Wow what a day

On Monday afternoon I was reviewing the options to leave Captain Bill's Landing in Point Pleasant, NJ.  I looked at the weather and wind forecast with Matt, who works at Captain Bill's and proclaims himself as a weather geek.  Every thing was pointing to an early morning departure in order to get to NY harbor by early afternoon.  I set my alarm for 5 AM.  I told Matt that I would get up and check the weather again in the morning and if it looked good I would shove off at sunrise, around 5:30.  I went to bed early and slept well until just before the alarm went off, that's got to be a good sign I thought.  I got up and looked at the wind and seas forecast, looks good.  I checked the NOAA forecast, no small craft advisories, looking better.  I check the radar, there is a big band of rain approaching the coast, that's no good.  Heck I am Looping, there is no need to sail in the rain.  So I decided to hold off.  In the mean time I thought I would charge the batteries so I started the engine and let it run for a while.  I shut the engine off and decided to go back to bed until this band of rain passed.

God takes care of sailors and fools.  After shutting the engine off and heading down the companionway I smelled a strange smell, like someone struck a match (that sulfur smell).  I thought it must be coming from one of the fishing boats across the canal.  I stuck my head up out of the companionway, no it's not coming from there.  Hmmm.  Well I added about a 1/4 quart of oil to the engine last night and spilled a tiny bit on the engine.  It must be that.  I pulled the engine cover back and as I expected a small plume of smoke came out.  I pulled the cover back more and saw a sailors worst nightmare, a small fire (tiny fire).  After realizing that blowing on it wasn't going to put it out, I grabbed the fire extinguisher and put a puff of extinguishing agent on the fire.  That darn white power that gets everywhere, but I'll deal with that later.  It turns out that it wasn't the oil at all.  The starter cable had rubbed on the engine mount and was shorting out and caught the cable insulation on fire.  Thank God for that band of rain.  Had I of just taken off, like I planned, I likely would have been up in the cockpit when the cable shorted and it would have been much worse.  I got the cable repaired, rerouted it so that it is well clear of the engine mount.  All is good.  I told Lesson Plan, we take care of each other.

Now if this rain would just quit.  Finally about 8:30 the rain stopped.  I check all my weather sources again and everything looked good, including the radar. I always use three weather reports and assume if any of them show foul weather, I stay put. I had three "thumbs up", so I told the folks at Captain Bill's I was leaving and asked for some help with the lines.And away I went.

The one thing I failed to look at was the temperature, I knew it would be cool out there on the ocean, so I had on jeans and 2 long sleeve shirts.  I had to get out my foul weather gear, which is a set of bib pants and an float coat.  The float coat is a coat with layers of closed cell foam, which provides great insulation.  It was cold.  I lowered the side canvas to help keep the wind off of me.  The ride was a little "lumpy", but not bad.  Waves 3 to 4 ft was the forecast.  I pretty sure there were times it was more like 5 to 6 and then it would be 2 to 3.  I guess 3 to 4 was the average. Otto did a great job steering us through the waves, I kept complimenting him on his outstanding performance.

We were going along and making good time, almost to the tip of the New Jersey coast (Sandy Hook) before the NY harbor traffic lanes and a big shoal that I must go around, when I saw a bank of fog ahead of me.  I am not fond of motor sailing in fog.  The sail hasn't been that effective anyway, so I rolled it in.  I had been keeping an eye on a huge container ship to my starboard (right) side, it slowly disappeared into the fog.  I was at the point where I should make the port turn and go around Sandy Hook to find an anchorage.  It was 2:30, I had made really good time.  I starting thinking about Lady Liberty and getting that picture of her taken from my own boat.  Then I started thinking about the anchorage just behind Liberty Island.  I could go there for the night, but it would probably be full by the time I got there, it would take 2 hours.  The visibility in the fog had gone from 1 mile to about 3.  I was looking forward to making spaghetti tonight, just so I could warm the cabin with the stove.  So I started my port turn to my anchorage. and then thought what the hell, you don't get very many opportunities to anchor behind Liberty Island, let's go for it.  So here we are.

It has been a roller coaster of emotions today, excitement about getting out of  Point Pleasant earlier than I thought, to fire on board, to freezing, to stressing over navigating in fog, to accomplishing a major check off on the to-do list (anchoring at Liberty Island).  Wow what a day.

Lessons Learned:
Keep an eye on cable rubbing.  I am not sure I could have prevented the fire, but I can at least keep an eye on potential problem areas.

Sometimes you just have to go for it.