A NEW THEORY!

I have a new theory to test out this fall.  I did not have my Marine Air X wind turbine on board last season.  I came on board one day and found the cormorants had made a mess of things on the deck and sail cover. I have reinstalled the Marine Air X  this year and am hoping that it's movement and start up noise will frighten the birds off the boom and prevent the resultant mess on the deck. We shall see.

BLOG UPDATE:
I've been off the boat for a week and so far the Cormorants have been staying away.  So far so good.

ADDING TO THE BUCKET LIST

Remember that 5 gallon bucket I found on the beach a few days ago? It did not take long for me to find another use for it. After I took BIANKA back to the mooring and tied up in the afternoon I needed to do some errands on shore. I left the sail cover off because I would be pulling the sail off since it is the end of the season.   I was not gone more than an hour and half. But, as I rowed back to the boat I notice not one but two Cormorants perched on the boom. Now I'll have to clean and dry the sail before I stored it for the winter. I should have know better. But, even while I was on board another Cormorant tried to land on the boom but, I chased it off. I had to do something temporarily to try and keep the Cormorants off the boom until the morning. Then I remembered the bucket I found on the beach. I attached a halyard to the handle and attached another line loosely and that led aft to a cleat. I hoisted the bucket until it was just slightly higher than the boom and let it swing there in a lazy arc with the wind and rocking of the boat like this:

The plan was to have it swing over the boom and discourage any further landings on the boom and/or clear off any birds that did manage to land. It worked until I got BIANKA to the dock to clean the sail the next morning. See I told you these buckets come in useful on board.

THE ART OF A SAILBOAT

"I've got a Brillo Box and I say it's Art!"- John Cale/Lou Reed

 I've been away from BIANKA for three weeks. I was down in Washington D.C. for some of that time. Then recently the weather has not been cooperating for one final cruise of the season. The Nor'easter this past weekend was hemmed and hawed by NOAA all last week because their computers did not agree. So I think I made the right call in not heading out in the small weather windows that were available. When I got back on board the day after Halloween.  I thought that perhaps the ghost spirit of  Jackson Pollock  the abstract expressionist  painter had traveled from the Hamptons and was inspired to create just one more "masterpiece" on my boat like this:

Because when I got back on board BIANKA I found this::

Only instead of using a canvas the spirit of Pollock used my sail cover and deck:

On the other hand it might just be that some Cormorant had found that since most of the boats in the harbor had been pulled for the season it decided it had no choice and decided to alight on my mast. But, then again just maybe Jackson Pollock has been reincarnated as a Cormorant.

THE HAZARDS AND BEAUTY OF FALL

I guess I was too long on land having spent almost two weeks away from the boat. We had a few days of nasty weather and I had a few things to take care of.  As I drove toward the harbor and checked the waters of Long Island Sound. Conditions looked just delightful for a nice fall afternoon sail. But it was not to be. The harbor at this time of year starts to empty out as many owners have their boats pulled in preparation of winter:

The problem is that means less and less boats for birds like the Cormorants to roost upon. BIANKA which has no spreaders does not normally make an inviting target to land upon except when there are few other options. So when I got on board I was greeted by this wonderful mess on deck:

At least my boat was not the only one singled out by the messy birds:

To make matters worse I found that the pennant line of the mooring next to me was wrapped around my rudder causing BIANKA to lay abnormally to the wind and current. 

In addition the Plexiglass glass top cover that was part of my new and improved solar Bimini was in pieces in the cockpit! LESSON LEARNED: I should have used Lexan.

So instead of the nice afternoon sail I spent it scrubbing the deck. Luckily, BIANKA has a wash down pump so I could wet down the deck and use some full strength Simple Green to help clean the sail cover and deck. But, I finished in time to sit back and enjoy the setting sun behind the western hill of the harbor:

and then the rising of the Harvest moon to the east as well:

Both of which made me glad to be on board and forget about the mess that greeted me when I first arrived..