Water Water Everywhere

We are still drying things out from our drenching in New York Harbor. Let me back up a day or two and tell you what happened.

We had just cleared under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (first picture) which spans between Brooklyn and Staten Island. A large ship (Chinese) was proceeding outbound at a very high speed and was kicking up a large wake. You can just see the ship in the distance in the second picture.   The wake didn't look too bad so I waited for the wave to close on us and turned the bow into it. Lucky I did because the second wave was HUGE. Summer Snow stood on her stern until cresting the first wave and then pointed straight down, bow first into the trough between the waves. She scooped up a bow full of ocean before doing the same thing with the next wave.

Patrick said "I think we took in some water down below!" He ducked down the hatch and found the forward hatch had leaked and there was a lot of water in his bunk, on the deck, and even on the table in the middle of the boat. The automatic bilge pump came on right away so I knew we had taken in significant water.

The hatch had been closed but not secured tight and the bathroom port was open. We had major water on the carpeting all the way back to the galley! Well, live and learn. We have plenty of extra sheets and sleeping bags but drying salt water soaked carpeting takes time and lots of air. The wet carpeting makes your shoes slippery on the stairs and I don't want to do the splits again so "easy does it" for a while. I think I had better take Neal's advice and turn around before going down the stairs.