Riding Out the Storm

2 November 2014

Our first snow storm of the year blew through the region today.  It did not bring much accumulation here along the coast, but the winds were pretty strong.  My neighbor, Jolly Jack, was a bit anxious about my boat, since it was still in the water.  Jack takes his Grady White powerboat out of the water after Labor Day, but I did not want to haul out Piao quite so early.  It is my first year with the boat, and I have had such an enjoyable time, so I was hoping for some pleasant autumn sailing.

Back in the spring, I was required to have my mooring inspected.  I had purchased the mooring gear from my next-door neighbor, who used to own a powerboat.  He sold me a 250-lbs mushroom anchor, mooring chain, mooring ball, and a "tall boy" pendant (buoy) for $250.  He also wrote a letter to the Marion Harbormaster, offering to turnover his mooring spot to me.  Since the mooring is on the Weweantic River, this was not a problem -- moorings in Sippican harbor, for the million-dollar sailboats of the Marion Blue-Hairs, have a waiting list that can take years.

When the diver came to inspect the mooring in May, however, he discovered that the chain was worn dangerously thin.  "I don't know how your boat is still there," he told me.  Of course, he had new chain with him and offered to do the replacement for a modest fee of about $150.  When he showed me the old chain, with several shackles worn and rusted as thin as a credit card, I was a little less annoyed and a little more appreciative.

Then came the November blow, and I became VERY appreciative.  Piao weathered the storm nicely.

Piao in the storm.  Yeeha.

The following Monday, when I drove down to work at Stony Brook (Long Island -- yes, it is a rather long commute), I came across a sailboat that had broken from its mooring and drifted downwind to wash up on the rocks of the lee shore.  Very dramatic.  Also very heartbreaking.

s/v 'Courageous Cat' on the rocks

"That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed

when the 'Gales of November' came early."

Site of wreck in Mount Sinai Harbor

The Cedar Beach mooring field lies to the north

2014.X.30 - Last Sail

Solo #11
Thursday, 30 October 2014
HW 1344; LW 1903
Clear; 50 degrees (F)
Winds NNW 5-7, gusts 10
12.1nm
Ave Speed 2.5 kts; Max 5.2 kts
Dpt 1130; Arr 1640
5h10min


Gorgeous autumn day!  Temps in the fifties, not a cloud in the sky, a very gentle breeze -- everything one needs to be "knot working."  Ah, the pleasures of a life in academia.  They may not pay you a whole lot, but there are other benefits besides a paycheck.....

Everyone else, however, has to work.  I'll "work" tonight.  For the day, I went down to Dexter's alone for what was to be my last sail of the season.  Most of the boats had been hauled out already, save for a few diehards.  I'm very happy I kept mine in -- squeezing every last day out the season: first in, last out.  Hooyah.

Getting a little lonely out there....

When I got out to the boat, I discovered that there had been some trespassers in my absence.  Although they had not taken anything, they had left their calling cards.   Next year I need to install some real air defenses.  This shit has to stop.

This is getting out of hand

It is as if they were doing target practice.....

Think its funny, eh?  Μαλακα!

It takes a while to clean off so much birdshit.  You really have to scrub and scrub.  What did I do to piss them off??  Finally, around 11:30, I had the deck and housing (and motor) as clean as it was going to get.  I hoisted the mainsail and cast off, sailing down the river on a run at 2.5 knots.

Autumn foliage and million dollar properties along the Weweantic

Directly across from Dexter's Cove is a large black-hulled sailboat.  I call it the 'Black Pearl,' because it is like a ghost ship.  The kids call it the "pirate ship."  I'm not sure what its real name is, since you can never see the transom.  This boat is quite the topic of conversation at the "Dexter's Yacht Club."  I am told that each summer the owner (who summers across the river there) pays someone to sail the boat up here from its winter residence.  Then the boat sits there, docked all season, never going out, until the end of the summer when the owner pays someone to sail it away again.  If you ask me (or even if you don't ask me), I think that is a shameful waste.  I want to lobby Congress to introduce new legislation that mandates forfeiture of any vessel if you do not use it.  Hah!  And they think Obama is a 'socialist!'  Use it or lose it.  Plenty of people who could never afford a nice boat like that but would take much better care -- and use -- of it.  Watch out, when the revolution starts, you know where you can find me.

