GPS worked just fine. The letters GPS stand for globalpositioning system, a cold war byproduct that was originally intended tohelp missile launching submarines find their exact location. Our GPSreceiver is a tiny box, about the size of two packs of cigarettes laid end toend. It picked up signals from satellites orbiting the Earth and by some

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form of electronic magic translated the radio waves into latitude andlongitude information which could be marked on a chart. The boat'spresent location was displayed on a little screen on the face of the GPSreceiver and an arrow pointed the direction to the next desired location orwaypoint. The manual that came with the receiver stated that the positionwas accurate within a dozen feet any place on the Earth's surface. We shallsee.

I found the places where we would have to make course changes onthe chart, entered them as waypoints in the GPS, and then followed theheading indicated. Maggie made little crib cards of the waypoints so Iwould know which one was next. Most of our waypoints were centerchannel marker buoys. It was unfortunate that local fishermen used thesame spots to locate their crab and fish traps. This meant that we had tosteer manually as we approached each waypoint to avoid the crab trapbuoys. Maggie spotted the small white crab trap floats at a distance and weargued for a while trying to decide if it was a buoy or a gull. If it didn't flyaway it was a buoy. Towards evening we headed toward the shore andanchored for the evening at the mouth of the Rappahannock River nearWindmill Point. Our Easter dinner was a can of pork and beans. Yummy!

April 17 - Day 19

Today's run was much like yesterday's. Out into the bay, going fromwaypoint to waypoint, we steered a zig zag path dodging crab traps andbuoys. Sometime during the middle of the day we passed the Marylandstate line. We anchored for the night by Solomons Island, just acrossfrom the mouth of the Patuxent River. Our evening was enlivened bywatching the fighter jets from the Naval Air Station zoom overhead. Wewere the only boat in what was reputed to be a favorite anchoring area. Theradio announced the Oklahoma City bombing on the first news broadcastwe have heard in some time. It was amazing how the rest of the worlddisappears when you are on the water.

A vibration along the propeller shaft seemed to be caused by the factthat the reverse gear was almost dry. This is a gearbox attached to the rearof the engine that allows you to reverse the direction of rotation of thepropeller for backing up. It also contains other gears for reducing thespeed of the propeller, sort of like the gearbox on a car. There was a slightoil leak from the rear seal. That explained why the bilge water was usuallyoily. The rotating shaft coupling was slinging the leaking oil dropletsaround the engine compartment in a fine spray. We added what remainedof our gear oil and fitted one of Maggie's art boards over the coupling as anoil deflector. Another repair item for the ever growing list.

April 18 - Day 20

Our route was straight up the middle of the bay, following the bigboat channel markers. Again our GPS directed us from buoy to buoy.The autopilot did most of the heavy lifting even though one of us had tostand guard constantly to avoid fish and crab pots.

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The weather was still brisk with 4 to 6 ft. waves. By this time we wereused to the rock and roll motion of the boat when the seas hit us on thebeam. When I got a chance, I would try to fix the rigging so that we couldhoist enough sail to stabilize the motion. Sailboats with round bottom hullsroll very easily and depend on the roll dampening effect of their sails tomake them habitable. The technical term for this is tender. I suppose thereciprocal descriptor for a stable boat should be tough but the nauticalgurus use the term stiff instead. Puffin was so tender that if it was a steak,you could cut it with a spoon.

Our path was crossed by many fishing trawlers with net handling armshoisted above the water. From a distance, they look like enormousspiders. As we motored closer to Annapolis we could see several Navysurf boats practicing man overboard recovery maneuvers. A dummy wasthrown over the side and the crew tried to retrieve the make believe seaman.They were mostly Naval Academy cadets who handled the boats prettyineptly in their first on-the-water experiences. The dummies must havebeen quite waterlogged by the time they were hauled on board.

Whenever Maggie had the con at the upper steering station, shewrapped her face with a scarf and wore dark glasses, looking more like anArab terrorist than a suburban housewife. The crewmen on passing boatsoften stared at her in astonishment. Some boats even turned and followedPuffin for a short distance before resuming their course. Unknown to us,the news media had postulated that the Oklahoma bombers weredisgruntled Arabs who would probably be fleeing the country and that allexit routes should be watched. After listening to the radio, Maggiechanged her costume.

