We had a club member tie off a submerged line, I guess to a mooring? Anyway, it should have been in last month's NOTMARs. It had about 75 feeting of line just below the surface, and it was a wrapped prop waiting to happen. So it was kayak time--to tow a larger red barge mark out and replace the grotty little lemonnade bottle. Mission done, but with cold fingers it wasn't the best example of marlinspike seamanship. As the saying goes, "if you can't tie good knots, tie a lot of them!"
Wind W at 10-12 gusting 24. The mission was to find a sunny spot out of the breeze to eat lunch and have a beer. No prob, plenty of scenic spots in the creek.
I definitely love this time of year!
Buffleheads are back, too.
EYC Leftover Bowl is always a blast, depending on the weather of course. Our's was fantastic and as soon as the race was over, I ducked below to shed all the stuff I had sweated through. We took 3rd in Spinn. EYC had some pretty wild "leftovers," including an AYC cup from 1974 and a NASS cup from 1972. I forget who, from our boat, took these home. Topped off the day with a very easy nighttime delivery back to the Magothy in mercifully calm conditions. Just the apparent wind from motoring at 7 kn was chilly enough by 8pm, a few hours after sunset.
I remember once during a CBYRA Star Wars race, there was a very large vessel anchored just below the starting line at Severn River G “9” QC. Same thing with this year's Leftover...someone parked this little 28 foot cabin cruiser just below the line (see photos)
Went down to plug the hole in my boat, the one that's left when the CF prod is taken home for winter. I had forgotten I'd left it open, in one of those "oh sh*t" 3 a.m. moments. But man, was the tide low, and I love going out when the water clears up this time of year and the water is super-shallow. You get to see where the deeper spots are and where the shoals have moved.
At the dock, it was so shallow I could see off bottom off my stern and what looked one heckuva lot like an inspection port cap that I'd dropped in the water months ago. So I felt around with a boat hook thinking I could lift it off the bottom and grab it. Guess what looks EXACTLY like an overboard inspection port in 3 feet of water....hint: they have tentacles and they sting. I think these are dead and sunken to the bottom.
Wanted to get my sails off the boat for the winter and decided to launch a kayak, too. Turned on NOAA weather radio for local conditions and they said, Gooses Reef 37! I said to myself, that's gotta be wrong, but sure enough, at 10:48 a.m., they did have breeze, NW 36.9 kn.
Whoa.
In any case, it wasn't blowing anything like that in the creek, and it wasn't too bad in the lee of all the trees and land masses surrounding the shore, so I stuck to that. Nice day, really. Sat in the lee of the point just south of PSA and ate lunch. It was quite pleasant and the water is so clear now. I love this time of year.
Well, sort of.
I'll call it a "work day." I did put in an hour on the boat but most of that was just bailing out a ton of rainwater. But it was a workday at the club, albeit an enjoyable one, getting preparations in place for our annual Oyster Party, part of which is a brief "Awards Ceremony" for our podium finishers of the two CBYRA-sanctioned races we host.
Only: we had just two qualifiers this year and one of them couldn't make it! So the Awards Ceremony was mercifully short.
These are crystal picture frames from the firm in Medford Mass, PRIZE POSSESSIONS. I looked back at the pix I took for our MoonLight Race and luckily had shots of both winners at the start of the race. So this was a bit of a no-brainer. I think PRIZE PO does a nice job and I'd suggest to anyone else's club that these are a nice departure from a cup or a bowl. And you can buy a shot of the winning racers, most of them anyway, from the Spinsheet Gallery. WIN WIN for eveyone!
Woke up at six a.m., which was really 7 on my biological clock. Had 5 hours to kill, so grabbed a paddle and took a few casts with an ultra-light rod and a green paddletail on. No dice until I was almost back to the club, and I got a big strike, which I missed and then a few seconds later, FISH-ON. Nice 22 inch pickerel which, after a tussle, I released and hope the poor guy survived. He was loggish but remained dorsal fin up at the surface for a few minutes. I did fish CPR on him and that revived him enough to finally submerge and sound. Poor thing.
Then the MRSA pursuit race on Inc. Always a blast to sail with these folks and it's nice to have the rest of the fleet behind you as you approah the finish of a pursuti race. And it was actually hot downwind on November 6th!
After the club's work day, where PSA members do a dynmaite job of sprucing up the place, I put in a kayak...turns out some evening plans at home had changed and I had the evening to myself, eventually leading to spending a rocky night on the boat.
Great paddle, complete with a mating pair of Bald Eagles. But man, I was bushed by sundown and set up camp in the i550.
It's actually very comfortable, despite being somewhat cramped. The funny thing is, I have had much calmer nights at sea, because by midnight it was really honking, sounded like puffs over 30, and the floating dock upon which my boat lives, was bouncing around quite a bit.
Slept like a log.
A long motor prior to the club's monthly board meeting, there being almost no breeze for 5 hours. Decided to lift the board and go behind Dobbins, chart showing 1 foot at MLW in some places. It not being MLW, and the board-up draft at around 12 inches, it went fine, albeit slowly, until we popped out into the fairway leading into the mis-named Long Cove (it ain't that long, actually). Motored quietly all the way into the G.I. inner harbor, put it in neutral, popped a low ETOH session ale and wolfed down lunch, turned back to PSA. Same thing behind Dobbins, no worries. Fished a little but luckily, wasn't bothered by fish. Gooid day and gorgeous November weather...except for the lack of breeze.
Swore to myself to NEVER own a boat on the Chesapeake with more than 12 inches draft.
I've seen some strange things in the water in the past five decades, and this one rates up there pretty highly. About halfway out to the point, where I usually make my first casts in the Quest for Fish, I bumped into something floating mostly below the surface. It was a roll of poulty fencing!
Now, running your spinning prop into this menace to navigation could ruin your whoie day, so I rerolled about 15 - 20 feet of the fencing back on the cardboard sleeve, and paddled (one-handed) back to the pier at PSA. Not so easy in a kayak and thankfully all downwind.
Otherwise, no fish today. Which was fine with me.