I am not sure whether this counts as a boat maintenance day or simply a day on the water. Who needs a gym membership when it keeps snowing on a regular basis. On Saturday, I cleared the 1 to 1 1/2 inch snow from the portion of my driveway that I previously cleared. Then cleared additional sections of the walks and driveway with 7-8 inches of snow.
But then I cleared a path to the dock, the steps down to the dock and the dock itself.
In one of the more stupidly risky stunts of my sailing life, I cleared a piece of deck on Synergy then got aboard and cleared the cockpit and some of the deck. As I approached the shrouds, I realized that I was standing on a thin sheet of ice clinging to the non-skid with almost no traction, so clinging to the grabrails on the cabin top I crawled back to the cockpit and then got back on the dock.
Sunday morning I walked back down to the dock. The sun and slightly warmer temperatures made a huge difference in terms of melting the skim of ice and compacted snow.
The areas that I had cleared on Synergy were now clear of ice and dry to safely walk on. I carefully shoveled my way around the south side and bow decks clearing away the snow down to the thin ice that covered the non-skid, and was able to come back to the areas of the boat that were sitting in the sun after perhaps 10-15 minutes and easily clear off the ice.
I was optimistic about getting out for my first sail of the new year until I hit the north side of the boat working aft towards the shrouds. Here the decks in the shade of the cabin had a thicker layer of ice that was firmly adhered to the non-skid. It took a lot of focused care, even with moving slowly and mindful of safety to clear off that short bit of snow. I quickly realized that sitting in the shade without direct sun on the deck, the ice wasn't leaving anytime soon.
So, despite a near perfect sailing day in almost every way, I decided it would be too dangerous to go out with one side of the boat still iced over.
As I was shoveling ice and snow off the deck, I was reminded of a story I had come across about a distance cruiser who had sailed across the middle and northern Pacific from the Pacific Northwest to Japan, then down to Australia and New Zealand. He had decided to return to the US East Coast via Cape Horn and the Caribbean.
At some point during the return trip he ended up near or into the Roaring Forties. He was over taken by a gale that had hail and very cold temperatures leaving the deck of his boat with a thick layer of ice. (There was this incredible picture of the boat encapsulated in an icy surcophagus so thick that you could not tell where the edge of the cabin top met the piled snow and ice on the side deck.
He described crawling forward to the mast to tie in a deeper reef. I cannot even begin to imagine how he dared do that let alone how he did that. In the story he said that it came down to asking himself how he wanted to die; as in die taking multiple knockdowns and a potential pitchpole from carrying too much sail with the reduced stability due to the ice on the deck, or sliding over the side and dying by drowning and/or hypothermia. He chose to reef.
My choice today was far less dramatic.But it felt good to be aboard Synergy after not being aboard for the past few weeks. I ended up plugging in the shore power, hooking up a space heater, and crawling into my bunk with a magazine and a pile of blankets to dose my sea fever.