Amanda Grace Comes Home

by Caitlín

Yesterday morning at 4:45 a.m., five dedicated members of Sea Scout Ship 7916 met at the Old Bridge Road/Route 123 commuter lot to drive to Lusby, MD and bring our favorite boat, Amanda Grace, home.

Captain John Ashton (far right) drove the Skipper, Mate Dan, Daniel, and me to Skipper Doug Yeckley's house and dropped off us and our load of gear.

The drive was long, and because of both the early hour and Daniel's famous ability to sleep at any time, anywhere, he fell asleep like a lump in the seat.

We arrived earlier than planned, so we hauled our food and supplies down to the edge of the water so we could ferry it out to Amanda Grace, anchored past the end of the dock.

Skipper Shay called Skipper Yeckley just before 0700 and asked which rowboat we should use, and he came down the hill to help us.

Mate Dan, Daniel, and I launched the boat (hard to do on the slimy, slippery rocks at the edge of the water), and rowed to Amanda Grace to open her hatches and begin the engine checks.

Three our four loads later, the gear, provisions, and crew were aboard, and Skipper Yeckley rowed out to show us the best places to anchor along our route and help us weigh anchor. We needed a fifty pound plow anchor to keep our mischievous Amanda Grace from wandering where she shouldn't.

Mate Dan started the engine and we prepared to haul in our anchor, but the stern line had become caught between Amanda Grace's rudder and hull.

So Daniel tried pushing it out with his feet. When that didn't work, Skipper Yeckley suggested that we try pulling the line from the starboard side, like so:

That didn't work, even with the line around the starboard jib sheet winch.

So Daniel had to almost fully submerge in the chilly water to pull the line free, and after he dried off Skipper Yeckley hauled his anchor up:

Finally we were ready to set off, through the mist rising from the still morning water and under a brilliantly blue sky. The wind didn't seem promising, but we hoped it would pick up--preferably from the East at 15-20 knots--once we were out on the Bay.

Mate Dan (who must, for this trip, be called "captain") was first at the helm, while Daniel and I raised our Ship flag.

Out on the Patuxent we were quickly passed by a lot of boats, which made our progress seem even slower than it was. As we went beneath the Patuxent Beach Road bridge, I snapped this picture of a warning on the bridge pier for Adam, because it reminded us of how he always wants to know if we're going to hit the bridge and what we would do if we did.

The wind speed had improved a lot, but we had to motor for quite a while before rounding Drum Point and putting the sails up.

When we first tried to set it, the Genoa sheet felt too tight, and was really hard to unfurl, even using the winch. Captain Dan went forward and untwisted the halyard from the forestay and then it worked perfectly.

We got a little bit of nice sailing in before the wind died back down and we had to turn on the engine to make good time. About then we were besieged with flies--many of which liked snacking on human flesh. One of the supplies we have yet to buy for Amanda Grace is a flyswatter, and every sailboat out on the Bay should have at least one.
The decks--both above and below--soon became so infested with flies that Daniel and I were both smacking them left and right and still there were too many.
Once, when a particularly large specimen was killed, the Skipper and Daniel had the following exchange:

Daniel: "I got him!"
Skipper Shay: "I see the big bloodstain!"
Daniel: "I see his dead body right there!"

It was really gross, but eventually there weren't as many flies. In the evening we had to wash the "carnage" off the deck so that we could sit without squashing fly bodies.

Daniel and I were employed in making lunch, which was seafood salad wraps, with tuna salad as an option if we ran out of the first. But we didn't know the tuna was not supposed to be in with the rest, so we mixed it all together. Then the tortillas were so torn up that we couldn't use them without salad spilling out, so Daniel had the idea of shredding them up and mixing them in, along with the lettuce.

We ate that with mismatched forks out the funky blue retro bowls my mom picked up at a yard sale. It mostly tasted like tuna, but it was okay.