The channel to the Severn River was well marked and the populationof boats of all sorts increased as we closed in on the town. The weatherlightened and the late afternoon sun peeped out. We passed the NavalAcademy on our right as we approached the harbor area.

Our waterway guidebook suggested that we could pick up a townmooring and pay a small fee when the harbor master came out to collect.There were a number of unoccupied moorings so we choose one close tothe town dock. It was still very early in the boating season. In mid-Summer there was usually a three week advance reservation requirement.The harbor master never showed so we rowed our rubber dinghy thecouple of hundred yards to the dock and tied up along the scruffy lookingtown pier.

Annapolis worked hard to live up to its reputation as an upscaleboater's town. The harbor area resembled a Disney World pastiche ofperiod houses and shops studded with tourist attractions. The NavalAcademy was just down the block. Cadets and tourists mingled in theharbor front fast food establishments. Bronze plaques marked the spotswhere historic events occurred, including one that noted that Annapoliswas, for a very brief period, the nation's capitol.

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John Paul Jones, hero of the American Revolution, and "Father" ofthe US Navy is buried in the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. How hegot there is as interesting as any of his battles.

Jones was originally from Sweden. When the Revolutionary Warended Congress saw no need of maintaining a big navy and stopped payinghim. He moved to Russia and served the Czar as naval administrator untilthey ran out of money too. Finally he moved to France where he died ofpneumonia. He wasn't married, had no family, and was buried in anaristocratic cemetery near Paris. Aristocracy went "out of style" after theFrench Revolution and the cemetery, still holding all the caskets, waspaved over and new buildings were constructed on the property.

The builders of the U. S. Naval Academy wanted to inter a real navalhero in the chapel. After all, the churches in Europe have their genuinerelics of the saints. Who better than John Paul "I have not yet begun tofight" Jones? The problem was that no one was sure where he was buried.The US ambassador to France worked on this mystery for 6 years.Records no longer existed, and the exact whereabouts of John Paul’sremains were unknown. Several caskets were ultimately disinterred fromthe foundations of the newly constructed buildings and examined foridentification. Jones, upon death, had been wrapped in linen and lead foil.Then his coffin was filled with navy rum as befitting a good sailor.

Fortunately a "life cast" plaster mold had been taken many yearsbefore his death for a bust. Remarkably, rum saturated Jones was verywell preserved. A drawing was made of his bust, and overlaid with theremains from the caskets. One was a "perfect" match. Soon Jones was onhis way back to Annapolis. The chapel had its heroic relic.

We shopped at the large Fawcett's boating store to get some gear oiland other trinkets. Unfortunately the store didn't stock the oil we needed.The checkout clerk looked at our slightly disreputable clothing and mythree weeks growth of beard and assumed we were fellow "cruisers. "Making sure that no one in management heard him, he suggested that wetry the big auto parts store in the more residential part of town. Theywould have the gear oil that we needed and the prices were lower than atFawcetts. He admitted that he too was a "cruiser" and was only working inAnnapolis because he ran out of money and needed to make a stake beforeheading out again. This was social devolution hard at work. In threeweeks we had descended the ladder from middle class gentility to boatingbums.

The auto parts store was in a mall about a mile away. We ambledthrough the tree lined streets, past well maintained old houses, over theSevern River on a large bridge. The river was lined with marinas and boatyards with sailboats on the ocean side of the bridge and powerboats on theland side. The shopping mall had food stores, variety shops, and a movietheater as well as the auto store. We bought some food supplies, detergentto clean the bilge, a case of oil and some gearbox stop leak, temporarily

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overlooking the fact that we would have to carry all the stuff back to thedinghy. We retraced our steps, with many rest stops, lugging the burden.On the next trip a folding shopping cart might be a good idea.

Back at the dinghy we unloaded our supplies and rewarded ourselveswith ice cream cones. The row back to the boat was a bit harder nowbecause of an onshore wind and the cargo load. With determined effort wefinally got there. Still no harbor master. Probably too early in the seasonto collect a fee. I put oil and stop leak in the reduction gearbox, detergentin the bilge, and we feasted on our fresh produce.

