How NOT to win friends and influence people

Today I was up early checking weather and sea conditions and listening to Chris Parker to see if it still was a good idea to head offshore to Fernandina tomorrow. All looked good then I thought hey we are looking at the wind sea conditions for out to 20nm but if we run the rumb line we will be about 40nm from the coast at times. I checked the forecast for 20 - 60nm offshore and it had more wind and bigger seas 3-5 foot with occasional 6 footers. Karen would not like that. The out to 20nm was still light winds and seas to 2 feet.

I got the boys together and we agreed to take the inside route especially since it was only 7 nm longer.

Great we have a plan. I paid the bill. Then back on Temptation I asked for some dockhand assistance with lines since we were turning in close proximity to a lot of high dollar boats. Two guys came down. One friendly and the other was a grumpy guy who drove us on the van a few times. He was a rough driver. Barb got severely motion sick on one ride. I never tipped him. he never got out of the van to help or unload provisions or park near the carts where other drivers did.

Any way they asked how I wanted to cast off. I said throw the spring and stern on board then hold the bow line to control as I backed out of the slip. The nice guy threw the lines off as asked and the grumpy guy held the bow line, and as I started to back, he just threw it onboard abandoning any control for me. We were fortunate and got out okay but it was very tight. What a Bozo..

We went to Buck's Roadstead anchorage across from Nun 2 at the Battery. Beautiful view but rolly from boat wakes. Jim and Barb joined us later and we had a pretty nice afternoon until some BIG ASS Mega Yacht came through casting a huge tsunami style wake. It both rocked our world and rang our bells. Jim was so fed up he left for the old anchorage.

It's dark now and there have been no repeats and it is quite nice here. Although a Coast Guard Cutter ran an exercise near us with a Coast Guard Chopper about 100 feet up off his stern. He created quite a wind near us but didn't bother us too much.

We are staged and ready to head offshore in the morning if the forecasts hold. Decision time 9am with departure at 10am.

Should be a nice run down the coast. Probably won't post a blog tomorrow night but will on Wednesday. I'll post a few position reports so you can see our progress down the coast. We will only be from 9 - 12 miles offshore.

Bon Voyage.