"Black Pearl" awaiting its autumn migration

As I reached the mouth of the river, the wind shifted slightly and the mainsail jibed.  I could feel it coming, and grabbed the mainsheet just in time, slowing the boom as it swung around violently.  Good thing it was only a gentle breeze.  Good thing I was sitting down, too.....

Running toward Great Hill

By 11:50 I had cleared the R6 NavAid and set the jib as well.  Roaring along at head-spinning 2.2 knots!  Yeeha!  Break out the tether and jack lines...

A powerboat came by, headed toward Wareham.  Being a friendly and amicable guy, I waved but my salute was ignored.  I called for a radio check on the VHF, but got no response either.  Powerboaters (or "stink-potters") are not a particularly friendly lot, at least not particularly friendly toward sailboaters.  Of course there are exceptions -- such as my friends Jolly Jack and Captain Kirk.  But powerboaters from Wareham seem to have particularly large anuses.  Wareham is a very special community with real charm.  Jolly Jack's wife, a realtor, refers to it as "Brockton-by-the-Sea."  You have to know Brockton to get that joke.....

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

The "Castle" at the Stone Estate on Great Hill
Funny how the foliage on the east side of the peninsula is so colorful, while these trees on the south point are still all green

By early afternoon, alone on the bay, I was feeling sufficiently cocky to try a neat maneuver: running downwind with the foresail on a tack to one side of the boat and the mainsail on a tack to the other side.  There wasn't much wind, so the risk of an accident jibe was minimized.  If I had a spinnaker pole, maybe I could get that jib out there a bit further.  Can't afford a spinnaker right now, alas, or even a spinnaker pole for that matter.  Thinking about crowd-sourcing the funding for that.  Wondering what to get me for Christmas?

"Wing-and-Wing"

Life is Good....

As I sailed lazily around upper Buzzards Bay, I decided to practice getting the boat to "heave-to."  This has nothing to do with heaving up your lunch.  Rather, this is a procedure that slows or stops the progress of the vessel, so that you can take a break, eat lunch, go below, use the head, repair a leak, wait for the tide to turn, ride out a storm, or otherwise amuse oneself.  You "heave" on the windward jib-sheet, backing the foresail to windward, while easing the main-sheet.  The tiller/rudder it put hard-over, as if you were trying to turn the boat to windward.  However, with the mainsail eased and the foresail "backed," the boat slows almost to a stop.  Any forward momentum would tend to turn the boat even more to windward, thus slowing you even more.  Its actually a pretty neat trick.  I need to practice this some more.  Should probably also practice crew-overboard drills.

For years I've been reading about ships "hove to" to ride out storms.  I'm a big fan of maritime literature, especially from the "Age of Sail."  In fact, I have a whole bookcase devoted to that collection.  The Admiral does not appreciate my book collection.  She does not see the point of buying books.  "That's what libraries are for," she argues.  I really enjoyed the late Patrick O'Brian's twenty-volume Aubrey-Maturin series (or 21-volumes if you count the aptly named unfinished last book, The Unfinished Last Voyage of Jack Aubrey).  On the non-fiction front, my favorites include:

 Barry Cunliffe's The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek

Scott Ridley's (not Ridley Scott's) Morning of Fire -- featuring local hero Captain Kendrick of Wareham

Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea

John Toohey's Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare

 Laurence Bergen's Over the Edge of the World

Derek Lundy's The Way of a Ship

And Brian Fagan's Beyond the Blue Horizon.

(not be confused with Alfred Santell's 1942 film of the same name)

Enough about my book collection already.  I know I would catch hell from the Admiral if she were to read this -- fortunately for me, she refuses to read my blog anymore.  "Boring!" she says.

Just after 2:00pm, I passed a flock of about forty birds sitting on the surface of the water.  Maybe they were tired, or maybe they were looking for a missing friend tangled in a fishing line.  I figured they were looking for fish, and it would be in my best interest to get as far away from them as possible before they shit on me again.

