Landlocked Part Deux

Just like the last half of 2015, the last half of 2016 has kept me away from 'blogging. Shortly after getting back from Spain we started making preparations to move to Annapolis, and the whole "moving/settling" process obviously took a lot of time. Fortunately, I've managed to spend a lot of time in Annapolis taking pictures, so my Instagram feed has been pretty full until recently when it started getting cold. Brrrr!

We also managed to, rather unexpectedly, buy our first sailboat. I say "rather unexpectedly" not because we were surprised that we bought a boat (what sailor moves to Annapolis and doesn't buy a boat, right?) but because we weren't really planning on buying a boat that quickly, or one quite that old. S/V Bird's Nest (Bird for short), a 1967 Bristol 29, has already provided us with some...interesting times and I've already started on some repairs necessary to get her back into operating condition and we should be able to have fun sailing her this summer.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Nov 1, 2016 at 3:55am PDT

I plan to spend some time this winter writing up the story of how we acquired and moved Bird to her new home closer to Annapolis, and the work I've had to do on her engine so far.

Stay tuned!

Balearic Island Highlights: Cabrera

Cabrera is the largest island in a small archipelago off of the southeastern shore of Mallorca, only a couple hour sail from Colònia de Sant Jordi, Sa Ràpita, or any of the other stopover spots along that stretch of coast.

While there are several well-protected harbors, no anchoring is allowed as the entire archipelago is a nature reserve. However, in the main harbor there is something of a rarity in the Balearics: a mooring field. There are about 50 overnight moorings for vessels of differing sizes, and you must reserve them in advance. Be aware that reservations cannot be made until 20 days before your desired date, and in peak season they go very quickly. You can reserve a spot for 2 days during peak season, or for a whole week when it's less busy.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 31, 2016 at 3:49am PDT

To reserve a mooring, follow this link. You will need the full registration/owner information for the boat, so if you are chartering make sure you ask for this before you try to place a reservation. I didn't* and it forced me to reserve a spot a day later than I had hoped, which cost us a whole afternoon there. Reservations are from 6PM local time on the day of your reservation until 5PM the following day. Unless you get stuck on one of the large-ship red moorings at the mouth of the harbor like we did (they were the last ones available), the moorings are in a quite protected part of the harbor. Even our more exposed position was relatively calm while we were there. There are also day-only moorings in the same harbor, and more on the other side of the island, but I am not familiar with how those are reserved.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 31, 2016 at 3:52am PDT

So, with the "how" out of the way, let me get into the "why". Cabrera is absolutely beautiful. There is a small pier with limited facilities in the main harbor; the single best dinghy dock we saw all week, restrooms, and a small cantina that serves a variety of delicious tapas. (Note that, unlike many other restaurants on Mallorca, the cantina on Cabrera closes a bit on the early side at 9:30 PM local time.) There is a strict "no trash" policy, so don't expect to be able to bring any rubbish or recycling ashore. From the pier, you can find a series of hiking trails that lead to, among other places, a small medieval castle overlooking the harbor that is partially open to the public. The castle is definitely worth checking out even if you're not a history buff because the views of both the harbor and the Mediterranean are spectacular. There are also a few areas in the south of the harbor where you can dinghy ashore to beaches and some good areas for snorkeling, but we didn't get to any of them.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 31, 2016 at 3:54am PDT

But the crown jewel of Cabrera has to be the stars. There is virtually no light pollution there, and with the high cliffs surrounding the harbor you get what Sara calls a "snowglobe" effect where the stars all feel close enough to just reach out and touch. On a clear night like we had, words don't really do the view justice. I'd love to go back an just spend a few hours ashore taking pictures of the stars.

One piece of advice: if you're moored near one of the cliffs in the harbor like we were, keep your anchor light on even though it's not required in a mooring field. Imagine motoring in your dinghy towards a massive wall of blackness, several times taller than your sailboat, that fills your entire field of view and trying to find said sailboat without any lights on it. Even with the anchor light on it was a tad disconcerting, but without a light on it would have been downright unpleasant.

We only got to stay for about 18 hours due to scheduling pressure, which is not nearly enough time to explore, but even in that short time we fell in love with the place. If you ever find yourself planning a trip to Mallorca's southeastern shore, I highly recommend at least a whole day stopover at Cabrera.

*The main base of the charter company did though, and they provided it quickly once I asked. It was the 6-hour time difference that really slowed us down though.

