Irma

I've always been interested in the meaning of names. In fact, we chose each of our three girls' names based on their meanings and the girls have surprisingly grown up to model the meanings of those names. So it's no surprise that I became curious as to what the name Irma meant since she is about to unleash a hurtin' on us. It turns out that Irma means "world" as in "a world of hurt" and "dramatically changing mine."

We attempted to go visit family in Pittsburgh, PA over Labor Day and the following week. We knew that Irma was heading east toward the Leeward Islands, but all tracks agreed that she would turn north and veer out into the Atlantic so we went anyway. We should learn. Right before Tropical Storm Hermine charged toward land just 60 miles north of us, changing into a Cat 1 hurricane in the hour before landfall, a forecaster said, "There is no possible scenario in which this storm becomes a hurricane before landfall." Yeah.

So we found ourselves cutting short our vacation and rushing back to prep Kintala to be hauled out. The kids are still there and have been frantically prepping the boat for haulout tomorrow morning, calling us with frequent updates. After that, we head out with what we can carry to Atlanta where we have hotel rooms waiting.

The cruising life has so many benefits - the life of few possessions, a lighter footprint on the earth - and then that big one, the closeness to nature. It also is a life of intensity - colors are brilliant, smells and sounds are enhanced - but the intensity in closeness to nature can sometimes be a challenge. The reality of it is that we are just along for the ride and Mother.Nature.Always.Rules.

So we drive south against the flow of evacuation traffic so we can do the final prep for our girl and wish her the best. Our friend Brittany from Windtraveler.net has a daughter who summed it up just right:

"Don't worry mommy. If our stuff tips over it's okay, it's just stuff. The most important things are people." 

From the mouths of babes...

Wish us well as we go about trying to salvage what we can from this cruising life.

Wandering on

As I peck out these words, Kintala is anchored at Manjack Cay. It was three days of sailing to get here. The first, from West End to Great Sale, was a straight up motor. The main went aloft mostly for show. The little zephyrs were just enough to keep some shape in the sail, maybe shaving 10 minutes off the total transit time. We anchored an hour after dark (not Deb's favorite thing, that), south of a small gaggle of boats that had departed West End while we waited on a higher tide to get through Indian Cut.

The next day it was on to Fox Town. The zephyrs had grown into solid winds in the 10 to 18 knot range to start the day. Sailing off the anchor was easy and fun with the breeze aft of our north bound heading to get around the end of Great Sail. Turning the corner toward Fox Town, however, had the winds directly out of the direction we needed to go. So we tacked hard and sailed close. It was a good day of work, though we put in 41.5 nm to cover the 17 or so as-the-crow-flies miles. Still, my guess was it was nearly as fast a way to go as asking the Beast to pound directly into the wind and the waves. We would have barely made 4 knots, as opposed to the near 7 Kintala managed with her sails up. For the record, we flew the jib and staysail to get up as tight on the wind as we could, while the main was held to two reefs, since the wind over the deck was in the high 20s for much of the day. Hard on the wind and bashing away...Yee-Haw!

The original plan was to purchase phone sim cards once in Fox Town. But it was Sunday, and the weather forecast suggested that Fox Town was not the place to be in the next couple of days. Instead of heading into town to knock on the closed BTC office door, it seemed a good idea to take advantage of the now west winds and make sail to Manjack. We knew there was rain on the way, riding the edge of a small cold front but, having taken the worst beating of our cruising life in Fox Town, getting someplace better protected was a siren call that could not be ignored.

After clearing the anchorage, we flew just the jib, and really flew. The GPS had us at near eight knots, Kintala hissing happily along in the quartering seas, the wind vane working well. The wind, however, kept building. After a couple of hours the wind vane just couldn't react fast enough to hold our point of sail. Taking the helm was a bit of a workout until we made the bend that masked some of the wind behind Abaco Island. By that time the small cold front was closing in, and didn't look so small. When the thunder started to roll we traded speed for expediency, pulling in the jib, flying the staysail, and still making 5 knots. Even though we were off the wind, wind over the deck was still in the mid 30s. Yee-Haw!