My nemeses, reloading for another air strike

By mid-afternoon, the breeze had died.  I really enjoy sailing, but I must confess that it is not so much fun when you are only making 0.9 knots.  So I headed back towards home.  On my way in, I ran into -- figuratively speaking, I'm happy to say -- my friend Captain Kirk.  Kirk is an old salty dog who has spent his life on the water.  He used to sail, and used to have a lobster boat, but now runs about in his Pursuit.  Sometimes you'll see him heading out or coming in from a fishing trip (of course, he will never say where he finds the fish -- only "out there in the ocean.").  Today, he and his wife Judith were headed over to the 'Chart Room' in Pocasset for their evening cocktail.  Kirk is not a part-owner of the Chart Room, but he should be.....

Kirk and Judith aboard the 'Hey Judes'

Loathe to call it a day, on such a nice day late in the season, I decided to sail up the Weweantic river a bit.  The birds were chilling at 'cormorant rock,' eyeing me wistfully as I sailed by.

Don't even think about it.....

Edgewater Lane, from the water, showing the home of my friend, Jolly Jack.

I went upriver as far as the Briarwood Beach neighborhood just south of the Route 6 bridge.  North of the bridge the river forks: the Sippican leading to the northwest and Weweantic to the northeast.  The Admiral and I have explored both rivers on our tandem kayak, the Tiffany-May (named after the month in which I presented her with the engagement ring -- isn't that sweet?).  But the sailboat would not fit under the bridge.  Fortunately, it did fit under the power lines that run across the Weweantic here.  Earlier this summer, not one but TWO sailboats clipped those power lines.  One was de-masted and had to be towed away by TowBoat US.  The other, a large catamaran on a maiden voyage (!), actually caught fire and burned to the waterline.  Fortunately, no one was injured but the boat was a complete ruin.  Sounds like someone should have paid better attention in tenth grade geometry class, or at least read their charts more carefully.  It was quite the event: Police, Fire Boats, USCG, news helicopters, and schadenfreude spectators all converging on the scene.

Power lines and the Rt. 6 bridge over the Weweantic

Returning to Dexter's, I brought Piao over to the dock.  I was very proud of my docking maneuver, but I also should practice this more.  I washed down the deck again, this time rinsing the boat soap off with fresh water.  Then I unloaded non-essential gear in preparation for winter haul-out.

Piao at Dexter's dock.  Who da man?

Not as simple as it looks to jump off and tie up before the boat drifts away.....

Celebrated a great day of final sailing by tapping into my still-unused 'Captain's Reserve.'  Although, it doesn't really lighten the boat to shift that bourbon from the flask to the belly.

It has a been a great first year with the boat!  I am so very happy.  What a great find!

Thanks to all those who helped me crew her this summer: Mark, Don, Dennis, Jack, Lauryn, Dylan, Kalliopi, Myra, Arlene, Frank, and of course the Admiral herself.

Thank you, Bob & Linda, for all the advice, encouragement, and free boat "goodies."

Thank you, Ric, for taking such good care of her as the Previous Owner, and for donating her to Mass Maritime for their auction.

Thank you, (other) Dennis, for buying her at that auction and then parting with her for only $1000.  Otherwise, I could never afford to buy a sailboat.

And thank you, Dennis's wife, for pressuring your husband into making that deal by threatening him that he will have to sleep on the boat if he doesn't sell it before the end of the weekend -- he already owned four other sailboats, and she did not want a fifth parked in their yard or driveway all winter.

I still remember that Christopher Cross song from 1980:

Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me

And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility

Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see

...

Sailing takes me away to where I've always heard it could be

Just a dream and the wind to carry me

Next year: maybe I'll make for the Vineyard.  Just don't tell my mom.....

2014.IX.5 (Voyage #37) -- West Falmouth

Solo #7
Friday, September 5
LW 0501; HW 1028
20.5 nm
6hr 30min
Ave Speed 3.5 kts (Max Speed 7.3 kts)
Partly Cloudy

Headed out on a Friday morning for a sail over to West Falmouth on the Cape.  Originally I planned to head to Quisset, near Woods Hole, where my friend Ric said he was headed with his wife.  I thought it might be fun to surprise them there.  But I got a bit of a late start and was never able to raise his boat, the 'Mommigrand,' on the VHF.

Today I decided to raise the mainsail while I was still on the mooring, and then sail down the river into the bay.  Once again I wrapped the halyard around the winch, but this time I inverted the wraps, with the halyard tailing from the bottom rather than the top.  No problem.  Three stripes, baby....