Balearic Island Highlights: Cala Pi

Cala Pi is a small, quiet, protected anchorage along the southern coast of Mallorca that lies about 2 nm east of the lighthouse at Cabo Blanco. There is only room for a six or so yachts of the 12-15 meter range for an overnight stay*, but if you happen to find a spot there you are in for a treat. It is long and narrow and surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs, so it would be easy to miss from the sea were it not for the medieval watchtower situated prominently at its mouth. The cliffs protect the cove from wind coming from any direction but the south.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 26, 2016 at 3:42am PDT

At the head of the cove is a small, sandy beach with a well-marked swim area and a set of stairs going up to the town of Cala Pi. The swim area for the beach takes up most of the head of the cove, but there is a channel for dinghies and other small craft. There is a designated dinghy parking area on the beach and sheds for locally-owned small boats are built up along one of the cliff walls.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 26, 2016 at 3:45am PDT

The bottom is a mix of sand and thick seagrass so you'll have to be careful about where you set your anchors, but they should hold well in sand. The depth comes up from about 5-6 meters at the mouth to a little under 3 meters** by the edge of the swim area. This provides plenty of depth for yachts of the size I mentioned earlier without needing too much room to swing on a long rode. I haven't seen detailed depth information on any charts I've looked at, so make sure you do a "drive-by" as necessary to get a feel for the depths. There are a few large rocks sitting away from the cliff faces that one could tie off to instead of using a stern anchor if one was so inclined, and we saw at least one boat doing just that while we were there.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 26, 2016 at 3:44am PDT

The town of Cala Pi has an assortment of restaurants and a supermarket near the beach, although I can imagine that carrying down a large load of provisions down the stairs to the beach would be a bit treacherous. We had dinner at the Restaurante Miguel, and their seafood was remarkable. But probably the best reason to climb the stairs into town is the view from the aforementioned watchtower. There are stunning views of the sea to the south and east, and to the west you get a fantastic view of the cove itself.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 26, 2016 at 3:49am PDT

If you find yourself sailing east out of Palma and looking for a place to stop that's not just another crowded, run-of-the-mill beach anchorage, I'd highly suggest giving Cala Pi a try.


*A few more boats could easily fit anchored further out, but expect to be in for a rather rolly stay. We started out off there and within five minutes we knew that staying there overnight would have been rather uncomfortable.

**We never did figure out where out depth sounder was calibrated, so take these numbers with a grain of salt. One more reason to do a "drive-by" before you anchor.

Things I (Re)Learned Sailing in The Balearic Islands

Apologies for the unannounced, extended hiatus. My last post back in May was rather draining and getting ready for this trip was rather hectic. But, now we're back and I have a ton to talk about, so hopefully you'll be seeing some more posts soon!

So, without further ado:

1. Not all cruising grounds are the same. When someone asked me to compare sailing in the BVI to sailing in the Balearics, my short answer was this: "Sailing in the BVI is a vacation, sailing in the Balearics is an adventure." In the Balearics, especially in peak season, you will be anchoring most nights as there aren't nearly enough mooring balls or marina spots to accommodate all the boats. The weather is also far less consistent than in the BVI: unlike the constant Easterlies I've experienced there, around Mallorca the wind is shifty and varies considerably with your position relative to land, and over time. Along with the wind, the ocean swell is also rather hard to predict. All of these factors mean that you have to be very flexible with your plan in order to ensure you can find a comfortable anchorage each night. Fortunately, along the southeast coastline of Mallorca, there are plenty of anchorages to choose from.

2. Cleats? What cleats? While all of the boats we saw had the kinds of cleats I'm used to seeing, the docks we pulled up to did not. For larger craft, instead of the standard issue cleat, there was a large, flat-ish hook, facing away from the water, that worked well for wrapping a line around and tying both ends off on your boat. Dinghy accommodations were somewhat more...irregular, with the most common cleat substitute being a metal ring anchored into something. These rings were anchored into items ranging from an actual wooden dock like I have seen elsewhere in the world to the stones of a jetty. Some of them looked like they had been there for a hundred years or more. Everything was functional, if a bit cramped, but it definitely took a little getting used to.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 23, 2016 at 3:46am PDT

3. Every sailboat should have at least one set of snorkel gear. Unfortunately, the charter company for this trip did not provide any, nor did I think to bring any and I didn't think anything of it as we sailed away from base. In spite of the utility of a GoPro on a selfie stick (which I had discussed in a previous post), sometimes you just need a pair of Mark I Eyeballs underwater to have a look at things. In particular, there was some confusion as to where our depth sounder was calibrated (depth below keel, depth below waterline, depth from transducer, etc.) which added some guesswork to our anchoring and the GoPro was no good for helping assess that. Also, on one occasion we managed to snag the anchor on a large rock hiding under the otherwise sandy bottom (Blarg!) and having a mask and fins would have likely allowed me to follow the rode down fifteen feet or so and free it. (We did manage to get free, but it took considerable time and some...creative driving.)

