Bashing

After a week of enjoying being still and protected in No Name Harbor, the calendar kind of insisted that we get a move on. As is normal, weather is the issue. (Sailboats, as a new friend put it, are the most unreliable source of transportation the world has ever known.) We need to go south, the winds and waves have been coming from that direction for days. But it looked like Tuesday would be an okay day to give it a try, right up until I did a last minute check of the weather Tuesday morning. The Ding was aboard, the deck was set, the engine checks done; but the waves were running just shy of 4 feet on a 4 second period, and there would be 20 knots worth of wind directly on the bow.
No thank you.

No Name Harbor at sunset

The day passed with occasional frets about the passing of time, though I was secretly pleased to spend another day. No Name, though not for everybody, is high on my list of places I have enjoyed since we headed out. If Biscayne Bay is our American home, then No Name Harbor is my lounge chair sitting in front of the fireplace.

The next morning we were up at dawn to stop by the pump-out, fill the water, and be on our way before 0800 to make Rodriguez Key before the sun went down. At first it didn't look too promising. Leaving the bay we were wind against tide, the surging rollers washing over the bow and slowing us to less than 2 knots. (It is a good, if somewhat scary, way to wash all the mud off the anchor.) It took more than an hour just to gain enough room off the coast to make the turn southward. When we did, things picked up a little. Though we still needed the Beast, there was just enough angle on the wind to fill the reefed main and stay sail, making for enough speed that, at least, it looked like we would make Rodriguez before midnight.

The Hawk Channel is not quite the turquoise of Bahamian water, but still good on the eyes

Later, though not in the forecast, the winds picked up more and soon we were making good speed, helped by the waves tamping down a bit as we entered the Hawk Channel. Still, it was a long, hard day of motor bashing, the decks often awash with spray making its way to the dodger and bimini. I was glad to pitch the hook over the side just after 1700. I was really dragging. Dinner and a shower were done by 1830, by 1900 I was in the v-berth, where I slept for most of the next 13 hours.

We were going to try for Boot Key today, but an 0500 look at the weather wasn't promising. Wind and waves would be more brisk, and still directly on the bow. So much so, that it would be unlikely we could make anything more than 2 to 3 knots, even with the Beast thumping along. At that point we decided that moving to the other side of Rodriguez would be the only movement today. There we will wait for the cold front to pass, and hope to ride a north wind to Boot Key tomorrow. I went back to bed.

Sunset at Rodriguez Key

So we are listening to the wind blow and trying to decide on the proper time to relocate. Most of the boats that were around last night have gone, all north bound. (They will make Biscayne Bay easy today.) A couple of other boats have joined us, and two remain from last night.

We were hoping those two would leave. I missed the show, but they scared Deb. The crews came in from shore drunk and belligerent, shouting at each other, falling overboard, and puking over the sides of the boat. For some reason they also saw fit to scream racial slurs and ignorance into the night at the top of their lungs. At one point Deb was afraid that the woman on board was in real trouble, the noise and abuse to the point where she thought about calling the police. But this is Florida, and I will bet you a good cup of coffee both those boats have guns on board. Armed nut cases are an American staple, one best left to self-destruct without interference. So far today, there hasn't been any activity on either boat, and I will be happy if it stays that way.

So here we sit, struggling a bit because we “have” to get someplace by a certain time. Sailboats are simply not designed to do that, yet we haven't figured out how to make the cruising life work without those deadlines. Family can't be ignored, nor can the cruising kitty. It is best to be someplace else when the hurricanes come to visit, or at least be in a place where one can leave the boat and run, run away. (Insurance paid up, of course.)

Four years in, and we are still trying to figure out how to balance out the competing needs to not have to be somewhere, and having to be somewhere anyway. So the path to Tampa Bay is uncertain. Learning to live with that uncertainty has become my biggest challenge to living this way. Pilots live with alternates, but at least they know what those alternates are. Sailors, in a way, just live. What the day will bring is nothing short of a guess. Sometimes, what the next couple of hours will bring is the biggest guess of all.