Casting off around 11:15, I cleared the river without incident, and sailed passed a flock of birds feasting noisily on the surface of the water just off Great Hill.  A few minutes later, I came up on a single bird sitting in the water, flapping its wings strenuously, and crying audibly.  I sailed up close, expecting it to fly away, but it was only as I passed within a few feet of the bird that I noticed it had its legs tangled in fishing line and was unable to get airborne.  I thought of stopping the boat and trying to extricate the poor thing from what seemed to be a fatal predicament.  But a stiff SW breeze quickly pushed me onward into the whitecaps of the bay.  I felt guilty, not having made an effort to rescue the doomed creature.  But then I thought it looked a lot like one of the birds that has been shitting all over my boat, and that quieted my conscience a bit.

By 1:00pm I was crossing the channel approach to the Cape Cod Canal.  The waves were big, but not like that day of the Mattapoisett ass-kicking.  Under mainsail alone, I was making 4.5 knots with the boat heeled 25-degrees.  Yeeeeee-ha!

An hour and a half later, Wild Harbor was off my port beam.  Wind and seas had diminished somewhat, given the proximity to shore.  Since I was not only making less than three knots, I pulled out half-jib and bumped up the speed to 5.3 knots.

At 3:00pm I had reached the Red #2 NavAid off West Falmouth.  The waves were bigger here, running three to four feet at mid-afternoon.  I realized that I probably was not going to make it to Quisset in time to hang out with my friends, and considering that I was uninvited anyways, it was probably better to turn for home.  A half hour later I was back in mid-channel, and completely drenched through all my clothes from the waves and the spray.   yee-ha.  (lower case).  By 3:45, I had round Green #1 NavAid near the entrance to Sippican Harbor, and turned starboard for the run home. The GPS was reading a steady 7+ knots.

Rounding Great Hill, I looked for the bird that had been entangled in the fishing line, but failed to find it.  Maybe it went up and away; maybe it went down and away.  It was not hard to imagine how quickly it would have tired in those conditions, and how its desperate thrashing about might have attracted the attention of a hungry sea creature, as predator turned to prey.

By 5:30, I was back on the mooring.  As I relaxed post-sail with a bit of my 'Captain's Reserve,' a cormorant lighted upon the spreader bars on the mast and promptly shat down all over me.  SPLAT!

Trust me, cormorant feces smells nasty.  Curiously, it has a lot of tiny pebbles in it, and they can hurt a bit when dropping from that height.  Oh well, Instant Karma's gonna get you, I thought.  I should have stopped and tried to rescue that tangled bird.

2014.VIII.14 - Voyage #29: Dexters-Mattapoisett

Mattapoisett Solo

2014.VIII.14 -- Mattapoisett

Voyage #29 (Solo #5)

Thursday, 14 August 2014
HW 1126; LW 1714 

Clear, 70º F 

Winds W 10-15, gusts 25

Seas 3+ feet
20.5 nm
5hr 20min
3.9 knots ave speed (8.3 kts max)

On Thursday, August 14, I went out to the boat for my fifth solo sail.  I was starting to feel comfortable handling the boat alone and thought to myself, "I need some challenges now."  Hah!  Be careful what one wishes for.....

The night before, I had decided to sail down the coast that day to the neighboring town of Mattapoisett and Ned's Point Light.  Dropping the mooring at 11:40am, I motored down the river to the R6 buoy, where I set the mainsail at 11:45.

Chart showing my mooring ("M") in Marion and my destination, Ned's Point Light ("NP"), in Mattapoisett

I had been having trouble all season getting the mainsail up to the top of the mast (it seems to jam about six inches short of full deployment).  So this time I wrapped the halyard around the starboard winch for a couple of turns, stuck in the winch handle, and began to grind.  Haha! I was finally able to get that sucker all the way up!  I felt pretty smug about that.  Hoho! Then I noticed that the halyard had become tangled on the winch, having somehow run under itself.  Now this was a bit of a problem.  The mailsail was fully deployed, there was a brisk breeze, and I could not free the halyard from being fouled in the winch.  There was a great deal of tension on the line, and it refused to slack up even after I released the clutch (a piece of deck-mounted hardware that secures the halyard and prevents it from slipping back down).

