Sometime Prudence is the Better Part of Maritime Valor: Cue the Jaws theme song — duh, duhn, duh, duhn. That’s what I was thinking when I saw some big honking floaters on the Chesapeake today. I’m talking ten foot logs, which I suppose would be more accurately referred to as trees, floating along, the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and non-Hurricane Lee getting washed from rivers into the bay.
This stuff is no joke — I actually barreled over a three foot piece of firewood and the clunk as it hit the keel was the sailor’s equivalent of getting kicked in the nuts. I read in some news coverage of a 40-foot section of dock floating semi-submerged off North Carolina. That kind of debris can change your status from sailor to swimmer in short order.
When I was motored into the dock, a neighbor on a quite nice 38-footer yelled, “How is it out there?” and I told him about the firewood. He followed, “We went out yesterday and turned around.” At first I thought to scoff at this, after all, boats are meant to be sailed and all that bravado, but then I realized that this man has more experience than me as well as a nicer boat, and that his caution may be hard won. There’s no point in wrecking your boat just to say you went out there, when the stuff in the water is tougher than your fiberglass skin. I don’t know how long this stuff expects to hang around, but I figure I can spend tomorrow working on the deck and letting Nature wash the aftermath away.