A little bit of ugly

Kintala departed Marsh Harbor five days ago, in the afternoon after the unexpected rain and wind. It had calmed down considerably so I didn't need my grown up sailor pants. The short day meant we spent the night off of Tiloo Cay. The next day we made it to Lynyard Cay to stage for the trip to the Berry Islands. When the weather forecast went sour we put the Berry Islands off for a couple of days and backtracked a couple of miles to a place called Pelican Point. It looked like an okay place to sit, waiting for the next weather window. I got out my grown up sailor pants again, figuring we could handle a little weather anchored up in a pretty place.

Underway from Tilloo to Lynard cay

After two nights and one long day of an ugly swell, constant rolling, and winds gusting in the high 20s (again), I put my grown up sailor pants back in the bin and we got out of there. Just getting the hook back on board was a challenge. Deb constantly fought the winds to drive us up over the rode. Right after I got the snubber unhooked and stowed, the wind pushed us off to the side enough that I called for idle to get lined up again. Pushed back by the wind Kintala hit the end of her chain so hard that the clutch on the windlass couldn't hold, stripping chain out of the locker at a scary pace. That fire drill was quelled by prodding the Beast, the chain went slack, the bow dipped and swung in the swell, and the chain jumped the roller. Cue fire drill number two.

Sunrise this morning at Pelican Point

Anchor safely on board with all toes and fingers accounted for, we motored south out of Pelican Bay looking for refuge. Little Harbor Bay was even worse than Pelican Point, with a huge swell running through the cut. Little Harbor itself looked very crowded. We are unsure of the entrance and, truth to tell, I'm getting tired of paying someone $20-30 / day for the privilege of walking across their parking lot after I drop my anchor on the bottom of the ocean. (I don't need their parking lot, can't use their parking lot and, in fact, wish their parking lot was a stand of palm trees instead.) Sometimes the charge is for a mooring ball. I don't really need their mooring ball either and, in most places, would trust my ground tackle more than whatever it is they tossed into the water a couple of years ago and haven't looked at since. (I know, I know, mooring balls are supposed to mean you can pack more boats in there. Something I might believe if I had never been to Back Creek.)

Heading back north Lynyard Cay looked ugly and bumpy, in addition to being a lee shore. Tiloo was also a lee shore, looked crowded, and is exposed to west winds. We could see waves breaking on the rocks from two miles out.

Sunset last night at Pelican Point

Five hours after leaving Pelican bay we anchored less than a mile from where we were five days ago in Marsh Harbor, though we are on the other side of the Island. It was a bit of a long and unexpected day, but we are glad to be settled in protected from the winds (still blowing) and swell. (There is no cut immediately to the east of us.) The only poor decision that we made was staying in Pelican Bay as long as we did. My hope was that the wind switch to the west and north west would dampen out the swell, but it didn't work out that way. We thought we could stick it out, no matter how bad, until tomorrow. But 24 hours of motion sickness will be among the longest 24 hours in memory.

There were a lot of boats on the move in the southern Abaco Sea today. Several looked to be doing the exact same thing we were, northbound and looking for a place to be. A couple were headed south; it would be interesting to know where they end up tonight.

Tonight Kintala will be sitting pretty, with her crew well fed and catching up on some much needed sleep. If the weather turns better as forecast, we will head back to Lynyard Cay in the morning, gliding along on a modest north wind rather than motor-bashing into it. Friday – Saturday will be the run to Great Harbor in the Berry Islands. From there we will start the official trek back toward the States, next season's job, and time with friends and family.

But there is no telling how long it will take to get there; with or without my grown up sailor pants.

 The shore from the anchorage at Lynard Cay

 The anchorage at Lynard Cay - a good place to learn about shallow water having different color

 The Atlantic side of Lynard Cay. This little opening was funneling all sorts of trash onto the beach.

 Kintala is out there in the middle of the anchorage

 I never tire of staring at this water. All water should look like this. It looks like melted glass.