April 19 - Day 21

We contemplated staying in Annapolis another day but our uncertaintyabout the continuation of relatively good weather encouraged us to keepgoing. Maggie and I plotted all of the GPS waypoints using our newcharts, reversing our course down the Severn to get back in the middle ofthe bay. As Puffin passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and turnedtoward the C&D canal the weather began to deteriorate. Soon it was theusual windy and wavy norm. I pumped the bilge with its sheen of drippedgearbox oil just as a helicopter flew overhead and worried for the rest of theday that the pilot had reported us to the EPA. Clearly we have becomeenvironmentally paranoid.

About noon the wind died and the clouds parted giving us a relativelytranquil voyage past huge shore side homes, usually set in acres of greenwell tended lawn, with the ubiquitous yachts moored in front. This mustbe where all the Washington lobbyists live. By this time the bay was quitenarrow and one could easily see from shore to shore. The AberdeenProving Ground lay to our left. Let's hope today was not a practice day.

At Turkey Point there was a signpost telling us the direction to theC&D canal connecting Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Next to the signwas a traffic light which flashed red if there was any big boat trafficheading our way and green if it was safe to enter. While we might justsqueeze by a freighter, the canal was too narrow to accommodate two largeships passing side by side. We entered the C&D canal by late afternoon.It was about the width of a football field, with rapidly sloping rock linedbanks. The canal provides a short and protected passage between thePhiladelphia/Wilmington ports and Baltimore/Norfolk so there was a lot ofcommercial traffic. The ships were mostly bulk petrochemical carriers.

Chesapeake City is located about a third of the way through the canal.Its main attraction for boaters is a dredged small boat harbor which couldbe entered through a short passage off our starboard side. As we turned in,I failed to see a young boy fishing off the bulkhead and almost ran over hislines. We avoided catastrophe by turning, backing and yelling. Each of usthought the other was particularly stupid for not paying better attention.

The harbor was about two hundred yards wide, quite shallow andalready heavily occupied. We had to hunt around a bit for a good

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anchoring spot. Finally we anchored sandwiched between a very wellmaintained Danish sailboat and a Friendship sloop from Boston. Bothwere single handed though the Boston boat had a large black dog as amascot. Incidentally, the name Friendship has nothing to do with personalrelationships. Rather it is a type of boat built in Friendship, Maine andwas popular among New England fishermen in the early 1900s. This onewas long and low with a single swept back mast and an extended bowsprit.It had been lovingly restored and probably looked much as it did when itwas new almost a century ago.

We rowed ashore to stretch our legs. In our walk we met the skipperof a large sailboat anchored a few hundred feet from us. He had picked upthe boat in Texas and was delivering it to the Great Lakes for a friend ofhis. The crew consisted of another friend and two ladies. He had no chartsof the area north of Chesapeake Bay and was unfamiliar with the Hudsonor the Erie Canal. I showed him our old charts of the Jersey shore anddrew a sketchy map of the Hudson and Erie Canal from memory, pointingout the good anchoring areas, etc. I told him that the Erie Canal might notbe open until all the ice had melted in upstate New York, certainly notbefore the beginning of May. He was in no hurry, he told us, because heand his companions were enjoying the trip so much. Even without charts,if he made it from Texas to Delaware without mishap, he should probablyget the rest of the way OK.

While Maggie cooked dinner, I managed to jury rig makeshift lazyjacks. This was just a line from the end of the boom, over the mastspreaders, around the mast and back to the boom. It was crude but itwould support the boom and permit us to hoist a reduced sail in theabsence of a topping lift. We hoped it would give us a steadier ride inbeam winds.

April 20 - Day 22

For some reason the C&D canal had little traffic early in the morningand we quickly reached Delaware Bay. The course now headed southeast;giving up much of the advance we had made toward home over the lastcouple of days. It seemed odd to program the waypoints in the GPS withlower and lower latitudes. By chance we had a favorable tide down theDelaware and made very good time. There was an atomic energy plantalong the Jersey shore spewing huge quantities of what we hoped was nonradioactive steam.

We are accompanied, at some distance, by the Danish sailboat andthe Friendship sloop, all of us traveling at about the same speed. This wasnot mere coincidence. There is an inexorable hydrodynamic law that statesthat all similar sized sailboats and trawlers generally have the same topspeed or hull speed, the longer the boat, the faster the speed. In our casethe hull speed was about 7 knots, a bit over 8 miles per hour. That is alsothe top speed of every other displacement hulled 30 foot boat. To travel asfast as an average teen on roller blades, our boat would need to be almost300 feet long.

