So I probably made an error by mentioning that it was calm and essentially nothing to report. Apparently that’s a good way to bring Ida as well as a bit of mayhem in our general direction.. or so it seems. So here’s the story, as we came into Port Jefferson we broke a transmission control cable and lost the ability to reverse

Fortunately we were coming in with the intent to anchor and not trying to catch a mooring ball or get onto a dock. That would have represented a more significant degree of difficulty and perhaps resulted in an entirely different log entry. In addition, to just trying to anchor we had some other factors in our favor. We were in a largely vacant mooring field and had picked a wide open area with no balls and no boats. The bottom (it would appear, based on charts) is good holding, probably mud. We had Paul on the anchor windless which worked great and held the first time.

So now we sit at anchor unable to go until we get a new cable. It’s on order to arrive today. In the meantime we are sitting out the remnants of Hurricane Ida. It’s going to be a lot of rain and it’s already a lot of wind. Right now the boat is swinging on the hook out in the harbor.

Update to this, after spending the day with Paul’s dad scouring the local retailers for our required supplies we headed back to the boat around 7 pm. Since it gets dark around 4:30 and with the weather less than gorgeous we went speeding out to boat to find… no boat.

That’s right Nicole, Boyd and I in the inflatable in the dark, rain, wind and no boat to be seen. Unless you have been in the situation where you have put your entire life on hold and sunk all of your spare cash (and some that wasn’t exactly spare) into a boat only to find after 1 week that the whole thing has gone missing, you won’t be able to understand how Boyd and I felt as we looked around the harbor last night. Dishartened, desperate, confused, cold, wet, and generally in a bit of a panic we looked everywhere trying to locate Passages.

Remember please that this was only our 2nd time anchoring the boat, that we lost the capability to reverse, before we set the hook. Don’t forget for a moment that we are in a low that has produced gusts in excess of 40 mph and that we don’t even have a marked anchor chain so although we knew the depth of where we were on the charts we didn’t know exactly how much scope we put out. We couldn’t hit redo either because, well, Boyd had to take out the throttle cable so we couldn’t change gears. All of these factors rushed through our minds as we sat in the middle of the dark harbor wondering; had she sunk? Had the anchor rode failed, was the she out there floating free? We scanned the shoreline; what if she’d be washed aground? We looked as far as we could see toward the entrance of the cove. If she had dragged anchor or broken free she might have flushed out of the cove or at least headed in that general direction. With all the wind and the storm surge from Ida, even in this protected cove and even if we’d had tons of experience with the boat and even if the throttle cable hadn’t severed just as we were anchoring this could have happened.

Unfortunately this series of thoughts didn’t comfort me. Everything we own of value was aboard Passages, she’s our home now. In the darkness even Nicole voiced her dismay… “Where is she?” she asked pensively, voicing all of our concerns. As we swung around again and looked toward the channel and the incoming car ferry I though I saw something. Over there? I think she might be over there? We sped toward the channel and the oncoming car ferry.

Sure enough there she was nearly in the channel, shockingly close to the path of the oncoming ferry, in fact until we got aboard we weren’t sure whether the ferries track was on an intercept course or not. In the dark and the wind we climbed aboard and turned on all of the lights we could. Boyd fired up the VHF and called the captain of the ferry while quickly verifying our new position. Sometime over the last 8 hours Passages had dragged 900 ft across the mooring field, past a lone sailboat, and settled 60 ft from the green can marking the channel (nearly parallel with the can-just along the outside edge of the path of the ferry).

Even as good as we felt about finding Passages issues remained, while we had received the part and had it with us it would take time to install. It was still blowing like a son of a gun and dark and rainy. Paul and Jay were on the dock awaiting a return shuttle trip. We were far from out of the woods. In the end we were able to determine that while we had dragged anchor nearly a third of the way across the harbor we seemed to have come to a stop just outside the commercial channel (no telling how long ago).

Boyd went back to get Paul and Jay. Nicole and I watched the GPS and monitored the VHF. When Boyd and the guys returned Boyd went about preparations to repair the cable, I fixed dinner (now that it was apparent that we weren’t in imminent danger of floating away or being run down. We repaired the cable, ate a nice dinner of seafood pasta (although it was much delayed) and re-anchored after adding line to the chain we already had. Now lest that sound idyllic or in the least easy let me assure you it wasn’t. It was dark, raining and windy as can be.

Thanks goodness she only moved 900 ft. Thank goodness she didn’t rap herself around the other sailboat, mooring balls or buoys in the mooring field. Thank goodness she didn’t go aground or make her way completely into the commercial shipping lane and the way of those dang car ferries. Thank goodness she didn’t sink. Thank goodness it all worked out and we still have a boat. And as a final word I might just mention that if you don’t hear me mentioning the peace and quite or seemingly mentioning the routine or lack of excitement… DON’T BE SURPRISED!