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Jul 28, 2015 at 6:46pm PDT

  (Note: This was taken on a different boat last summer.)


4. Every skipper should learn how to properly set a stern anchor. Two of the anchorages we opted to stay in were relatively tight with steep cliff faces at waters edge, so in order to avoid being beam-on to any incoming swell and keep ourselves off of the rocks we set stern anchors at those two locations. I had read about setting stern anchors, but admittedly had never done so in practice. The first anchorage (at Cala Pi) turned out reasonably well, but at the second anchorage (Cala Marmols) our stern anchor dragged during the night. We weren't in immediate danger when I realized our predicament, but we were noticeably closer to one of the cliffs than when we had set the anchor and a quick tug on our stern rode showed that it was not providing any holding power. Not wanting to attempt to reset the stern anchor in the pre-dawn gloom and not wanting to wait another hour until we had sunlight, I woke Sara, we vacated the anchorage in an orderly manner, and motored to an easier-to-anchor-in spot so we could get some sleep. I've since taken stock of my experience (and done some additional reading) and I feel pretty comfortable that I know what I was doing wrong and, hopefully, won't make the same mistake again.

5. Communication with your crew is paramount. Sara & I have sailed before on several occasions, and she's proven to be very a capable crew member. On our recent BVI trip in particular, by the time we finished we could pick up a mooring ball pretty much without talking: I pointed us roughly upwind towards a mooring ball, Sara took the helm, and I directed the final approach from the bow. Seamless. Our first afternoon anchoring at Cala Pi involved multiple anchor sets; partly because of some failed sets, but mostly because we wanted to move to the calmer waters closer to shore as other boats closer-in left. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of assuming that just because I understood what was going on that Sara did too. This was foolish on my part because, even though the to of us were pros at picking up a mooring ball, Sara had only helped me anchor once before, and even then under entirely different circumstances. Needless to say, stress levels began to rise by about the third set. At that point, Sara sat me down and explained that she was very frustrated because she didn't really know what was going on, and I realized that I hadn't been communicating with her nearly enough. I was  more verbose after that, both before and during maneuvers, and things went considerably more smoothly for the remainder of the trip. Thanks baby.

6. Put the camera down and enjoy things. After we checked in our boat near Palma, we took a short hop over to Ibiza and had the extreme pleasure of enjoying a sunset at Kumharas*. I was frantically snapping away until about 10 minutes before sunset, then I put my camera down, sat with Sara, and simply enjoyed the moment together. No number of pictures can ever capture that.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Aug 19, 2016 at 2:24pm PDT

*If you ever get a chance to go to Kumharas for a sunset dinner, do it. Don't hesitate, ask why, or balk. Just go. You'll thank me.

A Bit More Time / Gratitude

If you've been following my Instagram feed, you'll know that I was recently in the BVI for a week-long trip on a charter sailboat along with my wife Sara and her mom Cathy (a.k.a. Momma). Sara & I had been to the BVI before with friends back in 2012; we fell in love with the place and vowed that we would eventually go back. After a few years of work taking courses and sailing as crew, I earned my RYA Day Skipper certification last summer which would allow me to charter a boat on our own instead of having to rely on others.

Once the three of us started planning this trip last December, we knew it would be one for the books. It was going to be my first time as the skipper on a multi-day sail, it was the first trip abroad for Sara & I since getting married, and it was going to be Cathy's first trip ever to the Caribbean. From the time we booked the boat until the day we left, Cathy was curious about what we were going to be seeing and where we were going to be going, and Sara & I spent joyful hours telling her all about it. Cathy's excitement was almost palpable. But in addition to all of the excitement and happy anticipation, there was something looming over all of our heads making this trip somewhat urgent.

Cathy had been diagnosed with terminal cancer about sixteen months before our trip.

After she was diagnosed, she started on various rounds of chemotherapy, to which she responded quite well, and spent time traveling domestically to visit friends and family. By the time December rolled around she was still in relatively good health despite the grim prognosis for her kind of cancer, and that's when the three of us decided to take the BVI trip. I had just earned the credentials, we had the money, we just needed a bit more time.

