Coxsackie, New York - 4 kilometres walked, 3 miles in dinghy
The day began wonderfully but ended in despair.
I boiled water, made a Nescafe barley drink, then went for a walk, leaving a small air wake behind me in the still Coxsackie morning. There were few people around that early and I walked at a leisurely pace, picking up new details from paths I've covered many times - flowers blooming, crispy brown helicopter leaves blanketing the grass, crows in the trees speaking to each other, placards in the pavillion highlighting historical curiosities of Coxsackie, the cracks in the concrete steps leading to the foyer of the public library.
After returning to the boat for breakfast, I continued toothbrush polishing the shrouds. This job has taken me far, far longer than I had presumed, mainly because my hands and wrists can't stand the repetitive action for more than a couple of hours at a time. But seeing all that shining, braided stainless steel is the reward. As a side note (and an important detail to explain what happened later in the day), to access the rusty shrouds, I'd had to loosen the ratchet straps that secured the mast to the two wooden support horses, and those to the boat. Since I was at the presumed safety of a dock and not traveling, I hadn't been too concerned about restrapping these between rounds of polishing. That was a terrible mistake.
I took a break to visit the library. I read a short story - Franny by J. D. Salinger, while I waited for my tablet to download maps for the Champlain Canal, Montreal, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. I stopped at the Yellow Deli for a herbal tea, but the kindly hippie server there talked me into a Dandy Latee, non-caffeinated, which was creamy and sweet and delicious, but it did mess up the food experiment I'd been doing since my Dad left. You see, I had decided to completely cut out alcohol and sugar to see what impact it would have on my body. So, besides a couple of drinks with my boat neighbours the other day (which I really, really enjoyed), I had successfully eliminated those two macronutrients from my diet.
Have I felt better? I'm not sure. I'd probably say yes, to a small degree, particularly the sugar, as I love having a single cookie after lunch or dinner, but replacing that with a small orange has been just as rewarding. As far as the alcohol, I will admit that I have craved a glass of wine with dinners, particilarly the first day or two, but I've started to enjoy an icy carbonated water instead and haven't missed it all that much. I think though, to see any signifcant body changes from these experiments would take months, not weeks.
For the remainer of the day I cleaned the boat, I chatted with the fishermen and my buddy Patrick (who I learned is not just between jobs but is also being evicted from his apartment due to new ownership and has to give up his two cats), I chatted with Sugar Daddy and his boys, and I went for a dinghy ride to explore the area.
By dark I was sitting comfortably in SeaLight's cabin, all dishes were done, all hatches were closed, and I was watching a movie on the tablet.
At shortly after 9pm, all hell broke loose. A series of tsunami waves hit the boat and she started rolling violently from side to side. The coffee pot hit the floor. Stuff fell from the shelves. I jumped up and looked out the porthole and saw the floating dock lurching up into the air, creating triangles between the sections, as the waves crashed in, then echoed off the breakwater and came back, amplifying the height of them. There was a tremendous amount of noise and crashing. Holding on, I pulled myself into the cockpit and looked ahead to see my neighbours boat nearly sideways as it was rolled by the wake. My dinghy was thrashing around madly as it too had not been fully secured by travel strapping.
The waves finally died and the water became still again. I could not see the ship that had caused the damaging wake, but I could see its lights as it disappeared around a curve to the south. I checked the dinghy and found it to be okay, then tightened it down. I then went out on deck to make sure the mast was okay. It was not. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Both the wooden cradles had tipped and the mast had fallen off the boat, to the port side. It had crashed down onto my paddle board and was being held by various ropes attached at various points to the boat and the lifelines and stanchions, two of which looked severely bent. Amazingly, the other end of the mast was still sitting on the aft arch, but instead of it sitting snugly in the foam padded space between the solar panels, it had jumped up and was barely clinging to the edge of the portside panel. I was sure the panel had been destroyed and was worried the whole thing was going to topple overboard and crash into the dock or the hull.
As I was assessing the damage, two fishermen had walked over to see if we were okay as they saw the whole thing happen from the shoreline. I asked them to go and check on Perry and Cathy as I tied up some support lines to hold the mast in place. I then took a spare ratchet strap and secured the mast on the arch so it could not fall off, and I was shocked to see the solar panel appeared undamaged.
Andrew and Epheral, the fishermen, returned from checking on Panacea (they were fine) and told me they'd been fishing here their entire lives and had never seen a ship wake like that before. They'd heard the huge waves approaching and even saw water receeding from the shoreline. They agreed to stay and help try to get the mast back on board.
With their help and help from Cathy and Perry, we tried to lift it, several times, but it was far too heavy for us to raise it the required height. It was also dark and hard to see which lines were going where and what else might be holding it in place.
In the end, we gave up, and I had a feeling I might be headed back to Castleton tomorrow to use their crane. Or maybe I could find a small army of fishermen to help raise it. In either case, it was going to take the light of day to fully assess the situation.
I had Cathy look at Marinetraffic.com to see if she could find the vessels and she did find two that would have passed around that time - the Helen and the B. Franklin Reinhauer. I tried calling them on the portable VHF but they were either out of range or didn't respond. I also tried calling the Coast Guard but no response from them either. Boats are responsible for damage caused by their wakes...but how do you actually get compensation from this? I have no idea, but I expect it's nearly impossible.
I called Ana to give her the bad news. At the end of the conversation I felt even worse.
Boating. Long hours and days of boredom interrupted by brief periods of extreme chaos.
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