Today’s post is by Bill W-R, a faithful crew aboard the Betty Ann. Bill hasn’t missed a north or south trip from or to Florida since her inaugural trip back in Spring 2004. He provides the entertainment. Thanks, Bill, for sending in the post.

I should warn readers:  Take everything Bill says with a grain of salt. A very big grain of salt.

This entry into the blog is a bit unusual. I greatly enjoy Mike’s entries that recall with logbook precision the trips and crews; or recount warm, pleasant evening shifts or surprising discoveries on the East coast; or that provide an idealized introduction to the members of the crew. This entry does contain some drivel, but more importantly, it contains tips on how to get the most out of your voyage on the Betty Ann. It is written for opportunists by an opportunist.

Sailing on the Betty Ann is an event I look forward to all year long. I count the months, weeks and days until the next trip. Whenever I feel that my normal life is getting too routine or too full of the tedious problems, I mentally transport myself to the cockpit of the Betty Ann, and wander off to thoughts of life aboard:  choosing the next harbor, discussing the most enjoyable route to take, recounting the special places we have visited in the past, hailing the dolphins playing in the bow wave, and wondering who is likely to next screw up the settings on the chartplotter by inserting his own waypoints or changing “north up” to “course up.”

Sailing on the Betty Ann is like entering a parallel universe. The everyday world still exists at work and at home, but for a week, the setting, the characters and the plot are entirely new and predictably enjoyable. Archie is always cheerful and remarkably able to pick up the slack where lesser, sick or tired sailors stumble. Mike and Alison will always create the next gourmet meal. And Rob will provide a steadying, uncomplaining and willing-to-do-anything presence. And adult supervision for any adolescents on board.

The most paradoxical thing about sailing on the Betty Ann is that it can be both relaxing and exciting at the same time. Below are a few suggestions on how to enhance those two benefits of a trip aboard the Betty Ann.

Relaxing

Prepare for Sea Sickness:  Some of us are prone to sea-sickness (at least I am) and a little medication is a good idear. There is nothing that disrupts the relaxing nature of a trip more than that queasy feeling. Be sure to bring along your preferred motion sickness medicine. (Some have a more soporific effect than others.) Before leaving the dock, pull out the medication. CAREFULLY READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE DOSE. Then triple it. You won’t get sea sick; you won’t have to do much work. If you play it right, the only time you will be awoken is for meals and your night shifts. Remember:  this is a forgiving crowd you are sailing with, and they can’t make you get out and walk.

Control the Berths:  While at dock, all that you really need to think about is maximizing the distance from the snorers, and staying away from the head. While being near the head has some benefits, there are two downsides. If someone flushes the toilet, you think your head has been unscrewed and placed inside a jet engine. And if someone closes the head door without being really, really careful, it issues a loud, sharp report that makes you think you have just been dismasted. And that’s never relaxing. (NOTE:  The berth in the bunkroom extends to extra width, has a firm cushion and allows you privacy. If you can snag it, do so.)

When you are underway, choosing the best berth gets a little more complicated. When reaching, make sure you get a leeward berth. (This may require some finagling with the watch schedule, but more on that later.) You can try to do this by leaving a lot of junk on the leeward berth (safety harnesses, books, tools, food, clothes, etc.) and this will hopefully cause someone to take the windward berth. When the time comes for your hours off, you can throw the stuff on the floor and jump into the leeward berth. If someone already has the leeward bunk, wait until they go to the head, jump in it and pretend you are sound asleep. May work, may not. Depends who is trying to dislodge you. And whether you’ve publicized your triple dose of Dramamine.

When beating to windward, you once again want a leeward berth. The berths in the main salon are the best under these conditions as they are closest to the center of motion of the boat and have the least pitching movement. While the berth in the bunkroom is okay, its being forward of the boat’s center means you will feel some pitching. When beating to windward, absolutely avoid the forward most cabin (a.k.a. the Queen’s Quarters). It becomes a defective anti-gravity chamber. One moment you are in the air and escaping the forces of gravity. A second later, you make the hard descent. Over and over. If someone you dislike is in the queen’s quarters, crack the forward hatch when they aren’t looking. You will enjoy their reaction when you hit the next big wave.

Staying Stimulated

Control the Betty Ann’s Provisioning:  During the night watches, caffeinated diet coke is critical. The sugared coke gets you a little too revved up to go back to sleep when your watch ends.

While Archie is the nicest, most generous captain in the world, he can be impish when provisioning without supervision. Besides getting canned peas, he will buy non-caffeinated diet coke and pretend it is what you asked for. He sometimes produces a shopping list that includes a notation for a six pack of non-caffeinated diet coke that he claims you requested in an email. Givemeabreak.

Be generous in the amount of diet coke you ask Archie to buy for the boat. Mike claims he drinks only one can a day. But the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. Build in at least six cans of diet coke a day for Mike. If he doesn’t drink that much, you can cover for the prodigal son by discreetly drinking the surplus.