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The little arrow on the GPS directing us to our next waypoint appearedto be leading us straight out to sea. Maggie was worried and suggestedthat we should head closer to shore. I had faith in the GPS, at least so far.It hadn't steered us wrong yet. Finally in the distance I could see a spit ofland which must be Cape May. It was confirmed when a Cape May toLewes ferry emerged from the land and headed toward the invisibleDelaware shore.

The banks of Delaware Bay are very flat, lined with small fishingvillages. There were more fish traps in this bay than in all the others puttogether. Our route zigged and zagged as we maneuvered to avoid them.Eventually we could make out the entrance to the Cape May Canal andturned to enter, dodging the next ferry. The canal traversed the gentleSouth Jersey dunes and we emerged in the Cape May harbor.

Our guidebook informed us that the canal was not dug for theconvenience of pleasure boaters like ourselves, or even for commercialcraft, but was intended to provide a short cut for air/sea rescue boats.During WW II Navy pilots used Delaware Bay as a protected training site.Boats from the Coast Guard rescue station at Cape May were dispatched incase of crashes. They had to make the long trip around the pointed end ofthe cape and frequently arrived too late. This justified digging a canalwhich cut the distance in half. Since it was only intended for smallerrescue boats, fixed bridges over the canal had lower clearance than othersalong the ICW. Sailboats with tall masts were required to take the longway around. Fortunately Puffin's mast was stubby.

We had hoped to stop at a marina tonight. In the dusk we were unableto find the entrance and anchored just off the channel in very shallow water.A couple of boats were ahead of us, one of them was already aground on alowering tide. We anchored and bumped the ground one or two times onlittle wavelets. I guess we were clear of the bottom by about six inches.Soon we were joined by the Danish boat and the Friendship sloop. After awhile we saw the skipper of the sloop rowing ashore to walk his big blackdog.

April 21 - Day 23

Today was rainy and miserable with high waves and storm warningspredicted off the Jersey shore. We decided to stay put since we wouldhave to head offshore along the coast. The protected portion of the ICW inNew Jersey had shoaled to the point where we would hit bottom too often.The Danish boat headed out to sea to brave the elements. The sloop stayedput. We read, did housekeeping, dozed off. Suddenly we heard acrunching sound and felt an impact. The Friendship sloop's anchor haddragged and his boat had drifted down on us. The crunch was his bowspritcracking on our armor thick fiberglass hull. We fended him off with boathooks and feet as the skipper emerged from the companionway lookingvery sheepish. He had been sleeping too and wasn't aware that he wasdragging. He reset his anchor, hopefully more securely this time.

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April 22 - Day 24

OK, there were still 8 foot waves along the Jersey shore but wedecided to make a run for it. We headed out the Cold Spring inlet and setour course for the Absecon Inlet next to Atlantic City. I hoisted a reefedmainsail between the jury rigged lazy jacks. It stabilized the boat and wemade good progress, passing all the condos on the Jersey shore. A lot offishing boats worked off the coast, including those spider like trawlers.We saw the towers of Atlantic City in the distance and were reassuredagain at the accuracy of the GPS. It was so precise, in fact, that if we useda correctly positioned channel marker as a waypoint we would have to becareful that we didn't hit the marker.

Just after Atlantic City we turned left at the Absecon Channel andenjoyed calm water inside the breakwater. Our destination was the FarleyMarina, a state facility that was run by the Trump Castle Hotel. For theprice of a night's dockage, you could get full use of the marina with theamenities of the casino thrown in for free. There were saunas, slots,poker, and craps plus automatic membership in a casino club that provideddiscounts on restaurants. You could arrive in a 50 ft. yacht and leave in arowboat. It was all very well organized. We called the marina operator onthe radio and were assigned a slip immediately. Since it was early in theseason, we got a choice slip near the casino. The marina had excellentfacilities, showers, lounges, etc. and we took full advantage of thisluxury.