Making new tracks...

The little Garmin chart plotter we have at the helm records our track, and saves it for an impressively long time. We could have, and sometimes did, follow our old track all the way from Oak Harbor back to Miami. Since leaving Biscayne Bay and turning south into the Hawk Channel, there has been no old track to follow. The new track now hooks around the south end of Florida and is working its way up the West coast.

Stopping the new track for two nights in the anchorage off of Cape Sable may not have been the best idea, but we wanted to spend a day at the beach there. It might have been fine had the forecast light winds out of the ESE actually showed up. The actual SSE winds of 10-15 knots roughed the place up enough to make sleep pretty hard to come by. Oh-four-hundred on the second morning found me fully dressed and trying not to fall off the settee, which was pitching and rolling around slightly less than the v-berth I had abandoned. The very first light of day found me out prepping the deck for getting under way.

Cape Sable at sunrise

The hook came up before the sun, and we motor-sailed northwest, sleep deprived, sore, and not sure if we could make Marco Island before running out of daylight. Exactly 12 long, long hours of grinding out the miles, dodging endless lines of crab traps, following the chart directly into the mud, backing slowly off, re-grouping, and taking a different approach into Factory Bay, the anchor hit the bottom.

We had a half hour of daylight to spare.

Factory Bay anchorage

Cape Sable beach

Cape Sable anchorage. No protection. For 5 ft draft vessels, 1/2-3/4 mile out is the best you can do.

Alligator tracks in the sand

For us, the beach at Cape Sable did not live up to its reviews. It was empty, which was good. It was free of trash, which was also good. And it was covered with 'gator tracks, a weird kind of, “Wow, look at that!” good. The whole visit turned into one of the strange things that happens with this lifestyle. We are glad we saw the place. It will make our “story list”. But we should have thought about it more and maybe not have done it at all. We spent two days off an exposed shore, beat ourselves up pretty good, and ended up pushing hard to beat some inbound weather. 

But we saw 'gator tracks in the sand.

So far our experience of laying tracks in new waters has been that kind of thing. As Deb already shared the sail from Boot Key to Bahia Honda was pretty sweet. The original plan was to spend a day exploring Bahia Honda, reported to be a favorite place of the locals. Alas, the Mantus found nothing but rock or coral under a thin cover of sand, several attempts utterly failing to get it to grab. It was too late in the day to try and find another anchorage. The good news was that the forecast for light winds. We laid every inch worth of 200 feet of chain on the bottom, rigged the snubber, and hoped for the best.

Fortunately, the forecast got it right. The next morning found us sitting in the same place but leaving the boat was out of the question. Bahia Honda will have to wait. Instead we hauled everything in and headed to a place called Crawl Key. Crawl is only 8 nm or so away from Bahia Honda, just short of the northwest end of the Bahia Honda Channel. That end boasts some pretty thin water, 4 feet at mean low tide according to the chart. Crawl lay just before the thin spot and was the perfect place to wait on the morning high tide. When we pitched the hook over for the night it sank out of sight and grabbed hard.

Crawl Key is a good click away from everyone and everything. It boasts the kind of quiet that almost hurts, and the kind of dark one rarely has the chance to experience along the crowded eastern shore of the US. We were starting to have our doubts about the Keys, but Crawl redeemed them, ranking as maybe the best place we have anchored since leaving Oak Harbor back in the fall. We slept well and content that night.

A trawler anchored off Little Spanish Key next to Crawl Key

The next morning we ghosted out of the Bahia Honda Channel flying full main and jib, making three to four knots. Waiting for high tide was a good idea. There were places where we had barely 18 inches under the keel. Past the last green maker we decided it was official, Kintala was in the Gulf of Mexico. We tacked out into the Gulf a few miles hoping to find a point of sail that would lead us to Cape Sable.

One of the MANY crab pot lines in the Gulf.
This one was over 20 nm off shore.