I had never taken the phrase "a bit more time" so seriously in my life.

The trip was everything we dreamed it would be and we all had a fantastic time in spite of a few bumps along the way. Even though she had only been on a sailboat once before with us for a daysail in Pensacola, Cathy took to life aboard very well and enjoyed our time under sail. We hit some of our favorite places from the 2012 trip (The Baths, North Sound, Trellis Bay) along with a few new ones (East End, Cooper Island, Spanish Town). I took a lot of pictures, the ladies did some shopping, we spent much well-needed time just relaxing and enjoying each others' company, and Cathy sent post cards to folks back home, which I thought was a really nice touch.

I had never seen two grown women try so hard to contain their excitement and happiness about visiting new places, doing new things, and simply...being. Having the opportunity to see them have so much fun for the week, especially in light of Cathy's condition, instilled me with a profound sense of gratitude.

A few weeks after we returned, Cathy's health deteriorated rapidly and she finally succumbed to cancer on Saturday, May 14th, 2016. We had been back from the BVI for just over a month.

I am grateful for the wonderful daughters she raised, grateful for the wisdom she shared with me in the brief time that I knew her, grateful for her and her family accepting my daughter and I as one of their own, grateful that she trusted me enough to take her far beyond where she had ever gone before for one last adventure, and profoundly grateful that we had just a bit more time to pull that adventure off.

Love you Momma.  Thanks for making me a better man. <3

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on May 8, 2016 at 6:10am PDT

Things I (Re)Learned Sailing In The BVI

And just like that, my much-anticipated return to the Caribbean has come and gone. I'm somewhat settled back into my regular routine and ready to share some lessons.

1. Pack light. I've heard this before and I think I did a reasonably good job packing light on clothes, but my camera bag was another story. I brought just the right amount of gear for my Nikon (probably because I don't really have any gear for my Nikon apart from a charger and a pair of lenses), but I totally over-packed on GoPro stuff. My CamelBak had never felt heavy before, but this time it was stuffed to the gills and I definitely felt it. This over-packing was accentuated by the fact that being sick for a few days kept me from doing much of the snorkeling that I had planned on using it for. Urk. One of the first things I did when I got home (aside from sleeping) was cutting down my standard GoPro kit to something more minimalist for future adventures.

2. "Travel Days" are an absolute Godsend. The last time Sara & I sailed in the BVI, we arrived the day before we set sail and we spent that night on the boat. "First night on the boat" is a common service offered by many charter companies, but after a long day traveling, one more night in a real bed, with a real shower in the morning, would have been nice. And on our last day, we had to drop off the boat, clean up, pack up, and make a flight home all in one day. Needless to say, that last day on our last trip was a blur. With these lessons in mind, I scheduled a "travel day" on either end of our charter this time around; we stayed at a hotel at the marina the night before and the night after our charter. Not only did this mean we were far less rushed and much more rested, since our charter company had a busy day scheduled on our return day and we didn't have to catch a flight, they actually gave us a few more hours out on the boat for free. Score!

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Apr 10, 2016 at 4:58am PDT

 
3. Don't panic! The wind on our third day (leaving Spanish Town for North Sound) was erratic and gusty, so the sail up and around Virgin Gorda was a bit...sporty. Once we cleared Mosquito Island to make our turn south into the Sound, we tacked the boat across the wind (which was out of the ENE). After tacking, the boat refused to point anywhere close to the wind and we were getting heeled over pretty badly. My guess was that we had hit a current that was pushing us off course. After fighting this for a moment there was a loud pop and the helm jerked over away from the wind. We regained some of our pointing ability, but the helm had gotten really sloppy; I would spin one wheel half a turn before the other wheel turned in kind or I felt the rudder engage. Immediately I knew that something in the steering gear had broken fighting that current. I decided to drop sail and motor our way into the Sound. I contemplated breaking out the emergency tiller, but I felt had sufficient helm authority, albeit barely, to navigate the entrance to the Sound. By the time we picked up a mooring ball at the Bitter End Yacht Club, my arms were exhausted and looking back I was surprised by how quickly and calmly I handled the situation. Experience pays! The next day, I found the access panels for the steering gear and, sure enough, one of the pulleys had broken. I called the charter company and they had someone out the next morning to fix it. To Dufour's credit, they engineered their steering system with a particular failure mode in mind (the pulley wheels were plastic, and therefore the weakest link) and ensured that that failure mode was easy to access and repair. Well done!