The Trump Castle is a white wedding cake design high rise hotel abouta mile north of the main gambling area on the Boardwalk. The lower floorsare devoted to the casino, the upper floors to guest rooms. The marina infront of the hotel gives it a Monte Carlo look and suggested a form ofslightly decadent sophistication which the bus loads of New Jersey daytripping housewives did their best to counteract. We gorged ourselves inthe Casino all-you-can-eat cafeteria, losing a few bucks on the slots butbreaking even on the subsidized meals. The night was cold, about 40degrees. We plugged in our shore power and used an electric heater. Thiswas the first time we had been warm all night since leaving Norfolk.

April 23 - Day 25

As long as we were in Atlantic City we might as well explore a bit.We have lusted after this gambling Gomorrah for years, never finding theopportunity to take the trip. A jitney transported us to the lower end of thestrip and we hotel hopped all the way back, gambling a couple of dollars ineach. Most, even the new Taj Mahal were glitzy although a littledisappointing once inside. There is scant resemblance to the luxurypalaces shown in the TV ads. A slot machine is a slot machine is a slotmachine. I'm not sure who said that. It was either Gertrude Stein orJimmy the Greek.

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The Boardwalk was crowded with early season vacationers. Wedodged both the roller skaters and the bicycle rickshaws that romanticcouples and weary gamblers use to go from casino to casino. We touredthe shops, watched taffy being pulled, and stopped by the Atlantic Citymuseum. The major focus of the museum was on the history of the MissAmerica pageant, originally a publicity stunt to lure visitors to theBoardwalk. There was a nice art museum featuring marine paintings. Aswe made our way back to the boat we looked for the Monopoly game streetnames. By evening we were tired but a few bucks ahead in the gamblingdepartment. We decided to blow our winnings and then some on agourmet meal at the Trump Castle's top restaurant. It was very tasty,especially after a couple of weeks of pork and beans and canned stew.

April 24 - Day 26

We probably should have left yesterday since the weather has gottenpretty bad. More high wind and waves were predicted for the Jersey coast.The old ICW hands at the Marineland marina certainly were right about theApril weather. Since we have a nice berth at a reasonable cost, we decidedto stay another day and wait until the storm blew over. The high point oftoday was changing the oil, a messy job at best, especially whenperformed under the disapproving glare of the adjacent yacht owner whoselily white hands were never soiled by lifting an engine hatch cover. Weused the fresh oil bought in Annapolis, topped up the gearbox, andgreased the propeller shaft bearings as well.

After the dirty work we strolled the piers of the marina and stared intoother people's boats. There was a mixed fleet here. A few looked like theyhave been docked all winter, perhaps abandoned by owners unlucky atgambling. One or two were almost sunk at the pier, only the mooring linesholding them above the water. At the other extreme were the gold platers -yachts on which no expense had been spared to bring shore side luxuriesaboard. One such sailboat was berthed right next to us. It gleamed withchrome plated fittings and every nicety shown in the marine catalogs. Atthe end of the row of docks was a small craft that looked like a sailboatwithout a mast. Clamped to the stern was a 2 horse power Yamahaoutboard. A painted sign on the side of the hull advertised that this boathad motored from the Canary Islands to New Jersey with that very sameoutboard. We never did see the seaman who made the trip, however hewas either very small or very crowded, and certainly very brave.

The gambling life must be dreary since few people in the casinolooked as if they were having fun. The exception was an Asian gentlemanplaying Baccarat. He and his party had a table all to themselves. He betbig bucks and had an enormous pile of chips in front of him. The groupwas well attended by Casino flunkies, a pit boss, and several pretty girlsserving drinks. The Asian gambler treated American dollars as playmoney, which to him they must be.

At the marina store we bought a small placard warning of the direpenalties for dumping garbage overboard. It fitted nicely over the sink.

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April 25 - Day 27

The coast from Atlantic City to Manasquan is flat and uninviting. Thewaves were still high but the reefed mainsail held us quite steady. We wereparalleling the coast about a mile offshore, ticking off the towns one byone as we identified the landmarks from the chart. This was made easierbecause most towns had their names written in huge letters on watertowers. We reached Manasquan inlet in the early evening, clearly markedby a long stone jetty which provided some protection from the Atlanticwaves. Bumbling around in the harbor for a while, we finally found adock where we could refuel. It was early season for the recreational fishingfleet and most fuel docks were closed. After fueling, we decided to just tieup and stay the night.

