Century Club: Tim Ford

We pulled the plug on the Race to Rock Hall.  Fx was just too dicey and AYC, TAYC, HdGYC and CYC had all canceled their weekend events.  So I get to PSA about 30 minutes past when our first warning gun would have gone off...and of course it was blowing a mere 12 kn and not raining.  I jumped into a kayak paddled out to the mouth of Black Hole Creek to see if it was really blowing in the river. It wasn't.

While zenning-out back in a recess in the creek, I was just a few feet off the tall grass, just listening to the waves lap up on shore and I guess my resting there too long made some sort of very large mammal nervous.  Suddenly, just a few fet away but obscured my the foliage, something got up and crashed through the undergrowth. I mean large. I expected a water buffalo or huge moose to come charging out to swamp the kayak and stomp me into the mud. But it was probably just a large buck who got pissed off I disturbed his nap.

Okay, technically, I was only on a floating pier for an 90 minutes or so.  Doing boatwork, including installing some springy lifters on my hiking straps (the cheapest things I've ever bought at W.Marine).  But there was the giant log on the boat ramp that we were going to go to work on (see Sept 24 entry) and drag away.  But what?  It's already gone?  How did THAT happen?

In any case, it's great to be done with it.  The other "boat work" chore, was to glean thru PSA's collection of RC gear and make sure all the flags and misc. equipment were ready for Saturday's Race to Rock Hall.   I figure 4-5 hours of club work on the shore of Blackhole Creek can register a Day on the Water...heck I was too tired to even put a kayak in.

I think we had 6 or 7 helicopter flights in and out, next door, while we were getting the boat ready at the dock.  This pretty much relegates crew to screaming at one another to be heard....or just keeping quiet.  Then the race itself featured at least four ships transiting the harbor.  So it was a busy evening.  Beautiful night, but our results were not particularly stellar.

Not our best night out and we were joking about a cookie (or something) wrapper that clung to our rudder all evening.  Speaking of evening, man it gets dark early these days.  I just never get used to the transition. 

Coming into the dock after the race was interesting.  A blackhawk was doing bump and runs on the heliport next door.  A blackhawk kicks up a LOT more breeze than the Bell Jet Rangers etc that usually come in for refueling or whatever.  So we had to circle around and wait for the helo to depart, albeit briefly because a minute later, they were back. Luckily we were already attached to the dock.  Fun night!