4. I am not a fan of self-tacking foresails. Our Dufour was equipped with a rather well-thought-out self-tacking foresail system that meant the boat could practically sail itself once you got it underway. Tacking was, as expected, as simple as turning the boat through the wind and both sails simply moved over to the new leeward side. Sailing upwind or on a reach, I rather enjoyed the system, even though it did lose some power because of the smaller foresail required. However, sailing downwind was kind of a pain. It was damned-near-impossible to get the foresail to stay on one side of the boat and it was difficult to trim it properly*. While I appreciated the ease of sailing upwind, during our one downwind leg I wanted nothing more than the conspicuously missing pair of cockpit winches and a few extra lines to get that damned sail set properly. Again, kudos to Dufour for making the best of the design principle (and for making the boat available for sale with a traditional foresail rig), but it's a design principle I'm not personally fond of.

5. Be flexible. Our original plan had been, roughly, to sail from East End to Cooper Island, then to Spanish Town, then to North Sound for at least two days, then to Trellis Bay, then wherever the wind took us (within reason) until we had to get the boat back to East End. Our steering casualty tacked on one day in the North Sound, and me getting sick tacked on another. Even though we spent twice as much time in North Sound as we had originally planned, we still got to Trellis Bay, and actually ended up in a great position to make a beeline back to East End on our last day through choppy seas and gusty wind. Had we been further away, that last day would have been far less pleasant. Having that extra time built into our schedule meant there was virtually no stress added by waiting for repairs or me sleeping a day because the blessed cold meds knocked me out while they worked. While you can do a whole circuit of the BVI in a week, I would recommend doing it in two or only doing a partial circuit in a week. The extra time is worth it, and not hitting two or three stops in one day means the trip won't be a blur for you.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Apr 21, 2016 at 5:13pm PDT

* As much as I present myself as a cruiser, racing sailboats has broken me. I may be okay with meandering wherever the wind may take us, but I want to get there efficiently dammit!

The Gods of Docking

On our recent BVI trip, we were docked comfortably at a slip at Leverick Bay on the North Sound of Virgin Gorda. Sara and Momma were making breakfast and I was up on deck enjoying the morning when I saw a sailboat pulling into a slip on the opposite of the pier. They seemed to be coming in rather fast so my gaze stayed fixed on them to see just how abruptly the skipper was going to slow down. The bow of the boat cleared the finger pier and then the boat slowed somewhat but it was still coming in faster than I would consider typical. I began wondering if this was some hotshot skipper trying to show off or some poor sap who didn't know what they were doing.

It was then that I noticed that there was no skipper. The boat was drifting in from the sound and, purely by the most blind of luck, managed to come in, bow first, almost directly into an empty slip. My mind raced for a moment at the near-astronomical odds of this happening. Had the wind or current been moving in any of an infinite number of other directions, this boat would have been washed up on rocks, drifted into one of the buildings on the dock, or crashed into one of the other boats at the dock.

A photo posted by Ben Cushwa (@nautography) on Apr 19, 2016 at 5:51pm PDT

I quickly put aside all thought of the odds and by the time my feet hit the pier in order to help secure the drifting vessel*, I felt a low thump as the bow hit the pier. Myself and several others managed to wrangle the boat into something of a secure position using lines that were handy, but with no fenders and a bit of a swell on that side of the pier, the longer this boat was there the more likely it was going to sustain some damage. I say "some damage" because the impact with the pier managed to leave only the slightest of dings on the bow; the soft wood on the edge of the pier had absorbed most of the impact, and even the damage to that was minimal. Rather incredible when you consider the circumstances.

Those of us on the dock securing this wayward boat wondered what had happened to it and where its crew were when we noticed that there was a line hanging off of the bow. Someone fished the other end out of the water and discovered that it had been the pendant of a mooring ball and that it had likely been cut by a propeller. Our guess was that someone had taken a dinghy too close, damaged the line, and left the boat to adrift and at the mercy of the wind and tide.

With the marina dockhands on the scene, I left them to their work, still amazed at what  had just seen. Sara & Momma didn't almost didn't believe me when I told them over breakfast. The owners must have been nearby because the boat was gone within an hour or so.

My takeaways from this episode: be careful with your dinghies while in a mooring field...and whatever Boating Gods the owners of that boat pray to seem to be highly effective!


*This was one of those times that I opted to forego snagging my camera to catch the action and just go help. I did take pictures of the minimal damage afterwards, but the boat was gone before I had a chance to offer to share them with the owners. Oh well.