April 26 - Day 28

After the glamour of Atlantic City, Manasquan in the off season haslittle to recommend it. We started early, continuing up the Jersey shorepast Asbury Park and round Sandy Hook. With the Sandy Hook twintowered lighthouse off our port beam, New York City was just visible inthe distance. The out flowing tidal current right on our bow dropped ourtrue speed to about two or three knots. It appeared that we would have tospend the night anchored in one of the shallower areas in the Jersey flats.After two hours Staten Island was off to our left and Brooklyn to our rightand we were moving very slowly against the tidal flow. We cut corners tothe extent that our draft permitted and tried to bisect the Verrazano Bridge,the metaphorical entrance to New York harbor. By this time the currentwas slack and we made better time. Like hopeful immigrants we rejoiced inthe sight of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan towers. These werenow home waters and we could put away the charts and the GPS.

The shoreline of Manhattan looked as simultaneously magnificent andgrungy as it always has. Whenever we sail by Manhattan, I like to stayfairly close to the pier line, both to keep out of the way of river traffic andto see New York from an entirely different angle. The clouds had cleared.We waved to the derelicts and office workers sunning themselves ondeserted piers. Sparkles of sunlight, reflecting off the skyscraperwindows, gave the impression that the city had decked itself in jewels tohonor our return.

By the time we reached the George Washington Bridge the tide hadturned in our favor and we found ourselves getting a lift up the Hudsonwith a speed over the bottom of nearly 10 knots. The lower portion of theHudson is a tidal estuary and the tidal peak races upriver at 15 miles perhour. In the narrow portions of the river the tidal current can exceed threeknots. The Indians who lived along the shore in pre-colonial days called it“The River that Flows Both Ways.” We zipped by the Palisades, passedYonkers, and saw the Tappan Zee Bridge ahead. Aided by the current,Puffin was going faster than at any time since leaving Florida. Like aseasoned dray horse she had seen the stable and was making her final

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sprint. We intended to stop in Tarrytown for the night. Now it appearedthat we would make it all the way home before dark.

We reached Croton Point by about 6 p.m. expecting to find ourmooring in place. I'm glad we were finally in home waters because ourhard working engine was beginning to sound a little rough. Probably timefor a fuel filter change.

What! The mooring hadn't been put out yet and it was promised to bein by today. In fact there were no moorings in Senesqua Park at all. Well,another night at anchor and for once we had Croton Point all to ourselves.

April 27 - Day 29

Early in the morning we tied up at the deserted dock at Senesqua.Steve Jennings, the harbor master, told us that the mooring installation hadbeen delayed for a week because of the stormy weather. The mooringswould be put in any day now. In the meantime we could stay at the dock.

We had been on the water 28 days with 6 days of layover. Puffin hadcovered about 1200 miles in 22 sailing days, averaging about 55 miles aday. Our average motoring speed was approximately 6 knots despitewaiting for bridge openings, especially in the Carolinas. The old Perkinsengine burned 164 gallons of diesel fuel for an average fuel consumptionof .82 gallons per hour.

We made the short hike to the Croton Colonial Diner on unsteady"land" legs to phone Maggie's friend Jane for a ride. We were home.

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Appendix – The Willard Horizon motorsailer Puffin.

The Willard 30 Horizon is essentially the Willard trawler hull with amoderate sailing rig, the ultimate in get home emergency power. MyWillard was built in 1974. It appeals to the aging sailor, like myself, whodoesn't want to give up rags and lines entirely.

I was originally attracted to the Horizon model because it seemed tooffer an easy transition to the trawler world. I was certainly too optimistic.The installed sailing accommodations are rudimentary and the sailingperformance is roughly on a par with a turn of the last century workboat.Still, with the sails up and the boat heeling in a brisk wind, my Horizonlooks very "yar" and I often get compliments on its appearance. Theprevailing westerlies on the East Coast permit long motorsailing cruiseswith the wind abeam and the fuel consumption drops to very low levels.The sails also minimize rolling in beam seas, another problem often citedby Willard owners.

It is hard to be precise about the characteristics of a motorsailer.Francis Kinney, who revised "Skene's Elements of Yacht Design," gives ageneral insurance company rule that says a motorsailer is a yacht withenough engine power to achieve hull speed AND enough sail power toclaw off a lee shore if the power fails. Juan Baader, in "The Sailing Yacht"has a much more pragmatic rule. He says that if a yacht is faster under sailthan under power it is an auxiliary powered sailboat. On the other hand, ifit is faster under power than under sail, it is a motorsailer.

