Today we had a break. Not a large one, but a break. As it turned out we wound up with a 6 hour window when there would not be a small craft warning from Windmill Point to Cape Henry. We grabbed it and while it started out well enough things got rough.
The forcast was for 2 feet off Windmill but once down below New Point Comfort it grew to 2-3. For these areas the forcast was correct. But once south of the York River entrance channel it was more like 3-5. Fortunately Freedom is well built and there were no reverberations. Just a whump when it hit a wave. As well the water came at us from the South South East which enabled us to quarter the seas and make good progress. Things flew all over the place down stairs. Deb was locked into her chair (logically) not being allowed to move since she is a klutz. So it gets even better when we get near Horseshoe Flats off Phoebus since now we have to run a beam sea to get where we want to be.
A couple of minutes of this made it clear that was not going to happen. We continued to quarter seas until we hit marker Red 16 and ran with the seas. This was one of those challenging following seas deal that I really don't enjoy driving the boat in, but heck ya gotta get home. Plodding along surfing the boat we hear 'Securitayyyy all stations, this is the CG cutter so and so and we are escorting a Naval Warship out to such and such. All vessels are required to stay 100 yards off all US vessels and this is punishable by up to 250K and a number of years in jail"... Oh and by the way, deadly force will be used if required..
Talk about raining on your parade. I'm having a tough time keeping the boat in the channel and now there's a sub coming right at us!
Well, we are here to talk about it.
The folks at the Portsmouth Boating Center are terrific offering a ride to a restaraunt and diesel at 2.69 a gallon. They go the extra mile here!
The forcast was for 2 feet off Windmill but once down below New Point Comfort it grew to 2-3. For these areas the forcast was correct. But once south of the York River entrance channel it was more like 3-5. Fortunately Freedom is well built and there were no reverberations. Just a whump when it hit a wave. As well the water came at us from the South South East which enabled us to quarter the seas and make good progress. Things flew all over the place down stairs. Deb was locked into her chair (logically) not being allowed to move since she is a klutz. So it gets even better when we get near Horseshoe Flats off Phoebus since now we have to run a beam sea to get where we want to be.
A couple of minutes of this made it clear that was not going to happen. We continued to quarter seas until we hit marker Red 16 and ran with the seas. This was one of those challenging following seas deal that I really don't enjoy driving the boat in, but heck ya gotta get home. Plodding along surfing the boat we hear 'Securitayyyy all stations, this is the CG cutter so and so and we are escorting a Naval Warship out to such and such. All vessels are required to stay 100 yards off all US vessels and this is punishable by up to 250K and a number of years in jail"... Oh and by the way, deadly force will be used if required..
Talk about raining on your parade. I'm having a tough time keeping the boat in the channel and now there's a sub coming right at us!
Well, we are here to talk about it.
The folks at the Portsmouth Boating Center are terrific offering a ride to a restaraunt and diesel at 2.69 a gallon. They go the extra mile here!
2 comments:
Glad to hear you're on the move again -- we'll hope for calmer seas for you!
Wow! How cool is that, encountering a sub while underway. Too bad the seas weren't a bit calmer so you could enjoy it a bit more.
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