Except the weather thought otherwise....
This morning, under a brilliant blue sky, the wind strenghtened in no time and blew about 25 knots from the south-east accompanied by the inevitable steep and choppy waves making their way underneath the almost useless floating breakwater (old giant commercial propane storage tanks) forming a semicircle around the south east of the dock.
Millie hung from two decent cleats and one length of rather spongy wooden dock rail, tied with everything that remotely resembled a docking line, doubled up and all.
Of course the most critical line was the one attached to the rotten wood. The rail certainly looked as if it was ready to part from the dock at each passing wave, when Millie just jerked full blast against her restraint. She hobby-horsed like a 15,000 pound bucking bronco.
I sat at a picnic table on the dock awaiting disaster.
It didn't happen.
I did not spend much time on the boat, though. Getting on and off was an acrobatic feat in itself and, below-decks, it felt like being inside an ill balanced washing machine....and the noise!!!
As the clouds moved in early afternoon the wind shifted, right on schedule, as per prediction of the official weather forecast, but not quite to the expected direction )too many mountains fooling around with windflow) It changed from the anxiety inducing south eastern quarter to a fright inducing north western quarter within a few moments.
Now it blew 25 knots from the new direction, leaving Millie on the even more exposed windward side of the dock. The wave action was not even broken by a smidgen of break-water - it was becoming a 'beating-up-the-dock-and-fender' situation.
Back to eternal vigilance. I put out every available fender (seven) between the undulating dock and the yawing, tossing, jumping boat.... as now the whole business hit her broadside. This was no longer Bucking Bronco time, this was Brahma Bull Cross Kicking time. A good sized fishing skiff moored behind Millie was almost tossed out of the water onto the dock, but instead just crashed against the side of the dock, ripping off the skiff's metal rubbing boards from the fibreblas underneath with a bit of a painful crunch.
Someone went to find a few extra fenders to protect this little vessel from even more severe damage, as the owner could not be found....
The boats at the other, lee-side of the huge dock were straining against their lines away from it. One skipper of a 35,000 pound sailboat was afraid the whole dock would turn turtle from the pull on it. We all helped tying a few auxiliary dock lines spanning the width of the entire dock to distribute the strain somewhat.
I could not even glance at Millie doing her St. Vitus dance....I just hoped that the fenders would not explode under the beating...in that case I would be in real trouble.
No chance motoring away from the dock under these conditions. Not much option to go anywhere else anyway, except go out into the larger Bay into open water and bash it out during the night (not my idea of fun, especially doing it single handed)
So here are a couple of 'movies', captured by my digital camera....my first high tech media adventure -ha ha.
Above is a clip of Millie's bow rising and falling to the waves....it was still wonderfully sunny then. The wind is coming directly from the right hand side....
Above is Millie after the clouds moved in and the wind changed, now coming from the left side of the photo. There are seven fenders at her starboard side. The breakwaters can be seen ahead of Millie
I took the sides of the aft enclosure down to reduce wind resistance.
Here she is bouncing some more. See the big metal cleat aft - pretty sound. But the wood rail ahead is ready for the junk heap.
Nine p.m.: The water is dead flat, the heavy rain is over, the wind has died, the fog has moved in, a rainbow managed to decorate the sky for a few minutes. It seems, as none of this has ever happened.....everybit of line hangs limp, all fenders are fat and round, I put the boat raincoat back on again, wiped up the rainwater in the cockpit, and left Millie to her own fate and walked back home.
Might even get a night's sleep, instead of trudging down to the dock to check up on things every half hour or so.
