I learn from my mistake

April 17, 2009
When we woke this morning the wind was strong. A lot stronger than I had realized. I started this process of tying the boat from one piling to the next to get it off the pier. This wasn’t fun at all. In fact, after I got the boat backed out a little, I realized how extreme the winds were. We aren’t going anywhere. I was so tired I just left the boat there and went downstairs. That’s how strong the winds were.
Last night I had found comfort with the breakwater provided by the seawall but had forgotten about the need for a wind break as well and the full fury of the wind, crossing miles of bay, was hitting us broadside. By the end of the day, I had ten separate lines going to the pilings, seven on the port side and three on the starboard. There are three cleats along either side of the boat and I ran lines to different pilings from these cleats, trying to divide the load between the three so none had too much tension.
I spent the day fretting over the boat. The Janis Joplin song, Bobbie McGee, kept going over and over in my head. Just the part, "busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train, and I’m feeling near as faded as my jeans." I have to admit it was disappointing to not be able to get underway. If we were cruising, this weather would not be a problem. We would have stopped in Biloxi instead of coming to Gulfport because Biloxi has fun things to do–gambling, restaurants, shopping. But, we didn’t stop there. We came here so we could cover more ground. There’s not much here. In fact, you cannot walk to anything from here except, maybe, a small casino about a mile away. We may head there today so we can pay for this trip!
The fretting was trying to make sure the boat was accessible and safe. The winds were too hard for me to pull the boat close to the dock. I could not even make it move an inch. What I did to retie the boat was tie two lines from the same cleat so they would both reach a piling. I tied the first line as tight as I could to the piling so it was stretched really tightly. Then, I started lifting up on it which was much easier than trying to pull on the line to bring the boat toward the dock. This forced the boat closer to the dock and I would quickly tie the second line tightly which left the first line slack. I then untied the first line, lifted on the second, and retied the first to gain whatever movement I could get. After a while, I learned that instead of lifting on the tight line, if I sat on it, my body weight would force the boat a lot closer to the dock and with a less effort. Then I could tighten the other line and reverse the process. It took two hours using this method to get the boat back into the slip.
We hope to be able to move tomorrow but Texas is getting hit with a big storm and if it comes here, we are not going anywhere. I hope, if it hits, the winds switch to the south or north.
It is really rough now and we are going to bed.
Post again tomorrow
Royal Crescent.