Halyard running through a clutch, with the locking lever down

(not from my boat -- a random picture stolen from the inter-webs)

This was not good.  "Keep Calm and Sail On."  I swallowed my rising panic and did my best to maintain composure.  With the clutch lever free, I stood over the winch and pulled on the halyard with both hands, leaning back and hauling with all my strength.  Pull! Tug!! Heave!!!  Ho!!!! Eventually, after much perspiration, I was able to pull enough slack (only about an inch or so) into the halyard to enable me to loosen its wrap around the winch.  Wow.  That was exciting.

Afterwards, it was a pleasant and uneventful sail down Buzzards Bay, passed Bird Island and the 'Bow Bells,' then around the rocks at Angelica Point and Strawberry Point, and up into Mattapoisett harbor to the lighthouse.

Ned's Point Light, Mattapoisett

The lighthouse at Ned's Point is an attractive local landmark, and a popular site for weddings (at least two of the Admiral's cousins have been married there).  It is named after the former owner of the land, Edwin 'Ned' Dexter, a relative of Tom Dexter who owns the dock I use to access my mooring in Marion.  Tom claims his ancestors have lived in the area since the seventeenth century.  I've lived in the area about three years now.

Mattapoisett, which took me a long time to learn how to say and an even longer time to learn how to spell, is said to be a Wampanoag term meaning 'Place of Resting.'  The present town, settled in 1750 and incorporated a century later, is a charming coastal community with some serious property values. It was an important local center for trade (especially lumber), shipbuilding, and whaling through the mid- to late-1800s.  The whaler, 'Acushnet,' upon which Herman Melville spent eighteen months, was built there in 1840, as was the barque 'Wanderer' (1878), the last whaleship to sail from nearby New Bedford, and which famously wrecked on the rocks off Cutty Hunk in early twentieth century.

1840 Crew List from the whaler, 'Acushnet,' which sailed out of nearby Fairhaven

Herman Melville, age 27, is listed near the bottom

(source: http://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/12812629728/the-acushnets-crew-list-december-1840-herman)

The 'Wanderer' on the rocks at Cutty Hunk, 1924

The lighthouse at Ned's Point was built back in these halcyon days of Mattapoisett whaling and shipbuilding with the help of federal funding secured by John Quincy Adams.  Constructed in 1838 from locally-sourced stone, the tower stands thirty-nine feet high and features a climb of thirty-two shallow hand-hewn cantilevered steps of granite to its light, which was automated in 1923.  It is one of the smallest working lighthouses of Buzzards Bay, but it is a very pretty one and a source of local pride.

Ned's Point Lighthouse

After taking in a view of the lighthouse from the water, I turned the boat around and sailed back out into Buzzards Bay for my return trip home.  Unbeknownst to me, however, conditions in the bay had changed significantly during the time I had loitered in Mattapoisett harbor.  Winds had picked up considerably to a steady 20 knots, and were driving some pretty big waves up the bay.  As I came out of the harbor on a beam reach, heading SE with both sails set, I was taking those rollers on the beam.

The SW wind gusts soon had the boat healed far over to port.  Eyeing the inclinometer nervously, as it tilted up and beyond 35 degrees, I didn't need three stripes to appreciate that I was not in a good place and needed to reduce sail immediately.  Since this was neither the time nor place to reef the mainsail, I thought it would be easiest to furl in the jib.  To do that, I needed to turn into the wind, but the waves were so large and coming at such short intervals that they kept pushing the bow back to leeward.  I loosened the jib sheet only to have a sudden strong gust of wind heal the boat far over to port.  Really far over.  So far over that I did not even have the time or the mind to look at the inclinometer reading.  The deck was almost vertical, and I felt the boat was dangerously close to broaching.

All I could do was mutter "holy sh*t," and cling to the companionway opening with both hands, hanging on for dear life.  I could not even climb to the windward gunwale (well, maybe I could have, but I did not dare try).  But in clinging with both hands, I inadvertently let go of the jib sheet.  This is, generally speaking, usually an unwise thing to do, but in this case it was a blessing from Poseidon.  Now loosened, the jib sheet ran all the way out to the stopper knot and the wind spilled out of the violently fluttering foresail.  This eased the strain on the bow, and the sailboat quickly righted itself and turned itself into the wind (I was subsequently told that O'day boats are very good at this, provided they are under mainsail alone -- a very forgiving boat for a jackass crew of one).