But, just like in the Atlantic, it seems the wind in the Gulf always blows right on the bow. It was a valiant effort though, eventually, we had to admit that we were not making any real headway. Daylight would be long gone before we could raise Cape Sable. Since that part of the Gulf is mostly a crab / lobster hunting ground, daylight was necessary to keep from collecting a pot. The sails were put away and the Beast pushed us onto Cape Sable before the sun was gone. And then the winds, which had been blowing directly off the coast, the winds that were forecast to fade, shifted instead. 

We have a few days of travel left before settling in for the summer. My friend and soon to be New Boss wants to know if we can get there a little earlier than originally planned. It seems the yard is bursting with work - which is good news for both the yard and for its newest marine technician. The Garmin track will stop there for a while, but there are all kinds of tracks in a life.

And we will still be making new ones.

Sometimes a place ...

...is just a place.

One of the surprises of living life on a small sailboat is how often we are pinned someplace just because of the wind. I'm not talking nasty weather, hurricanes, or nor'easter; just wind. Windy days, days that passed unnoticed as a land dweller. It isn't the kind of wind that can hurt or do damage to the boat, it just makes any attempt to get anywhere really uncomfortable. Or, if we are trying to sail directly into it, even impossible. Since Kintala is everything we own, bashing it around unnecessarily isn't something we do.

We have been anchored in Boot Key for more than a week now, It looks like a couple of more days will pass before we can be on our way again, comfortably that is. If pressed we could have thumped our way north but, like I said, that isn't something we like to do. So far as sitting in howling east winds go, Boot Key has been more comfortable than, say, Dinner Key. At least there hasn't been breaking waves washing past the boat this last week. And yet...

There are a lot of people who like Boot Key. We have friends who have been here for two years now, and are not planning to leave until next fall. There are hundreds of other boats here as well and it hasn't been bad, Kintala being one of them. But it hasn't made our list of places we have to see again either.

I do appreciate the fact that they haven't moored over the entire bay, leaving a good amount of space for wanderers to drop a hook. There is a pump out boat that, with 24 hours notice, will relieve a relief tank for a $5 fee. For those so inclined there are bars and restaurants, several with their own dink docks where one can stay for free, if stopping in for lunch. Otherwise, shore access is a bit of a bitch; and moderately to outrageously expensive. As is access to water. We have yet to find a good place for walking. And trash, well, clandestine trash runs are back in vogue on the good ship Kintala.

We judge places by how easy they make it to just go about living. Boot Key has been, for us, neutral at best. It seems geared more toward extracting the maximum amount of dollars from those passing through than it is offering services in return for those dollars. (An exception would be Burdines Water Front Cafe, where modest dollars can be exchanged for an honest heap of excellent french fries.) 

Burdines Waterfront Cafe makes the best seasoned fries. this huuuge basket that's too much even for 2 people is only $4.50

I really shouldn't be disappointed. This is America after all, a whole society geared toward extracting maximum dollars for minimum services. It works, sort of, much of the time, for enough people to keep it all going. But it isn't very inspiring, or uplifting, or enjoyable, or even all that attractive. It is just sort of a place.

Like Boot Key.

One of the really great things about this stay is that we got
to play with our two adopted grandkids from S/V Kaltara.
We spent a whole day making playdough pizza, cookies, and...

...roses.

Forces

Our neighbor's flag and wind generator are both getting a workout

A long time ago, right after we got married, Deb and I moved to Kansas. I had never been in the vast midwest before and it was a bit disorientating for someone from the hills and ridges of the Allegheny Mountains. As we drove toward Wichita I remember thinking the horizon was impossibly far away and that there was something wrong with the trees. They were all growing with a noticeable lean. When I asked, a native told me it was the relentless wind that was bending them over. I don't think I believed the story at first, wind blowing the trees sideways. Someone, I thought, was pulling on my eastern-bred leg. Soon enough, I discovered there was no kidding involved. Sometimes the wind was blisteringly hot. Sometimes it drove the cold directly into my bones. Occasionally it would get itself all twisted up into a tornado and scour the earth down to bare dirt. Rare were the days when it didn't blow at all. I don't know that I ever got used to it though, I must admit, learning to fly there made me better than average at handling crosswind landings.

