Cruising World – August 2019

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A DASH BETWEEN HURRICANES

sunset found us 2 miles west of Smith Island. A partial rainbow
was to the east. Six pelicans in a line glided silently past at boom
level, and as Gannet glided north at 4 knots in 5 to 6 knots of
wind, I decided to keep going. The wind remained light, and at
dawn, there was 30 miles to go.
St. Michaels is on the east side of a peninsula, requiring a 9 -mile
leg to the northeast before a fi nal twisting 5 miles south. I mount-
ed the Torqeedo on the stern but tilted it out of the water before
we made the turn south and started beating into a stiff south wind.
The last 2 miles to St. Michaels are complicated by a shoal that
can be passed east or west, then a basin of deep water, before a
fi nal narrow channel that is in places less than 90 yards wide.
Bright sunlight refl ecting on the water made it impossible for
me to locate buoys. I had my iPhone with me in the cockpit and
followed the course toward them shown on the iSailor chart app,
glancing repeatedly at the depth fi nder, and eventually the buoys
appeared as promised. I went west around the shoal in two
tacks, but I was too tired to short tack the narrow channel, and
lowered the Torqeedo for the last mile and a half.
We had covered 100 miles in 33 hours, 600 miles in nine days,
two of them at anchor, with many more sleep-deprived nights
than ocean passages thousands of miles longer. I was a tired old
man.
The next day I explored the museum and St. Michaels. For
anyone with an interest in boats, Chesapeake Bay and how men
made their livings from its waters, the Chesapeake Maritime
Museum is a fabulous place, with boats and exhibits inside and
out, and a lighthouse visitors can enter and climb to the top.
To my eye, one of the prettiest boats is Elf, built in 1888
and said to be the oldest active racing yacht in America. I saw
it go out on a Sunday race my fi rst weekend at the museum.
St. Michaels is a small, charming town, whose main street is
tourist-oriented, and its quiet side streets are lined with beauti-
fully restored and maintained old houses and brick sidewalks.
However, St. Michaels has some odd limitations. There is only
one small grocery/liquor store and no place to do laundry. Am I
the only sailor ever to arrive with wet, dirty clothes? The nearest
laundromat is 10 miles away in Easton. An inexpensive shuttle
goes there, but my wife, Carol, was fl ying in the weekend of the
festival and would have a rental car, so I let my clothes fester.
The Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival was scheduled for
Saturday and Sunday, but boats began to be trailered in a few days
earlier. Many of them were beautiful. Mississippi artist Walter
Anderson believed that the distinction between artisan and artist
is false. I do too. To build a boat in wood is to create a poem.
The festival did the impossible: It turned me into a big-boat
owner. Gannet was the longest boat on G Dock. It also had the
least freeboard. What? I thought. Don’t these people want to stay dry?

HURRICANE NO. 2

I gave my talks, which seemed to be well-received. Carol fl ew

home. Gannet and I were ready to sail south. And Hurricane

Michael came ashore and headed toward us. I began to wonder if

Gannet was a hurricane magnet.

The still-strong remnants of Michael were due to pass the

south end of Chesapeake Bay Thursday night. I considered wait-

ing it out at St. Michaels, but I had developed a mild case of a

self-diagnosed and -named malady “captiaterraphobia,” a fear of

being trapped by land. In St. Michaels I was surrounded by land

in all directions and 100 miles from the open ocean. I decided I

Chiles keeps meals simple on Gannet, with a JetBoil and

freeze-dried food (top), although the sporty conditions

around Cape Hattaras (center) made any cooking

impossible. Small-craft enthusiasts fl ocked to St. Michaels,

Maryland, for the festival (right).