Friday, October 3, 2014

Calibration

Kintala has been anchored in Middle River for a couple of days now.  Actually, she has been anchored, re-anchored, and anchored again (for a total of six times).  I would like to say we were just practicing as it has been months since the last time I pitched the hook off the deck.  The truth is we are out of practice at visualizing how all the boats will move with the wind and the current.  And it didn't help that, right in the middle of what is after all a pretty tight area, one boat set both stern and bow anchors, and so doesn't swing.  That kind of messes things up for everyone else.  Eventually we settled back into a place just a couple of boat lengths from the first place we tried.

A few hours after settling into that last / first place, storms rolled through that got a little gusty.  While Kintala held fast, a friend's boat pulled free and ended up settled neatly against a dock.  All is well, but they moved on to a mooring ball for a while.  Maybe Middle River kind of likes sailboats.  This is were Kintala dragged last fall and ended up sitting peacefully tied to a dock at the end of a canal.  It is all good when a boat drags and nothing gets damaged and no one gets hurt.

Deb and I, but mostly me, fell into a kind of fugue state almost the moment the anchor hit the bottom for the first time.  For hours I just sat in the cockpit and watched the world swing slowly round us.  Several times the idea of doing a post floated by, was ignored, and floated away.  Thoughts of doing some easy boat work, trying to get the dink running better, or even just splashing around in the water to fend off the heat, were equally unsuccessful in prodding me into motion.  It was like the tension that has been holding me together was suddenly released, and I wasn't sure what to do without it.  For months now, literally since the day after we got back from the Islands, needs and difficult decisions have driven each day right to the limit of what we could do.  It was relentless and became our "new normal".

We are back to our normal normal, and it is taking a bit of adjustment.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Happy all is good, I was starting to get worried that you were unable to cut the dock lines and leave when no post showed up on Wednesday, Thursday…..

Enjoy yourself, you both really deserves it!!