Head into the wind, I was now able to furl in the jib.  Then I bore away and turned northward on a run, headed for home.  Looking up to the masthead to check the wind direction (very eager to avoid an unplanned jibe in these conditions), I discovered that the near-broach had carried away my wind indicator.  Wow.  I was really quite fortunate that the windex had been the only thing lost overboard.

The run home was smooth (it is a comfortable point of sail), but the waves of the following seas were pushing past me sometimes at the height of my head.  So much for the "Yeeeeee-ha!" excitement of sailing.

Piao rides through the waves during the sail home.

They got bigger than this, but I dared not distract myself with the camera at that point.

The Admiral often teasingly calls me "Safety Sam" (for what she sees as my excessive precautions).  Now indelibly etched in my mind is the old sailing adage that one should reduce sail before one needs to reduce sail.

It was not until I had safely returned to the mooring (and took a very big sip from my onboard reserve of bourbon) that I noticed the Garmin GPS had recorded a top speed of 8.3 knots.  Power-boaters may scoff at that, but some of them can be γάιδαρια anyways (though not my buddies Jack and Kirk, mind you!).  For me, however, this was an amazing piece of data.  Generally speaking, there is a formula for calculating the maximum hull speed of a boat: 1.34 x the square root of the length at waterline (1.34 x √LWL).  For my O'Day 23, with a LWL of 19'6", max hull speed should be 5.96 knots (if my math is correct -- you'd better double check, because there is a reason why Mr. Three Stripes has a degree in cultural anthropology rather than science).  Maybe my GPS unit needs calibration, maybe that is hull speed PLUS the speed of the following seas.  I dunno.  All I do know is that was a fast ride home, no boubt adout it.

Wishing for some challenges?  Be careful what you wish for.   I got my ass kicked on this sail to Mattapoisett......



Notes to self:
1) Get a tether and harness if I am to continue sailing single-handed
2) Clip the handheld marine VHF to the body rather than stowing it inside the cabin

On My Fecal Roster

Ah, hubris.....

In the days following my Pocasset sail, I went out a number of times both alone and with friends, smugly hoisting my mainsail all the way to the top of the mast by muscling it with the winch.  Arrrr, Matey, I was becoming a sailor.

Avast!  One afternoon I went out to the boat and noticed that the two of the four screws that hold the boomvang to the mast had been pulled out of the mast and were dangling in the screwholes on the boomvang fitting.  The boomvang, for those who know less than I do about sailboats, is a device that uses ropes and pulleys to keep the boom from rising when the mainsail is set.

The boomvang runs from the underside of the boom to the base of the mast

It seems Mr. Three Stripes had been neglecting to release the boomvang prior to raising the mainsail. In effect, the taut boomvang prevented the sail from rising all the way up to its fully deployed position.  Ooops.  So, after all, it was not a fouled block or line at the masthead; nor was it that the boatyard guys rigged it improperly during launch; nor was it that the previous owner was aware of some problem but fiendishly conspired to keep it secret from me.  It was all my fault.  Gilligan.

Boomvang closeup, showing the screws that I tore out of the mast base with the winch (A),

and the line that should be released prior to hoisting the mainsail (B)

The tension of the winch-load had stretched and slightly warped the boomvang fitting at the mast base, and the two upper screws had been stripped from their holes in the mast.  I had to replace the screws with the next size up because all that pulling had enlarged the holes into which they should be secured.  Fortunately, it was a minor and easy fix, but I could have made a big mess of things if I hadn't diagnosed the problem correctly before I created real trouble.

By mid-August a new and chronic problem had arisen: bird shit.  There are a fair number of birds -- mostly gulls, terns, cormorants -- that frequent Dexter's Cove to feast on the little minnows and other fish that team in the quiet waters of the mooring field.  At low tide, the rocks that protect the inlet lay exposed and the birds often rest there, as evidence in their white graffiti.

