Falcon/ Lynn and Bill's new boat

Posted May4th

Yesterday was non-stop with the exception of our morning coffee. The weather was perfect- Barry saw some dolphins I guess a whole
pod while I was doing something else, ah well.

Our friends Bill and Lynn have been for a week getting their 44 ft. 1987 Marine Trawler up here from the other side of Florida. They hired a husband
and wife team of Captians to bring it through the ditch in Fla which comes out about at Marathon. Bill and Lynn met them in Stuart and the four of
them completed the trip of 4 days. They anchored out at night and cooked and had a great time, then tooted up the ICW until they finally reached
Port Royal. We had been monitoring the VHF below and took the hand held out with us to fish in anticipation of watching them come in.

The actually chose a rough time as there were lots of boats--big ones wanting to fuel up and take fresh water as well as two speed boats with 5 drinking
guys in each burping and ooozing testosterone. So Donna the dock master told Bill via VHF to pop a few wheelies for us out in the river and hold off till they could
get some boats re-fueled. Bill and Lynn need to refuel as well. I stood by the pump later while they filled their 1500 gal tanks---cha ching cha-ching! Glad we are in a sailboat
tho we do have a 75HP deisel engine, we also have a jib a main and mizzen sail and are adding a stay sail.

by the was, Barry and I had made score cards and when Bill did such a good job of pulling into the fuel dock we held them up. a 10 and a 9.5.

I digress----so Bill and Lynn and waving madly to us from out in the river waiting their turn. All is swell. Bill at the helm pulls on to the face dock to refuel and we ooo and ahhhh over this big beautiful honker of a boat.
Trawlers are cool. Lots of space but no sails! Ill try to attach a picture for you. Anyway all goes well but the tide is coming in STRONGLY with a hefty wind from the south pushing the tide and currents in enough
to cause little white caps and put snarles in the ends of my hair( no hat)

Now its time to pull away from the fuel dock and at this point Im thinking, I have SEEN a lot of good captains try to pull into a slip inside the marina in these conditions and in my inexperienced mind Im thinking if Im Bill I thinking lets wait an hour till slack tide.

I mean we have all these charts and graphs and we KNOW. But in the quest for the almighty fuel dollar the dock master told bill it would be alright and after all he did have Captains Wendy and Calvin to help.

Well, long story short 20 minutes later their boat had been carried broadside by above mentioned current scraping the bow of several boats and pushing it hard against the boats and docks. It missed ours by a few feet but only because the tide and wind were in our favor, I stood on the stern of our boat bravely with every intention of pushing this 35000 lb boat off of ours if I had to. 5 minutes later I counted at least 15 full grown men trying to tdo the same as Falcon was dashed into the boats along the floating docks. The sound was horrible and I felt so badly for Bill and Lynn. Lots of bad sounds but little damage after all is said and done.

Everyone scrambled for extra bumpers and people from all over the marina came to help. Well most stood around but a few brave souls took comand and this boat had to be moved to get that boat and for an hour they did chess moves with boats against mother nature. Finally one brave tow boat captain stepped in and took charge and in 10 mintues all was well. They pulled Falcon into a temporary slip and this morning during slack tide Bill and our friend Gene moved Falcon to the slip catty corner from us along the long side of the dock. It was a thing of beauty actually.

Really only one boat had any kind of damage and that is why we have insurance. It was SO exciting. I met a few new people and comforted our friends who had not dreamed their much anticipated homecoming would be so LOUD!

I made chicken and dumplings for Bill, Lynn, Captains Wendy and Calvin on our boat and we had a great time reliving it and placing blame. I love my Italian stainless pressure cooker. In 30 minutes dinner was done- five minutes to steam the dumplings and we were eating fab dinner.

off to the laundry mat now and Lowes.

Love sami
S/V Ever After