carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

I love snow! I love driving in snow. I love driving sideways in the snow. Seriously.

Last night was my introduction to heavy weather at work and I'm ~almost~ sorry that my four day shift is over this morning. By 8pm or so last night the wind had swung around to the East and the waves began to build. By midnight we were heading out to meet the last ship of the evening and the seas at the entrance to Boston Harbor had grown to 8 to 10 foot, steep swells with a period of about 9 seconds. That's nine seconds from wave crest to wave crest and that is a very short period for 10 foot seas making for sloppy conditions out there. We were only able to make about six or seven knots of headway on the way out because we would crash off the back of each wave sending a tremendous shudder through the pilot boat. I put Pilots aboard three ships between 8 and 11pm and then headed back in; tail between our legs. Turning around and putting the waves behind the boat allowed me to put the throttles "to the wall" and we began surfing along at close to 20 knots. It was great. The boat isn't supposed to go that fast but when you have millions of tons of water pushing you from behind it's hard to go slow. It was only then that I flipped on the searchlight and realized that it had begun snowing very heavily... Back at the dock we buttoned up for the night and waited for the relief crew to arrive at 7am.

That brings me to the driving in the snow part. I just love it! Driving in snow is way too much fun. I hope not too many people venture out today so that I can head back out later and have some clear roads to play on without other cars around...

man, oh man... you win, for sure! as if i had any question about being a fair weather sailor before - 2 feet is about the messiest i've been in, tyvm. sounds like you had your work cut out for you on the last shift. and hey, if you want some empty roads, malden is the place to be. :)