Woody Cooper sent me a message, in part saying that Rockhouse Creek is one of his favorite anchorages. Below is a letter I wrote about my adventures in Rockhouse Creek four years ago. I was going to send it only to him, but I think it is a good letter, so will send it to everybody. Note that it was written four years ago.
(I need to shorten my distribution list for what I send over winlink. You can go to adventtwo.blogspot.com and get these letters. Or, if you prefer, I can arrange to continue to get them sent directly to your email. I didn't even ask most of you if you wanted them to start with. If you do want the letters sent to your email, please let me know, by sending me an email saying simply "yes". And please don't send this message back to me.)
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Caframo Cruise - Thursday 09 July 2009
Sailing about four miles off the beach, St Augustine to Fernandina (on the Ga state line), 5.5 knots, beam reach, main prevented, genoa poled, the Windpilot is steering.
It is hard to write while doing the ICW. If everything is going OK I am moving at first light and keep moving until dark. There is no time to write. So one day runs into another and things I could write about drift into the past.
I have raced sailboats, and I enjoy that, but when you start a day of racing you pretty well know how the day is going to go, and where you are going to sleep that night. The thing that I like so much about cruising is that each day is different. I never know what is going to happen, where I am going to sleep, or even if I am going to sleep.
A few days I was anchored in the Mosquito River. It was a good anchorage, but there was something disappointing about it. The cruising guide said to be prepared for lots of bugs. None. What a disappointment. No bugs. (As a matter of fact, the entire Caframo Cruise has been almost entirely bug free. Oh yes, we have had some now and then, but nothing like I have experienced during other trips to Florida) I sat on the foredeck till dark. It was beautiful. In the distance to the south I could see the big NASA assembly buildings at the Kennedy Spaceflight Center. It messed with my brain. Here I am, aboard a sailboat which has been a mode of transportation for humanity for thousands of years, definitely low tech, and I can see the world's center of spaceflight. I found that very disconcerting.
The next morning I was preparing to depart when the Coast Guard announce that they were clearing the NASA security zones. That meant that there was a launch coming up. What luck! I really do want to see a launch. I wanted to see an Apollo launch and missed all of those. Now was my chance to see a space shuttle launch. After getting all excited I called a brother-in-law and asked him to check the internet and find out the time of the launch. To my disappointment it would not be for several days. Waiting for the answer did give me a chance to wash some dirty shirts. That calls for four buckets. The first has the soap, the others sequentially cleaner rinse water. With shirts pinned to the life line I upped anchor and headed north.
I like to use the genoa when I am motoring to add a little speed. The wind that day was very erratic, a hard gust that would make Advent II heel over, then calm, or from ahead, making the sail luff. The sky was cloudy with thunderstorms in the forecast. I had wanted to go offshore from New Smyrna Beach to St Augustine, and when I got to New Smyrna Beach I poked around some trying to figure out how to get to the ocean. On the chart there are three channels, no channel markers shown. The thunderstorm that the Coast Guard had been warning about hit, and I lost control of the variables. I can handle shallow water. I can handle fast current, and I can handle a thunderstorm, but I put myself in the situation of having to handle all three at the same time.
It was the kind of thunderstorm that turns tables over and blows trash containers down the street. After it died down I built the dinghy (named "Goodness") and put her in the water, loaded her up with the biggest Danforth anchor and 200 feet of 5/8" rode. With a 14 foot boat hook I found where the deep water was and put down the anchor. I took a strain on the anchor to tend to align the boat toward the anchor, and sat down to wait for the tide to come in. (Boating Rule #1: Always run aground at low tide.) About an hour later someone hailed me from a small boat alongside. His name is John, and had seen me go aground from his home, just across the ICW. We talked awhile, he invited me to, after I got floating agaain, to tie to his pier, fill up with water, have a real shower, etc. He said he had a boat with 250 horse power, and if I had trouble getting off at high tide he would come pull me. With a parting handshake he buzzed back over to his house. Just then Normandie called, and while we talked I noticed that Advent II had turned toward the anchor just a little. I pulled in the anchor rode a few inches, and ten minutes later the boat had turned some more. After that it was just a matter of pulling a little and waiting a little. In about 30 minutes I was floating again. No harm was done, and I had a good conversation with an interesting person. I circled a bit to make sure that I understood where the deep water was, and dropped the anchor for the night. I did not accept any of John's offers. I was just happy that he looks out for people like me.
After my swim and shower I settled with a gin-n-tonic on the foredeck. Another sailboat had joined me in the creek. The couple had the mainsail down, and were fussing with the clew. They fussed and fussed. After maybe 20 minutes I got the binoculars to see what they were doing. I could see it plainly as they were only about three boat lengths away. They were fussing with the clew! Then after awhile they started fussing with the tack. I got another drink and they fussed away. By the third drink they were trying to raise the sail, and were fussing with that. This had been going on for an hour and a half. Finally they got the sail up, and tried to furl it into the mast, and they started fussing with that. I was heading below to see if there was any tonic left, when to my amazement, they pulled the right strings, and the sail furled in the mast as neatly as one could wish for. I stood there in stunned surprised, when both of them turned toward me, and both gave me a grand theatrical bow. I applauded and shouted "Bravo!" It had been quite a show. I later learned that the sail had "blown out" on the way down. A sail maker had repaired it and this was the first time the repaired sail with new mast furling hardware hand been rigged. More nice people.
The sun was setting, and then is when it happened - I felt the first itch. I couldn't see what was itching me. That's right, no-see-ums, wejins, sand flies, call them what you want, but my interesting day turned into the most miserable night I have ever spent aboard Advent II. It was too hot to be covered with a sheet, thousands of critters crawling on my body if I exposed any part outside the sheet, body slimy with ineffective repellant, misery waiting for dawn.
So that was one interesting day. Most do, but not all have happy endings. That is part of what an adventure is all about. Run a lot of these together and it starts to affect your attitude on life. And in a way, I am not really concerned with where I will sleep tonight.
Bill
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