Contemporary usage categorizes motorsailers by hull type and deckconfiguration since most modern yachts are fully powered. They havemoderate to heavy displacement hulls with full keels and relatively shallowdraft. Pointing ability and clawing to windward are not their strong points.Most turn a large three bladed propeller. With the engine off the drag ofthe propeller significantly impedes sailing ability. The deck configurationof all current motorsailers features a pilothouse with full headroom and aninternal helm. In fact this feature almost defines the class. Severalmanufacturers build boats with identical hulls and differing deck moldings.Those with a pilot house are called motorsailers, those without are calledauxiliary powered sailboats.

The Willard Vega Horizon has a full displacement hull, powered by aPerkins 4-107, driving a three blade 18" x 14" prop through a 2.57reduction gear. Fully loaded displacement is about 16, 000 lbs. Hullspeed is almost exactly 7 knots although the boat will probably squeeze outanother knot when racing for a bridge. Comfortable cruising is 6 knots at ashade under 2100 rpm engine speed. Continuous rated power of thePerkins is obtained at 3000 rpm so a good deal of reserve is left in handand the engine is lightly stressed. Based on our experience at a 6 knotcruising speed fuel consumption is .82 gal/hr. If the speed is dropped to 5knots the onboard 120 gallon fuel supply permits a 1000+ nautical mile

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range under power. All older Willard 30s share the same hull and engineso performance under power should be nearly identical for all models.

The LOA is 30 feet but the boat feels larger. On my boat there is awide, short bowsprit and a full width stern boarding/swimming platform.Overall length between perpendiculars would be about 35 feet. The beamis nearly 11 feet and the draft a measly 3'6" thanks to a full length broadkeel. With its high bow and a canoe stern the hull shape is vaguely similarto a Colin Archer turn-of-the-century lifeboat, those paragons ofseaworthiness that plucked Norwegian fishermen from the North Sea.Like the Colin Archer designs, the Willard has a very good sea keepingcharacteristics, a necessity since it cannot outrun any storm. The roundedbottom gives it a tendency to roll in a beam sea, more than harder chinetrawlers, but not as much as most sailboats under power. It is certainlyseaworthy but not altogether comfortable in bad weather. Boat motion isexcessive in beam seas of 3' and it is unwise to have breakable crockery onthe table or open beer bottles on deck when passed by a powerboat.

Maneuverability under power is exceptional with the sailboat sizedrudder, a 3.25 square foot half inch thick bronze plate mountedimmediately behind the prop. The inertia is fairly high given the hull'smass but manipulation of the engine controls and rudder will let you turn360 degrees in the boat's own length. This is convenient in crowdedmarinas.

We have found that, compared to sailboats, the increased cabin spaceand relatively stable hull form make for comfortable cruising but thepractice of sailing takes some relearning. First, the drag of the prop is sogreat that sails alone move the boat at only 4 to 5 knots in 15 knots ofreaching winds. Pointing is similarly poor. Sailing closer than 70 degreesto the wind is a chore. Running the engine at a tick over speed of about900 rpm (about 350 rpm at the prop) when sailing makes all the difference.This fully compensates for prop drag and provides enough power for easymaneuvering in gusty winds. The sails keep the boat from rolling and thereaching speed increases to 6 knots. Fuel consumption is very low. Thismotorsailing tactic may be bad for diesel longevity but a few minutes ofhigh power every day tends to blow out the carbon. The boat still has itsoriginal engine, a tribute to the durability of the Perkins design.

Despite the marginal sailing performance, we have found the sails areuseful for emergencies. They also serve as very effective roll dampers in abeam sea. Under both sail and power in favorable winds, fuelconsumption drops to only .3 gal/hr at 5 kt and theoretical cruising range isextended to 2000 miles. I understand that was the original idea. TheHorizon was intended for brave souls wanting to take the inner passage toAlaska where diesel stops are few and far between.