It seems like Kansans and sailors should have more words for wind, like the Inuit language and snow. Which got me curious. It turns out thesaurus.com lists 22 synonyms for “wind”. Working our way down the ICW too late in the year left us exposed to a North American version of a mistral or two. Right now Boot Key is in a bit of a blow, gusts and flurries swinging the boats around and straining the anchor rode. I would be pretty happy with a few wafting and fluttering winds, but those might not be enough to keep the no-see-ems at bay when the sun goes down. A zephyr usually leaves behind a wish for a little more, as do puffs and whiffs and whisks. Boot Key is a bit too far east to get a chinook. It is curious that “cyclone”, “typhoon” and “tempest” are considered synonyms for wind, but not “hurricane”. I hope to avoid all of them. I could do without a “whirlwind” as well.

A sailor is more likely to use “draft” and “draught” as a noun for “beer”, not a synonym for wind. In addition, “draft” seems more like an inside wind, not an outside wind. I still don't feel like I'm “inside” when I am inside a boat. Under cover maybe, behind a wind break, but never “inside”. Maybe that changes if the boat is bigger?

The Beaufort scale always seemed like a good way to describe wind in ways that are really useful. These last few days have seen Force 5 and 6 winds here in Boot Key, but without fetch the sea state is more Force 2 or 3. But, try as I might, I haven't been able to forge the habit of thinking of winds that way. Maybe I should try harder. Force 6 is a “strong breeze”, a lot more livable than “The wind is freaking howling.” Which has been how I have been thinking of the wind these last couple of days. Mr Beaufort tends toward understatement; not a bad thing at all.

Someone needs to set up a “wind in the rigging” scale, or maybe tag it on to Mr. Beaufort's effort. A moan that sounds like a sad ghost looking for a place to rest? Nothing to worry about, Force 4. The mean-sounding moan of a ghost looking for a head to collect? Force 6, maybe 7. Take in a reef or make sure the anchor is set hard, maybe lay out a little more scope. A shriek that freezes the blood as the hordes spill out of the pit looking for the hapless? Time to get deadly serious in managing the boat or, if the boat is already on a dock, time to be somewhere else and let the insurance company worry about the boat. The goal is to remain deadly serious, and not just dead.

The palm trees are dancing hard in the wind. The water is incredibly murky here.

By the end of the week the winds should ease up enough for Kintala to be under way once again. It is hard not to think of it as the “last leg”, as we are getting near to sitting still for the better part of a year. We will be tied to a dock in a well protected boat yard, the winds inconsequential unless a hurricane targets the Tampa Bay area. Beaufort's scale of winds and waves will be replaced by the boatyard's "making the customer happy" scale. That scale is one I know pretty well from my days of when the customers were CEOs, CFOs, and COOs. Which, given the cost of some of the boats the yard sees, is likely to be the case once again. Those winds I know how to handle. 

GuessCast

(Note: Most of this was written last night … polished up and posted today.)

I am very uneasy. Night has fallen and we are facing straight down the barrel of the first really serious cold frontal passage we have experienced for a while. The western horizon is ablaze in fork lightning, all of which appears to be sniffing out the top of our mast. The deck is secured. Jib and staysail sheets are wrapped and tied so the sails can't come loose. The generator is stashed, baby-stays run and tight, halyards taut, and the Dink tied fore and aft. All good things because the wind … (insert 4 intense hours here)..

