Making Winlink Friends - Our First Meetings

Winlink Users recognize that radio amateurs – in general and recreational cruisers – in particular, are two of the most helpful groups of people to be found anywhere. This gets multiplied by two when the Winlink User is both a radio amateur and a recreational cruiser.

The Winlink Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) provides the opportunity for checking if other Winlink Users have reported their position in one’s immediate vicinity. This was done by Tony - KN4VM / VK1VM. An APRS check identified a Winlink-equipped User reporting a position anchored in Washington Channel. The call sign, DL7MEK, identified the cruiser to be of German origin.

Washington Channel is almost in the heart of Washington DC. The Capitol, White House and the Smithsonian museums are within walking distance from the anchorage. It is a safe anchorage, fairly protected from all directions, no current to speak of with a water depth of between 15 to 25 feet. Dinghies can be left at the marina or the pontoons at the nearby floating fish market. On one side of the anchorage is Haines Park, an extensive public park with sport grounds including a golf course, and on the other side is the Gang Plank marina and a whole row of restaurants, as well as several tour boat operations and a police station.

Cruising to Washington DC requires a close to 90 nautical mile upstream trip following the meandering Potomac River. From its five-mile mouth, where it joins the Chesapeake Bay, it gradually narrows to a channel, still used by a few commercial vessels, to the head of navigation where the river becomes unnavigable for sail boats both because of a number of low level bridges, shallow water and many rocks (the Great Falls are only a few more miles upstream). For all intent and purpose Washington Channel is as far as sailboats can go.

Washington Channel, Haines Park and Marinas & Restaurant Row
(Note the Washington Monument in the far right upper corner)

It isn’t all often that local cruisers, let alone those from other countries, go to all the trouble sailing to Washington DC. First, there are many attractions on the Chesapeake Bay to keep them there for extended periods of time. That includes hundreds of picturesque tributaries providing quiet anchorages, quant old small towns with great restaurants, Baltimore (another great inner-city anchorage) and Annapolis – the reputed sailing capital of the US East Coast.

The Potomac River offers an adequate number of sheltered anchorages at the lower reaches. Further upstream anchorages are further apart and, if necessary, cruisers anchor on the river itself as far as they dare to go inshore. The tidal influence is felt high up the river and can be as much as three feet. Just before entering, what could properly be called metropolitan Washington DC., is the Woodrow Wilson Bridge at “Old Town” Alexandria. This place and its small marina are worth a later visit The bridge has a vertical clearance of 50 feet. The Bridge is part of the Capital Beltway that circles the Washington DC metropolitan area. It opens only at around midnight, normally requiring a cruiser to anchor below the bridge between arrival and bridge opening time. Bridge opening must be requested by hailing the bridge tender on the VHF marine radio. There is a good sized cove to starboard just before the bridge. The entrance is unmarked and there are hidden spoil sandbanks that require eyeball navigation when entering or leaving the cove. Therefore most prefer to anchor just before the bridge, that is, unless there’s an opportunity to sneak past by following a commercial vessel like those that deliver fuel to a nearby power station.

 Old Woodrow Wilson Bridge and new one under construction
( © Scott M. Kozel, "Roads to the Future"; See: www.roadstothefuture.com)

After having passed the bridge at or after midnight there’s still the problem of finding Washington Channel in the dark. While the channel is clearly marked with lighted buoys and other markers these are difficult to discern among the millions of city lights along the water and the many approach lights of the Reagan National Airport that lies to port a few miles upstream. Cruisers not familiar with the area prefer to anchor just past the bridge on the right hand side of the river. It reported has adequate water depths and space for anchoring. Don’t be surprised to get a visit from the US Coast Guard that would like to know why a cruising sailboat is anchored so closely to a vital bid of urban infrastructure.

Cruising sailors are normally very self-reliant. Usually before deciding to go somewhere they discuss routes, anchorages and things-to-do and see before getting underway. However, in respect of a few things that we know about following our eight-month cruise to the Bahamas Islands cruisers can sometimes use some local help. Washington Channel is about ten miles from our land-based home and we drove to Washington Channel just to see if a German-flagged vessel was still there. It was. The vessel’s bow had the telltale “ICW Moustache”, that is, the discoloration that showed that at least for part of the way they had followed the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Hollering out over the water or waving hands is not a particular efficient way to find out whether anyone was on board. Also, cruisers at anchor do not normally keep their VHF radio switched on. We decided to do it the Winlink way. At home again we sent and email message to the cruisers’ email address. We knew that if they filed Position Reports, they must log onto their email quite regularly. And so they did.

We had offered to help them with driving them to one of these shoppers’ warehouses, in this case, Costco for them to stock up on supplies. We agreed to pick them up at the fish market where they normally left their dinghy when touring Washington by foot. They had already seen most of the major museums on the Mall in downtown Washington between the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Monument. We met Gisela and Walter the next following day. We first took them to our place for drinks, accompanied them for their shopping and in the early evening we invited them to a local restaurant. We delivered them back to their boat and agree to stay in touch. That didn’t take all that long. Two weeks later we met up in Annapolis where our sail boat “Bojangles” is currently berthed. Our yachting club had organized a cruise for the club to participate in the Chestertown Jazz Festival and we suggested that Gisela and Walter, on their yacht “Atlantis” join our flotilla for the cruise. They gladly accepted and we all had a pleasant weekend anchored in the Chester River opposite Chestertown.

We parted ways. Atlantis went further north and visited New York to experience the Fourth of July Independence celebrations. They later described it as the largest display of fireworks, all around New York harbor, that they had ever seen. We stayed in contact via Winlink email and we followed Atlantis’ (APRS) position on the Internet. After a brief return home to Germany to visit elderly parents, we met once more when they by-passed Annapolis to go to the Bahamas Islands and then again cruise the Caribbean that they had done already the year before as part of their planned circumnavigation that has taken them seven years so far after their initial start in the Mediterranean.

S/Y ATLANTIS' POSITION REPORTS

To view S/Y Atlantis' latest reported position click on this link: http://www.aprs.net/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?DL7MEK

Once that webpage opens up play around with the links provided to:
1. Scroll down to also view an aerial photograph of the vessel's location, where available;
2. View the vessel's position (Zooming IN or OUT) on a much more detailed map/chart offered by MSN; and
3.  Click on "Nearby APRS activity" to count the number of nearby Winlink Users (Those with this icon).

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Copyright © 2002-2008 AussieWinlink. Material may be quoted with acknowledgement of its source. Last modified: September 28, 2008