After lunch I had a turn at the wheel, where I saw a trio of pelicans fly by (the first time I'd ever seen any in the wild) and mistook a tower for the green marker Captain Dan was talking about. So I cut closer to Point Lookout than I was supposed to, which took us through a field of crab pots that I had to carefully avoid because we didn't want the lines caught in our propeller.

We motored up the Potomac a looong way, until the moon rose and the sun set in a wash of oranges, yellows, lavenders and, later on, turquoise.

Eventually we got hungry, and making dinner was an experience because none of us had operated the alcohol stove before and it hadn't been used in at least six years. Earlier Captain Dan and Skipper Shay had tried it out to see if it worked at all, and flames shot up--and out beneath the stove, darkening a bit of the woodwork.

Because the alcohol tank was loosing pressure, cooking dinner took four steps:

1. Follow the directions on the box of Hamburger Helper and stir:

















2. Continuously pump the alcohol tank (beneath the starboard quarter berth) so that there is enough pressure to have fuel:













3. Keep the flames from shooting up too high around the frying pan, although they licked the edges:

















4. Add canned green beans, and it's ready to eat! Surprisingly the noodles were even soft:












Doesn't it look tasty? It actually wasn't too bad, if you like warm salty goop. I think a good word for it is "burgoo," while the Skipper described it as "Hamburger Helper stroganoff flambé."

The latch on the door to the head doesn't quite catch, and would open and close as Amanda Grace rolled, slamming each time. Daniel put his creative engineering skills to use and made this invention out of an extra PFD (Personal Flotation Device). We could open the door just enough to slip the PFD strap off the handle and open it, and do the reverse to close it. The contraption worked very well, and made sleeping much more peaceful.

Captain Dan decided to motor all night, with Skipper Shay to help keep him awake and watch for buoys. Daniel and I, however, fell into our berths fully clothed around 10:00 and didn't get up for several hours.

Monday, October 13th

I was wide awake at 3:30 a.m., when a life vest fell on my hand and woke me. I went up on deck, where Captain Dan was waiting for sunrise so he could be relieved at the helm. The morning light was slow in coming, and by the time it the sun rose Skipper Shay and I were in familiar territory; at Possum Point power plant, just downriver of Leesylvania Park and the Carefree Boat Club, from which we had our training sails.

Around 7:00 Captain Dan went below for an hour and a half of sleep, and the Skipper called COR Sanford to report on our progress. The sky was very pretty, with dramatic coloring.

The route from Leesylvania to Prince William Marina seemed surprisingly short, but we arrived later than our estimated 9:00 a.m.

Ahead, under the I-95 bridge, we saw a group of kayakers that looked familiar. As we got closer, we recognized members of our Ship, who were starting out on their Occoquan to Mason Neck kayak trip.

"Ahoy, Sea Scouts!" the Skipper cried, which raised a cheer from the small fleet. Skipper Shay told them about our galley fires, feasting flies, and sailing all night, and Rebecca called that her mom was taking pictures of us and Amanda Grace.
"And I'm taking pictures of you!" I shouted back.

Adam (M.), Caleb, and Mark came over to investigate more closely. It was, for a few of the kayaking Scouts, their first glimpse of Amanda Grace, and for others their first view since she started to look loved.

The boats continued on their way (Daniel had slept through the whole thing), and we very soon arrived at the Marina, to be met by Mr. Sanford, who was waiting on the dock with hot coffee and fresh doughnuts.

We wanted to pump out the tank for the head, but at first the pump-out station was not working, and when it did, we couldn't get the cap to the waste tank to unscrew, so that will have to wait until later.

We tied Amanda Grace up, and Skipper Shay made completed the first page of Amanda Grace's new logbook (right) before we went to the end of the dock to eat doughnuts.

We sat around chatting with Mr. Sanford for a while, and then we had to pack our gear up and clean up Amanda Grace a bit so that she would look pretty.



Captain Dan suggested that the October Quarterdeck meeting be held aboard her, and that it could double as a welcome home party for our special boat.

"Welcome home," Amanda Grace!