Sorry for the blur - I was holding on for dear life

Literally in the middle of that sentence Kintala heeled over, struck by a massive wall of sky and water. A book flew off the starboard shelf, dishes clanked around in the galley, the Ship's Log fell off the nav station, and every bit of outside canvas was flailing and cracking like gunshots. All we could do was hang onto something and watch the numbers on the wind-o-meter scroll up … 30 … 40 … 50 … finally topping out at 52+. It seemed likely that we had been victimized by a down-burst from the passing line of storms, a blast that should have eased quickly. But the wind refused to fade. For most of the next hour Kintala swayed and bucked in winds over 40 knots, with seas high enough to wash over the bow, flow down the hawser into the chain locker and the bilge, and trigger the bilge pump. At night, wind howling, lightning flashing, and the boat moving enough to make it difficult to stand, hearing the bilge pump running was enough to leach the last bit of fun out of the evening.

The big concern was dragging. Eighty feet of chain lay in the surf between the bow and the Mantus. The Mantus is a good anchor but everything has its limits. As it turns out 50 knot winds and 5(?) foot seas tugging at it are still within its capabilities. We are holding fast, even though the seas are, if anything, bigger, and the wind has been constantly over 30 knots for the last several hours. It would have been nice if the boat upwind of us had one as well. But it didn't.

In the middle of the melee, while checking to see if we were dragging, we spotted the boat west of us heading our way. There was a light moving on the fore deck so someone was trying to do something, but whatever it was wasn't enough. Deb suggested we wake up the Beast in case we had to move, but with the oncoming craft dragging straight down our rode, I didn't think there was anything much we could do. He finally fetched up about a boat length away, just off our starboard bow. Foul weather gear and life jackets on (yep, it was that rough) we stayed in the cockpit for a while to see if he would hold, the wind still in the high 30s. It looked like all was well so Deb went below. But all was not well for long and the distance between the boats started closing again. There was very little distance left to play with.

With Deb back on deck we worked at getting every fender we have deployed on the starboard side. Then I tied one of our dock lines to the anchor chain. The plan was to cut the snubbing line free and fall back 30 feet or so. Cutting the snubber free was the only option. It was under way too much strain to lift the loops off the cleat. It seemed a small sacrifice to make, a last ditch attempt to keep the boats from pounding each other to death. In the last minute before that decision became the only possible option, the engine came alive on the dragging boat. Very slowly they worked their way away from us, pulling in rode as they went. I have no clue how they managed to miss getting tangled in our ground tackle. It looked to me like they had dragged directly between us and the Mantus. On a night like this one thanks Sister Ocean for any bit of luck one gets.

With them finally reset off in the distance we have settled into a long night. For a while the winds faded to the high 20s as the storms moved off to the east, and we had hoped the worst was over. But they climbed back up to near 40, faded away, and now, with the cold front itself finally hovering over us, they are gusting into 40s once again. The other boat is well clear though, and our deck is only slightly untidy. The Dink is twisted in its lines but still fast, the fenders are still down, (and will remain there until morning even though they are bouncing in the wind and waves), and the aft, starboard side zipper on the Bimini gave way under the 50 knot onslaught. (Deb has already taken care of that.) Uncomfortable and still uneasy, but at least we are still holding and not about to get clobbered by a wayward, fellow cruiser.


 

It is afternoon now. The Dink is retied, the fenders secured, and the generator is charging the laptops and helping the solar panels since the sky is just now clearing. The winds are still 15 to … 28+, (I'm sitting at the nav station writing and watching the wind-o-meter). They have yet to clock far enough to the north to put us in the lee. The fetch off our bow goes clear to the horizon, white caps and waves sweep though unimpeded. At least the water no longer crashes over the toerail, and we can move around the boat without holding on with both hands. We never did talk with the crew of the other boat. They left this morning. I can't blame them for anything. They had anchored, what looked like, well clear of us. Fifty knot winds? Of course someone is going to drag. When they did, they did what they had to do to keep off of us. I would not have wanted to pull and reset the hook in the middle of that mess last night. They did well, and I wish I had had the chance to tell them so.

As bad as it was here, I think staying was the right choice. The winds never moved as far north as the forecast suggested, nor as fast out of the south west. Here, when the winds first unloaded on us, we were still somewhat in the lee of Little Abaco Island. Had we moved we would have been facing the direct onslaught of the storm while hemmed in by the cove of Great Sale Cay. It must have been a regular witch's cauldron in there.