With the thunder close and the rain curtain gaining rapidly, we woke the Beast and rolled in everything. Real sailors sail through storms, but I keep getting caught with my pants down and too much sail up. This time the caution was unnecessary. The front rolled over us with little ado and a bit of heavy rain. Things settled a little and we tossed the jib back out, once again doing close to 7 knots in the following seas. Yee-Haw!

Ah, but this little front was more like two fronts, neither one all that little. A second rampart of clouds started to build and, sure enough, I got caught with my pants down and too much sail up. Not near the disaster as the jammed roller in Biscayne Bay, but the jib flogged itself into some kind of overwrap part way up the stay and jammed, no more in, no more out. It looked ugly, but it was good enough. There wasn't anything I could do about it anyway, not on the pitching and rolling deck. Later, new friends we have been tag boating with since West End pulled in to anchor near-by. He asked what had happened to our jib. (It really did look ugly.) He is a retired pilot as well, so I answered that our Deck Monkey needs some recurrent training.

We hope to hang out here for a couple of days. Since we have been in the Islands the weather has been iffy, at best. Several of the boats coming into West End while we were there really took a beating getting across the Gulf Stream. One had its Bimini shredded in a storm. Others came in with seriously rattled crews, all glad to be in one piece and on a dock. One boat left West End heading for the States and was literally driven back by the waves and winds, making a night run through the narrow and breaker filled inlet to find the safety of the harbor. Not something I would have cared to do. Nearly all of us sat in West End until last Friday, waiting for some kind of reasonable weather to keep going.  (The exception was a 100+ foot mega yacht that headed out through the breakers without a care in the world. Even then, an even bigger yacht stayed put, leaving with the rest of us a day later.)

Forecasts now suggest Wednesday as the day to be tucked in someplace, and we hope to be in Green Turtle then. The timing will work for us. There is a BTC office that we might find open, we can top the water tanks, and pick up a little food.

Life in the Islands.

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

West End Bahamas

Much better view out the galley port!

Riding the storm out...again.

In the wee hours of the morning the line of thunderstorms passed over Kintala, announcing its arrival with winds of 58 knots, slightly more than the one in Fox Town. There were tornado watches, tornado warnings, and spectacularly vivid lightning. Rain was so intense that the visibility was reduced to mere feet, making it impossible to see if anyone had pulled an anchor loose or dropped off a mooring ball. The good news was that the deluge lasted for just a few minutes, replaced by a more normal driving rain. The bad news was someone had indeed pulled an anchor loose. As the visibility improved, Deb spotted a rapidly flashing light off our port side, clearly a warning signal of some type. Sure enough, just off our bow a boat loomed out of the night and, just like in Fox Town, appeared to be dragging directly for our anchor, and our bow.

Out on deck, soaked in the driving rain, we started to untie fenders, having prepped the cockpit before the weather arrived in case we needed to wake the Beast for just such a contingency. The dragging boat started to weave back and forth across our bow, her own engine at work while the crew struggled to get the hook back into the mud. They were close, got no closer, and eventually – as the storm passed to our east – managed to get settled back in.

The waves inside the protected anchorage at Boot Key

The storms have passed but the wind hasn't eased much. It blew constantly in the 40's throughout the night, and is forecast to do so until midnight tonight. Tomorrow it should ease into the high teens, then finally fade away. It is uncomfortable. The boat is making a slalom run on its rode, heeling and lurching at each turn. Coffee cups tumble and fall if inadvertently set aside and forgotten, anything that can roll and slide, will. Coffee and cereal may well make up most of our diet today. We are around 36 hours into this slice of weather, all sleep caught in bits and snatches that are not really sleep, just burning minimum energy until the next lurch, gust, or noise demands attention. Cooking is not much of an option.