Hide the diet coke. It may sound selfish, but it’s not. It’s all-important that one person on board be capable of jumping into action and taking command in an emergency. It might as well be you. Having plenty of sleep and a ready stash of diet coke is crucial to put you in a place where you can save the others on board. Make the sacrifice.

Speaking of hiding the diet coke, remember that the social order on the boat can break down quickly and you never know when people are going to start hoarding food. Beat them to the punch. Keep a list of where you are stashing stuff, as it can be hard to recall, particularly if you have hidden a lot. Archie is always hiding the Pepperidge Farm cookies and leaving the stale Oreos for others. If you feel a little guilty about hiding food, don’t. You’re just following the captain’s example.

Put STARBUCKS or PEETS on your request list. Archie will buy Maxwell House or second hand coffee if left to himself. Coffee should be considered something you only make if you are tied up at a marina. If someone tries to brew coffee during the night keep an eye on him. The fact that he wants to do it indicates he is very tired. You don’t want him firing up one of the stove’s burners and placing the plastic-bottomed percolator on it. Stinks up the cabin and makes for gross coffee. Been there.

Control the Watch Schedule:  This is the most complex and delicate task in keeping the trip stimulating. Who you spend your night watch with means that the late night bonding opportunity will either be a stimulating conversation or a throw-yourself-overboard moment.

Start by deciding who you want to share your watch with and who you don’t. Then create some logic that makes it look like you developed the watch list objectively. You may need to run through a number of scenarios. Start with something simple like developing a watch list alphabetically. Alison and Archie; followed by Archie and Bill; followed by Bill and Mike; followed by Mike and Rob; followed by Rob and Alison. That particular watch list would make me move on to another apparently “logical” approach. Perhaps develop the list by age. If that doesn’t work, the appearance of objectivity becomes harder. Second letter of peoples’ home town address? Favorite pet’s name? When worse come to worse and nobody is trusting you anymore, volunteer for the 2 am to 6 am shift. You may be able to salvage some credibility because no manipulative opportunist would put himself on that watch. Or at least that’s my argument.

On shore stimulation should also be remembered. The Bean in Oriental, NC is the best coffee shop on the East coast. Cuban coffee from the bodega at South Beach Marina is also good.

There are a few other tricks that will guarantee a relaxing and stimulating trip. They are for sale.

When sailing into a new port each evening, often in need of food, supplies or repairs, you sometimes have to rely on the kindness of strangers. On our trips north and south each year, Betty Ann’s crew spends a lot of time in the Intracoastal Waterway in the South, where fortunately folks tend to be very generous, even to us Yankees.

Archie, practicing “the look” at a young age

Repeatedly, we have been offered cars and trucks so that we could get groceries, dinner, or marine supplies. It’s a mystery why people let us drive off in their most valuable possessions, but Archie sure can put on the face of a saint. In Buck’s Harbor, Maine, we went to the town’s most popular restaurant (okay, the town’s only restaurant, but it was really popular) on a Saturday night without a reservation and of course they couldn’t seat us. Archie gave that sweet “no problem not your fault but what shall we do?” look with the doe eyes and before you know it, the hostess is foisting her car keys on him, telling him about a great restaurant just 10 miles away.

In Belhaven, North Carolina, upon asking where the closest grocery store was, we were lent a golf cart. Picture four of Betty Ann’s crew bumping down the breakdown lane of a highway on our way to get groceries.

But an odd scenario has played out now, three times, no less, when we have borrowed vehicles in the Carolinas.

The first time, we had sailed into Englehard on Pimlico Sound in a very rural area of North Carolina. As it turned out, the only marina in the tiny little harbor had just reopened after major repairs from a hurricane, and we were literally the only boat in the entire marina. As we stepped onto the dock, we realized that, while boaters had not yet arrived, the seabirds had. The docks were slick with bird guano. Lots of it. Eating on the boat didn’t seem so appetizing, so we asked the marina manager whether there were any restaurants in walking distance. He said the nearest restaurant was five miles down the road, but he was happy to lend us his pickup truck. After much, “oh no, we couldn’t” demurrals, we took him up on his offer. And then, just as we headed off in the truck, he came running after us, yelling, “wait, wait, I forgot something,” and then sheepishly reached under the front seat and pulled out a handgun. (Later that evening, after a great meal at a local place in the boondocks, our provocateur crew Bill W-R jumped out at every gas station on the way back to the boat asking for a cup of cappuccino and the New York Times. Amazingly, we made it out of Englehard alive.)

Provocateur

A year or so later, the exact same handgun trick happened again in Beaufort, North Carolina:  a kind Samaritan ran after the car and grabbed his gun from under the front seat just as we were headed off to find diesel filters. And then, remarkably, it happened a third time to Dad and his friend Bob at a marina along the Intracoastal Waterway in northern North Carolina, between Coinjock and Chesapeake City. Feels like the plot of Groundhog Day set in the parking lot of an NRA convention.  

The lesson? Southern hospitality is alive and well in the Carolinas. Indeed, everywhere we go, people are incredibly generous. However, even the most generous folks may be hiding a secret under their front seat.

Archie, in the first of many borrowed vehicles?