My boat is laid out more like a sailboat than a contemporary trawler.It has a conventional standing headroom forepeak with two sleeping berths.Immediately aft and up a couple of steps is the pilothouse with full enginecontrols and navigational equipment. There is a complete electrical panel

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with circuit breakers for all onboard equipment and a 110v. distributionsystem for the infrequent times we use shore power. The engine lies belowthe pilothouse floor at about the midpoint of the hull. It is easy to reach byraising a hatch but all maintenance has to be undertaken with head hangingdownward. Not good for someone prone to headaches. Fuel is stored intwo 64 gal. black iron tanks on either side of the engine. The engine'scentral location requires a 13 foot long propeller shaft with two supportbearings, each of which must be greased periodically. There is no soundtreatment and noise levels are fairly high under power.

Two steps down and aft of the pilothouse is the main saloon withgalley and sink to port and a table and dining area to starboard. The couchto the side of the table can be converted into a double bed for friendlyguests. There are plenty of storage areas and cabinets. Aft of the diningarea is the head and shower, small but adequate. Fresh water capacity is70 gallons. Exit the saloon by climbing a couple of steps and you are onthe stern deck. There is sufficient space for a small party, say 6 people.It's just about right for a summer barbeque and beer party. The water tanksand our LectraSan waste treatment system are in the lazarette below thestern deck. There is an additional large storage area there as well.

Above the pilothouse is the upper steering and sailing control station.This is quite different from the flying bridge on a conventional trawler. Aseating area and foot well for the helmsman are molded into the starboardside of the deck. A destroyer wheel is placed before the helmsman with aset of engine controls but no instruments. The mast is immediately to theleft on the center line of the boat. All sailing lines are led to the helmsmanand the boat can be sailed by only one person. Visibility is unexcelled butbecause the boom swings directly overhead, a bimini with adequateheadroom is impossible to fit while sailing. The helmsman gets wet whenit rains. Sailing conveniences, as delivered, were minimal. We had to addcleats, winches, topping lifts etc. The boat could be sailed without thisextra gear but it would not be fun. Non-sailing Willard models may have agenuine flying bridge or may lack an outside steering station altogether.

The interior decor is more reminiscent of a very well appointedworkboat; say the private boat of the owner of a fishing fleet, rather than afloating boudoir. This is not a boat that was intended to appeal to theladies. There is a lot of varnished teak inside and out and relatively smallports. The new boats are being furnished with a much higher degree ofluxury and are clearly designed to meet the standards of feminine firstmates. The Willard 30 hull permits only about 200 sq. feet of living space,slightly larger than a Sing Sing jail cell. This means that the boat is toosmall to live on comfortably for extended periods, particularly for thosedesiring a high degree of creature comfort. It is not an ideal marina boundfamily "summer home".

The Willard's forte is extended cruises to remote anchorages for areasonably adventurous couple. Here the seaworthiness and self containednature of the boat pay off. It's size and power requirements make foreconomical operation and a long range. The dimensions of the boat and

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conservative nature of the mechanical plant permit most maintenance to becarried out by the owner.

The quality of construction is very good. The very solid hull molding,the inner liner, and the deck molding are well bonded together making fora very rigid structure. The mechanical components are inserted duringconstruction and access for repair or replacement is minimal. Most ownerswho have repowered their boats report that considerable surgery has to beperformed to get at all the bits and pieces. Fortunately the mechanical partsare very conservatively rated and should last a long time.

The older hulls are susceptible to osmotic blistering. The gel coat onmy boat shows an overall superficial craze of fine cracks. A factoryengineer told me that the early series hulls were constructed of the sameplastic used for military specification boats. Willard supplied many of thecraft used to pacify the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam war and halogencompounds were incorporated into the resin as a fire retardant.Unfortunately they also absorbed water and released gases which facilitatedblistering.

Another structural problem is the tendency of the fiberglass coveredplywood decks and pilothouse roof to delaminate over time. We fixed oursby injecting epoxy resin through small holes drilled through the fiberglassover the weakened areas. The teak coaming is made up of a variety of oddshaped pieces fitted and caulked together. While initially waterproofenough, the caulking will deteriorate with age and must be replacedperiodically.

The Willard 30 Horizon is fine for a retired couple who wants toexperience the cruising life style without selling the ranch and movingaboard. It is small enough to keep the costs reasonable, especially for ahandyman, yet large enough to take any coastal voyage imaginable.