Big Bad Bill

Location: Port Jefferson, New York
Position: N 40 57.830 W 073 04.909

Hurricanes are a big deal wherever you live. But if you live on a boat, they can easily (and quite literally) become life changing experiences. We haven’t lived through one on Rachel and have no desire to do so.

So here we are sailing down to Harpswell in Casco Bay, Maine and keeping a close eye on the tropical storm system forming to the east of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. There’s a family gathering scheduled at which Mark’s dad’s ashes will be sprinkled at his favorite fishing spot in Maine. The prediction is showing that Bill will skirt the coast of Maine within the next few days. Even if the storm passes 50 miles offshore we can look forward to high winds and huge waves. We study the charts and find a potential hurricane hole just inland from Harpswell where we think we can hide if necessary.

A good hurricane hole has all around protection, preferably with high sides (so the winds will skip over you), good water depth (in case huge waves come in and try to bonk you on the bottom), and most of all, good holding for your anchors. When we arrive at Harpswell the first thing we do is go a bit further inland to check out Long Cove. Apart from it not being as deep as we’d like we’re confident it’ll make a fine hurricane hole, so we head back to Harpswell Sound.

When we express our concerns to the locals we’re told “Hurricanes don’t usually hit Maine”. Oh. Okay. Well, our experience further south says that if a hurricane even so much as threatens landfall anywhere near, all the available hurricane holes get filled to (or most often beyond) capacity. When this happens, there’s “no room at the inn” and you could be caught out at the worst possible time. We want to be proactive and make sure Rachel is safe, so we check the updated weather at least twice a day, ready to make tracks for our chosen spot if the worst should appear imminent. So far, the forecasts still show Hurricane Bill skirting right by or over us.

We do not let our worries prevent us from having a great time at the spot in Maine where Mark spent some of the happiest times of his life. (Editors note: that would, of course, be before he met Julie!!). We enjoy many wonderful, happy hours with his family, chatting and reminiscing.

The scattering ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, but unfortunately Bill is scheduled to arrive early Sunday morning. The forecast is for high winds and building seas on Saturday - not the most conducive forecast for a family heading out to a rocky island on a small boat. Still we wait, hoping that, at the last minute, the storm will veer further out to sea and give us a miss.

The Friday forecast shows the storm weakening slightly and heading a little further offshore. Huge sighs of relief all round. After much discussion we decide that the hook of land behind which we lie, just off the old family cottage, will give us enough protection from the predicted 40 mph winds and 10 foot seas - so Rachel stays put.

On Saturday morning Bill slows down a little; enough so that we decide to go on out and say a last goodbye to Mark’s dad, Ken. The rain holds off long enough for us to have a lovely outside gathering and remembrance of Ken’s ‘pretty good life’. Our ride out to the island and back on Mark’s cousin’s son’s lobster boat (wow, that’s a mouthful) is another highlight for Mark – he hasn’t been on one since he was a teenager lobstering with his uncle Ned and the memories come flooding back. Thanks, Chip.

Finally, on Sunday, the rain comes. Fairly high winds and big seas pound the islands to the south and east of us, but Rachel is safe and secure in her anchorage seeing almost no storm-related weather other than the rain. By Tuesday the seas are down and we head further south into Casco Bay to meet our friends on Barefootin’ at Jewell Island, having decided to head back south together.

We have a lovely sail down to Kittery, Maine. When we arrive our friends tell us “Just in case you haven’t had enough excitement yet, another tropical storm named ‘Danny’ has formed and it’s also forecast to head our way.” Crikies.

Danny is predicted to increase to class 2 hurricane strength and clip Cape Cod a glancing blow. Like Bill before him, Danny will run up the coast of New England and also clip the coast of Maine. How close is anybody’s guess. We decide to get moving again to both get south and to minimize our exposure to the storm. Since we’re only 75 miles north of Cape Cod, we decide that if we leave immediately we can get down to Cape Cod, through the canal, and then as far west as we can into Long Island Sound before Danny makes landfall. The further the better, since further west is more out of Danny’s predicted path.

So we haul anchor at 4am and start heading south. We’ve been looking forward to enjoying a nice, relaxing trip south. Yea right!! Not so much. It ain’t gonna happen. Instead, feeling the stress to make good time and stay one step ahead of the storm, we forge ahead. It’s expected to hit Cape Cod head on in three days and we only travel at 6 mph. Yikes!

We get through the Cape Cod Canal in the late afternoon and are thinking we’ll stop and spend the night then continue on the next day.

Once again this will not be so. We check the storm track again and have a discussion with our friends. Danny’s still on track to smash into Cape Cod. It’s 75 miles down Buzzards Bay to the entrance of Long Island Sound and an additional 50 miles to Port Jefferson, New York. That’s 20 hours at 6 knots - and we only have 48 hours left. There’s no time to stop and sleep; we need to keep on moving. We travel through the night, now feeling good that we are making miles west and away from danger. We enter Long Island Sound at first light and make it to Port Jefferson by 5pm. An awesome run! We had the current in our favor the entire 214 mile trip except for the last 6 hours – 6.74 knots average speed for the entire trip! This is a record for us on Rachel. Now all we can do is set the anchor with a lot of chain and try to get some sleep before Danny arrives tomorrow.

As it turns out, Danny loses strength and heads a little further offshore than originally predicted and, once again, we only get some rain and not much wind. We could get frustrated that we’ve made all this effort and the storm has once again changed course, but we don’t. Instead, we’re grateful because it could easily have headed further west and hit us hard. We feel that we have made it to a safe haven and, as we all know, you don’t want to fool around with Mother Nature.

After spending a day resting up and waiting for the winds to die down we reflect on our passage. We‘ve had a lot of stress and a long, fast trip, but the good part is, we’ve also made lots of progress! Now it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump (a mere 250 miles) to get us back to the Chesapeake Bay!

As Mark’s Dad used to sing “Big Bad Bill is Sweet William now.”

Wishing Sweet Williams to us all,