The Maiden Voyage
written by John
(slightly corrected by Rhonda)
The good news about our sailing abilities is that we had no bad habits that needed un-learning. The bad news is that we had no good habits either, since neither one of us had ever sailed anything except our remote control model sailboats.
On Friday, April 6, 2001 we headed for Gwynns Island on the Chesapeake Bay. Our teacher, Captain Tom Landers, whose many accomplishments includes being the founder of the Virginia School of Sailing http://www.sail-school.com/ highly recommended Fishing Bay at the mouth of the Piankatank River as an excellent place to learn to sail. We found this to be true, but we also found that the Piankatank River is somewhat difficult to get a trailerable boat the size of ours into.
Most public ramps on the Piankatank have disappeared since our map's publication date, or proved to be really inadequate. Also, the waters at the mouths of the Piankatank and Rappahannock Rivers, as they flow into the Chesapeake bays between the shoals east of Gwynns Island, off Windmill Point, and off Stingray Point, are notorious for being, lets say, unpleasant, especially for novices. No sneaking in from the outside for us. But we did find a decent public ramp about 2.5+ miles across the river from the Fishing Bay Harbor Marina. The only problem left was a little car juggling, since the ramp was about a 15 mile drive on land from the marina and the hotel where we were staying.
Captain Tom usually gives lessons on his own boats and had no occasion recently to have considered the public ramp situation in the neighborhood of his school in Deltaville. He was as surprised as we were at the recent decrease in availability of adequate access. We figure that the local businesses deal very successfully with serious and big boaters, and so there is probably little incentive for the local counties to spend tax dollars encouraging more transient small boat traffic right off the roads. Nevertheless, since Captain Tom agreed to teach us on our own boat, and was willing to meet with us anywhere we wanted to learn, and we were inclined to agree with his suggestion of preferring Fishing Bay, then we could be just stubborn enough not to let a little thing like accessibility get in the way. We are taking our boating education seriously, and getting discouraged never pays. So we went to Fishing Bay, and it was worth the trouble.
We parked Rhonda's car at Fishing Bay Marina, she got in my truck (towing the boat) and we headed to the ramp on Gwynn's Island in the middle of the afternoon on Friday. This was a pattern we were to repeat in a mirror image across the river three days later. After setting up the mast in a good, gusty wind and maneuvering our boat into the water, (temporarily forgetting a few things like raising the keel from the trailer!) we got our little motor running, and were on our way.
For about five minutes...
We were steering ourselves into the boat traffic, consisting of two boats at the time, and heading toward the drawbridge to beg passage into the river and on to adventure. I noticed the second boat that I thought we had given plenty of space, was following close and gaining on us. I also noticed there were flashing blue lights on top.
"I wonder what that means?" I wondered.
One of the occupants of that boat pointed out to me in a friendly way that I had a rope caught on my propeller. We should stop. This was our first encounter with the Coast Guard. They all turned out to be a pretty fine bunch of fellows. We initially thought we might be in trouble or maybe had driven into the channel incorrectly or something, but I was reassured that we had not and this was only a routine kind of inspection.
I managed to bruise my ribs and drown my watch cutting that little rope from the prop. I wonder where it came from? We realized that in our excitement and hurry to beat the sundown while crossing the river, that we had forgotten, among other things, to unpack some of our new items. I have to say they were pretty patient with us land lubbers. We were well equipped, just not quite perfectly prepared. They patiently waited as we got ourselves quickly into compliance with the few requirements expected of a 22-ft boat.
With our life jackets on and our heaving line now ready, we were handed a good-for-six-months "coast guard approved" form showing that we had the right safety equipment aboard.
They had towed us through the 
drawbridge, while we were attached to their boat. So the remaining two-plus mile journey and tying up at the marina was all that was left to do. They pointed out the local shoals and channel markers to us and went on their way. We waved and watched their boat hop away over the two-foot swells and quickly vanish out of sight. Back to our plans ... cross the river, get Rhonda's car and drive back to get our pickup and trailer, then drive back around to dinner, then to the hotel, then finally to bed! Sounded easy.
We had about a mile and a half to go when the wind started kicking up pretty good. One to two foot waves slapped the hull from time to time. The little outboard, which was only mounted for very sheltered water would repeatedly rise up far enough that the coolant intake would suck in air. Not good. The day markers we were to follow were plainly visible and the course was pretty simple, but the first time at whatever you do is always a little uneasy and slow going. Our little boat, not made for motoring, rocked back and forth as the gusts pulled at the mast and halyards.
Finally remembering to lower the keel sure helped, and I tried to raise the mainsail for a little push, but I quickly realized that we weren't ready for that yet, (Rhonda had no concept of how to keep the boat headed into the wind) so I gave up on that idea. As nervous as we might have been, however, the wind and the waves were still a lot of fun. Slowly the marina came closer, and before we knew it we were tied up and off to our next task. And the next and next, and then to bed 
at last.
