Winter Cruising

Nov 22, 2008
3,562
Endeavour 32 Portland, Maine
When I was young and foolish, I dreamed of cruising in the winter and thought it would be neat to wake up to snow on the deck and shovel it off. I actually got to do that last winter and it was a rather nice experience but also one of those things you enjoy and then swear never to do again. It’s the “never again” business I seem to have trouble with in this life.

I woke up this morning to an awful world. I’ll take upstate New York any day. Even spending the depth of winter in Albany I didn’t see anything like this. There, at least, sand and salt appear as if by magic on just about every horizontal surface before you go out. I could have used ice skates to get across the hotel parking lot.

Those skates would have been even more useful in the marina parking lot. I was confronted with this sight after slipping and sliding down to the dock:



I wanted to check bilges so I hopped aboard. I’d left the key in a cockpit locker. The lid wouldn’t budge. Ice had run in all around and frozen it in place. I gave up and headed back, pausing to take the picture.

Driving back to the hotel, I realized that the soft snow overlying the icy layer beneath would act as an insulator and the next two days of slightly warming temperatures were not going to improve the situation much. I had one of those “Am I man or mouse?” moments and diverted into an auto parts store to buy a gallon of windshield deicer and a dustpan with rubber edge at the dollar store next door.

Half an hour later, I had the cockpit locker open but not before slipping and falling against the locked companionway and tearing the lock tongue out of the teak drop board. This was not as imagined in my youthful fantasies.

I got an electric heater going and my old plastic dustpan with sharp plastic edge for chipping at places like the cockpit floor and seats. I worked up a good sweat in the next hour or so shoveling most of the snow over the side and it was clearly worth it. The sun was coming out but the snow on the boats alongside seemed unaffected in the cold air. However, the sun on the fiberglass was clearly starting to melt the many patches of snow I had left.

I then went for a long and leisurely lunch at the Japanese restaurant to let my pants dry out a bit and ruefully contemplate the two pairs of foul weather gear pants that had been hanging in the locker.

After lunch, I went to buy fasteners and epoxy to repair the companionway drop board. The lock tongue is now through bolted (acorn nuts inside) and the tongue served as a clamp to hold in place the splinter of wood the screws pulled out.

I was running out of ambition and enthusiasm by mid afternoon so I returned to the hotel where I encountered a computer problem that shot the rest of the afternoon. Everything should be ready to move the boat back to the bulkhead and within reach of the water hose in the morning so I can fill the tank and heating system. Baring any unexpected problems, I should have the diesel heater going by mid day tomorrow and will be able to finally move aboard and spend my first night on the boat.
 

Jimm

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Jan 22, 2008
372
Hunter 33.5 Bodkin Creek - Bodkin YC
Come on down...it was 80 here (Boynton Beach, Fl) yesterday....