In my last post I said something about buying the ticket and taking the ride. A bit of a glib statement based on what we had seen in the GRIB forecasts over the last several days. I should know better than to ever be glib about the weather. Wind speeds in the forecast were off by more than 50%. The direction change and the forecast easing is hours and hours behind schedule, but maybe we will be in the lee by this evening. Nowhere was a hint of wind gusts to 50+, sustained winds at 40+, and lightning to scare the wee-wee out of a dog.

Quite a ride. It isn't completely over yet. And I'd just as soon not take another one like it anytime soon.

The F8 shuffle

Sailors have a lot of ways to talk about wind. Kintala danced and tugged at her anchor all night as the F5 winds romped through Miami Stadium, occasionally touching F6. That would be 17 – 21, and 22 – 27 knots, respectively. This morning her crew was a bit sleep deprived but daylight always makes things seem better. Except that the winds cranked up to F7, occasionally touching F8. That would be 28 – 32, and 33 – 40 knots, respectively. For those used to MPH, 40 knots is about 46 mph. More fun? F8 is officially “gale force winds”. And while sitting in the Miami Stadium anchorage provides more protection than would be found sitting out in the Bay or on a Dinner Key mooring, winds out of the northwest have a pretty good shot straight at the bow. Much of what got done on the boat today would fall into the “hanging on” category.

Whitecaps on the water in a protected anchorage is never good.

Kintala is a noisy boat in the wind. Her decks creak as the load on the cleats ramps up. Snubbing lines groan though the blocks, and the anchor chain rattles and bangs. Like all sailboats she has a lot of rigging up in the sky for the wind to sing through. Sometimes there is a “bang” or a “thump” whose origin is unknown, which often provokes a trip out on deck to make sure all is well. I did two such trips last night, one around 0320 and another at 0515. Deb was up each time as well since having a person out on deck, alone, on such a night is not the best of ideas. There is no such a thing as a quiet night when the winds are F5 and better.

Out on deck (I don't remember if it was at 0320 foray or the 0515,) boat bouncing, wind playing hard, checking to see if the ground tackle was holding (ours and those around us) or being damaged, with the lights of mega-city Miami just across the way, I was struck once again with how different our life is now.

I'm not sure what is going on out in the “real world”. My habit of checking “the news” seems to have dropped away a couple of weeks ago, about the same time as when we left the mooring ball in Dinner Key. “Out here” we have different concerns; mostly revolving around the weather, the holding tank, and stores on board. We get up in the middle of the night to check the ground tackle, bundled against a chill wind and being careful where we step. What is happening “over there” (picture me vaguely waving in the direction of those same Miami lights) isn't really much of a concern to us “out here”.

Anchor watch from the comfort of our enclosed dodger.

My guess would be that most of them “over there”, at either 0320 or 0515, were completely unaware of what the wind was doing. They certainly weren't out walking around one step from a possibly fatal stumble, making sure their house wasn't about to (literally) blow away. And the concerns they do have seem … well … rather odd when viewed from the deck of a boat. When I was paying attention, the news was full of people famous for being famous doing stupid things which, somehow, made them even more famous. There were sports people doing things sporty and not so sporty. There were politicians doing things and saying things so stupid even the famous people couldn't keep up. And there was the endless repetition of violence that no one seems able to understand or reduce. There is an air of infantile wafting off of much of it, like that from a baby's diaper. If Human Kind is the sharpest knife in the cosmic drawer of life, the universe is a dull place that could use some new management.

(Kids and Grand Kids, of course, tip the balance back. Maybe we should put them in charge? I would offer my 8 year old Grand Daughter as far wiser, smarter, more compassionate, and with a better sense of fair play, than any currently sitting in the House, Senate, White House, or Supreme Court.)

