Location: Hancock Harbor, NJ
We woke up this morning and set off up the Cape May canal. I briefly wondered why the rest of the boats were not doing the same. Most of the boat owners seemed to be barely stirring and none were preparing to take off. I realize now that it was no coincidence.
We were very vigilant as we headed up the canal, checking the chart and the depth sounder continuously. As we initially headed toward a bridge I didn't think much of it. Sailors travel up this canal all the time. My father has been under this bridge before. The canal was made for boats to travel on, so this bridge must have been designed with boats like ours in mind. Still as we got closer I kept thinking "this bridge does NOT seem high enough!" And, there was the explanation. The reason why no one else had left at high tide was because at high tide the bridge is too close to the water for the masts of sailboats to pass safely underneath. I asked Dad how high the bridge clearance is. He said the charts say 55 feet. But, this was a very high tide. The full moon was close. I was driving. There was a sign at the base of the bridge (in fact there's one on all bridges), that looked like a ruler you would stand against at the doctors office to tell you how tall you are. The water came up to a spot on the ruler telling the height clearance. At that particular moment the water was a hair past the tick below 51 feet, presumably 52 feet and a few inches. Our mast is 50 feet. It is extremely hard to judge if there will be a collision 50 feet above you. It's definitely not the same as judging a possible collision 50 feet in front of you. I know from experience that looking up, the mast doesn't look like the top can possibly be 50 feet high. When looking down from the top of the mast, you're sure that you have to be more than 50 feet in the air. The closer we got to this bridge the more uncertain I became about this possible collision. I stared up, craning my neck to watch in horror. I steered the boat toward the middle of the bridge, under the highest point of its arc. I felt like putting my arms over my head to protect myself in case there was a loud clang from the mast breaking. Instead my ears were met with a smaller clang, and then a high pitched, echoing scraping. The radio antenna, a foot or two higher than the mast, was dragging across the bottom of the bridge. It was a small consolation, very small. The knot in my stomach untwisted and my shoulders sank with relief. Dad looked at me and smiled like it was just another day in the park. His smiled faded when we rounded the next bend and saw a bridge that looked EXACTLY like the last. I immediately said that I was not driving. The next few minutes passed in a tense silence, except for the times when I yelled at Dad telling him to slow down. My warnings were dismissed. It was as if God had pressed rewind of the DVD player just to see if, given the chance and the full knowledge of the situation, we would be stupid enough to attempt a repeat performance. The replay went down just as before and we entered the Delaware Bay no worse for the wear. The bay was so flat it looked like a desert of water. There was no breeze, no waves. The sun was ablaze and left a haze along the water's surface. We broke out of the channel to avoid other boats and buoys. We figured what little luck we had started with must have already been spent on the bridges. However, we soon found a minefield of crab pots waiting for us. I had to scramble off the deck more than once to turn the autopilot off and steer around them. (Dad's too carefree to worry about the mundane dangers of pots. Plus, we already agreed I would cut off the first one to get stuck on the prop, if he would swim down and get the next two.) It got unbearably hot so we got in our suits, put the sail down, turned off the engine, and went for a dip. We sun tanned and drip dried the rest of the way. Not long after the swim we reached the Cohansey River, a winding salt marsh. It was beautiful inside the labyrinth of reeds and creeks. Over top of the marsh we could see the forest beyond. There was no sign that humans had ever inhabited here. It was like we were explorers in the new world. The fox on the bank stopped mid-trot to watch us pass and the blue heron abandoned it's strut to fly silently over us. The entire river was quiet except for the song the wind played between the reeds. I immediately thought of it as the setting for The Wind in the Willows - picturing Toad Hall to be just beyond the forest. Our destination, Hancock Harbor was buried in the marsh, about three miles up the river. On the dock filled with crabbing vessels, I could have sworn that we were no longer in New Jersey but in the southern bayou. We landed in historic Greenwich, New Jersey and planned on spending the rest weekend with my father's sisters.
What we ate: nothing special
Spotted: bald eagle in the marsh
No comments:
Post a Comment