Though the wind is slightly worse than it was in Fox Town, Boot Key Harbor is much better protected from building waves. Here in the anchorage waves break at two feet or so, and there are people sitting in their dinks pumping out the rain from last night. Kintala's Ding is lashed to her foredeck, our normal procedure for a storm. The boat that broke free was trailing her dink as she motored back and forth, and it had me worried. This morning I can see that they tied it high on a bridle, making it impossible to snag the line in the prop. But I couldn't see that last night. Most of the boats around us, though, are trailing dinks with lines in the water. Drag in a storm, catch the dink rode in the prop...game over.

Today will likely pass much as yesterday, though winds of 30 to 40+ are harder to live with than those of 20 to 30. (And there are a few more storms starting to pop up on the RADAR. Small, but this may not be over yet.) We will read, do a little writing, watch a video. Videos are good because they come with sound, and earplugs help dampen out the constant moan of the wind. For me that is a trying sound, making conditions feel much more uncomfortable than they really are. The longer it goes on, the more trying it becomes.

Maybe we can be on our way by Wednesday.

Light Show

We rented a car to go visit good friends in Punta Gorda this weekend (thanks again for the respite Dave and Dee Dee!), and on the way back we stopped at the Siesta Key Drum Circle which is held every Sunday night on the beach there. It's one of our favorite things to do. Last night, a storm built to the southeast of us during the time we were at the circle. By the end of the evening, the lightning show was so dramatic that I took this video. It was a wonderful merging of the power of nature and the primal notes of the drums. Enjoy!

Storms...

Living on a boat puts one in close proximity to storms. There are the thunderstorms that rampage across Biscayne Bay on a summer afternoon, big and dark and looking like the Mother Ship has finally arrived. There are cold front storms that rage across the Abaco Sea, pulling out bow chocks and making for long, sleepless nights. Among the Grand daddy of storms are the hurricanes that fill whole chucks of ocean and cause some of us tiny humans to spend several days prepping a boat while making plans to run and hide as far inland as we can get.

At the moment we are getting bashed around by a not-quite-a-hurricane tropical storm. Winds are pushing 50 knots in the gusts, breaking waves breach the inlet to the small basin of the boat yard, and the finger pier disappeared under water with the near new moon high tide + storm surge. Deb spent the day nursing the boat while I worked a full day; outside when the weather gave us a break and inside when the rains and winds raged. All in all I have to admit that I don't much care for tropical storms. This one made for a hard day at work and, with the peak winds forecast to arrive around 0100 with gusts in the 60 knot range, for a mostly sleepless night.

That is more of a problem than usual since we will be heading out in the wee hours of Wednesday morning for a 16 hour drive to PA; where a different kind of storm awaits. It has been eight moths since my Dad passed away, and my Mom's broken heart has started to falter. She was moved into hospice care a day or so ago. Family is gathering and the necessary things are being done, for it isn't like we haven't seen this day coming. Indeed, in some ways it is amazing that she managed this long.

And though it is a hard time, I am also heartened. Her's was a good life, and it is drawing to a good close. Two of my brothers and my sister are there and, understanding Mom's wishes, realized that once a race is over, people need to quit running. Mom doesn't need to be told that she needs to eat, needs to take her meds, needs to do this or needs to do that. Body and mind have moved passed "needs", and it was time to make a different choice.

Those at the hospice have been amazingly kind, honest, and understanding. Mom is not fighting her way, crushed by a debilitating and painful disease, sick and hurt and scared. She is surrounded by kind hearts, by gentle touches, by words of love and comfort. All the cares and trials of this life have already fallen by the wayside. No one could ask for anything more for a person they love.

We have a habit in this country of seeing anything we don't like, don't understand, or that makes us uncomfortable, as “the enemy”, dying being near the top of that list. Dying often comes wrapped in the worst kinds of tragedy that we all dread, involving the young, steeped in violence, or appearing out of nowhere on an otherwise unremarkable day to rend giant holes in our lives. But it is also a part of the only life we know, and it can be met - and endured - with dignity, with grace, and with courage.

It isn't likely that we can make it to PA before Mom leaves. Pinned by a tropical storm, with nearly 1100 miles to cover once we can get going...some things you can do, some things just can't happen. But it doesn't matter. Family will gather. Love will be shared. And life will go on...

...in spite of the storm.