Mooring at low tide, with the rocky shoal exposed just behind the stern of Piao

Mooring at high tide, with the rocks submerged

When the rocks are underwater, the birds look for other places to land.  They ignored my boat throughout May, June, and July.  But in August they have become frequent and unwelcome visitors, apparently having taken a shine to my boat as a great place to defecate: 'I like it here so much I could just shit.'   Each time I came out to the boat, there would be a half-dozen or more splatters on the deck and in the cockpit.  Some were thin white puddles that washed away easily but left lingering stains; others were hardened dribbles that resembled cement spilled on the deck; a few were large and substantive, containing enough meaty remains to make an educated guess about what the bird had eaten.  It was nasty.  In three weeks, I went through two bottles of boat soap just cleaning up after my unwanted visitors.  Then the other day, there were so many turd-bombs that I had no choice but to bring the boat over to the dock in order to hose it down and scrub it properly.

Piao at Dexter's Dock

(Did that maneuver single-handedly, by the way.

Sometimes it is easier simply to do things on one's own, rather than try to get an

opinionated Admiral to listen to instructions about which lines should be cleated where)

People have different strategies for dealing with the bird shit threat.  You can buy plastic owls and set them on your boat, hoping that the 'natural predator' will scare the birds away.  But you have to move those owls every day or the birds get wise to you.  I have heard tales of people returning to their boat to find the plastic owl covered in bird shit.  They also sell plastic snakes, but Dylan is deathly afraid of serpents, and it is hard enough to get him on the boat anyways these days.  Some of my mooring neighbors have 'gull-sweep' type devices consisting of a horizontal bar with little red tabs that is affixed to the roof of the boat and spins or rotates in the wind.  But they have powerboats, whereas I do not want to screw the mounting base of such a device onto the roof of my cabin because one often needs to walk or step there.  Then some friends told me that I could get 'gull-sweep' devices (or something functionally similar) that mount on the deck rails fore and aft.  That is on my shopping list.  In the meantime, I have rigged a rudimentary air defense system for Piao using clothes pins and fishing line.

Piao air defense system 

This is an old trick that can work wonders.  They use fishing line at some marinas to prevent birds from landing (and shitting) on docks and railings.  I spent almost an hour tying fishing line to clothes pins and then stringing the line back and forth across the boat, a few inches above the deck.

As twilight approaches, our ambush is set and ready:

look carefully and you will see fishing line strung criss-crossed above the deck

I worried that the first time I take down all that line and pins, it will become a hopelessly tangled mess. But I was proud of my makeshift solution, which effectively covered all areas of the deck where the birds had been crapping.  If I ever put it up again, I will have to remember to start at the bow and work aft toward the cockpit.  Otherwise, one must step carefully between the criss-crossing fish line, in 'Mission Impossible' fashion, lest one trip and fall.  I had just finished and opened a ice-cold beer to relax and enjoy my accomplishment when....

SPLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

If, as the Chinese say, it is good fortune for a bird to shit on you, 

then I am buying lottery tickets this weekend.

An enormous diarrhea bird turd sprayed all over the cockpit, splattering on the cockpit port coaming, the cleat, the winch, my beer, my bag, my shirt, my arms, and my face with bird shit.  At first I was stunned and did not know what had happened.  I honestly thought it had suddenly started to rain.  But then I saw the devastation, and then I smelled the rich fishy scent of the poop.  Then I looked up and saw the little fncker -- a big-ass cormorant -- sitting atop my masthead.  I swear he was looking down on me, completely oblivious to my shouting and gesticulating.  If I had had a gun, I might have tried to shoot him.  But all I had was the halyard, which I jangled violently to chase him away.  I had to empty my cooler bag of ice melt water, along with four water bottles, to clean his smelly mess.  I was pissed.  It was very hot and humid, and after all that work I had only that one beer with me.  I drank it anyway, flavor added.  Finally, I climbed down into the dinghy and rowed toward the dock.  But as I pulled away from Piao, I saw that the cormorant had returned to occupy his perch atop the masthead.

You sonuvabitch....

I used to like cormorants.  Visitors to China can see fishermen on rafts using the birds to catch fish.  The birds are tethered to the boats on long straps.  They dive into the water to pursue fish.  A removable ring affixed to their neck prevents them from swallowing the fish completely.  Instead, as they return to the raft, the fisherman massages the bird's neck and forces it to regurgitate the fish into a collection basket.  No hook, line, pole, or bait required.

Fishing with cormorants in Guilin, China

(credit: http://www.shelleylake.com)

So I have eaten fish caught by cormorants, and I have tasted fish-bits shat out by cormorants into my beer.  Now I wonder what cormorant meat tastes like......