It seems to me that a lot of people are getting tired of being over there and heading out here instead. Deb organized a cruiser's sundowners get-together the other day while we were still in No Name Harbor. A good crowd showed up, and a good number of that crowd were first year people heading for the Islands for their first time. Maybe there were as many new people last year, people I didn't notice being a newbie myself. But it doesn't feel that way. Maybe a lot of people from over there are starting to suspect that accumulated stupid must, at some point, get near to being fatal for all involved. Being somewhere else when that happens has a certain appeal, and a cruising boat is a good way to get “somewhere else.” When I was "over there" I was certainly one of those who felt that way. But now? Maybe not so much.

Oh, I suspect some things are going to seriously unravel. After all, Deb and my jobs, the housing market, and our options of housing that didn't include a cardboard box and a bridge, all unraveled all at the same time. But once we made it onto the boat and out here, it didn't seem that is what happened at all. Living on the ocean tends to give one a different perspective on what is raveled and what is unraveled. The seas have been around since long before us silly humans, and will be around long after. As have the dolphins, whales, jellyfish, sharks, and starfish - most of which will probably outlast us as well. All of the antics of human kind appear smaller from offshore, a species unraveling maybe, but that is not as important as we make it out to be. Pretty much nothing “out here” pays much attention to the odd doings of human kind.

Including, sometimes, me. Particularly when the deck is dancing to an F8 tune in the dark reaches of the night.

On Watch...

When I lived on land I was an airplane driver. That put me in a closer relationship with the weather than most land dwellers. So when we decided to live on a boat I figured we had a leg up on the "getting along with the weather" front. I was only partially correct.

We are pretty comfortable with weather and float planning. Adding in tides and currents was a minor adjustment to my flight planning days. Speed over distance calculations work the same, it is just that the answers are so different. Twenty-six hours to go 110 miles is not a jet driver's answer. Flight planning means working the weather over a span of hours in distances of a thousand miles. Float planning means working weather over a span of days in distances of a hundred miles. Basically just a change of scale.

Living in the weather, on the other hand, has been a huge change of focus. For a land dweller the weather needs to get truly nasty before anyone really notices. (Except for TWC folks. They seem to get all giddy and breathless over a rain shower in TX.) Cold fronts, warm fronts, rain showers, light snow, even thunderstorms, all pass over the house or apartment building virtually unnoticed, particularly at night. I never gave that much thought until we moved onto the boat and headed out.

Back porch view

Front Porch View

We are anchored in Hollywood, FL. It is sunny and 67 degrees. All that the land dwellers will notice is that is isn't as warm as yesterday and the yard looks like it rained last night. It did rain last night. We had to jump out of the v-berth to close hatches and ports. As the wind ramped up we stayed up for a while to make sure all was secure. The wind shift marking the actual frontal passage swung our house 180°. What was the view out the front door is now the view out the back. It is past noon now. The pressure gradient is still passing through and the wind remains at and slightly above 20 kts. The boat is rocking and swinging and sailing around the anchor. We are completely aware of what the weather is doing. We are always completely aware of what the weather is doing.

As a pilot the weather was something I considered while making plans. On the boat the weather is pretty much my whole world. The metronome that sets the pace of my life clicks off the passing of cold fronts. Nearly everything we do is measured around the passing of the next one. When it is on us we don't much more than just sit and wait it out, hoping we are sitting in a good spot.

It is a total change of focus that was completely unexpected, one that I haven't quite made peace with yet. Every few days my world gets pushed around, rocked, rolled, and noisy. There is always some increase in possible problems. Sometimes that increase is minor, like today. Sometimes major, like Fishers Bay, Oriental, Charleston, and Vero Beach. (We just learned that the one that passed while we were in Vero Beach caught an experienced sailor in his 31 foot boat out in the Hawk channel. He was blown out to sea, battered by twelve foot waves, rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter, and lost his boat / home of ten years.)

For the life of me I don't remember anyone mentioning this relentless pounding of cold fronts as the primary background music for the cruiser life. Maybe it is just this time of the year? Maybe it is just this year? I don't know. But what I do know is this; people have been hurt, boats have been damaged and lost, and we have spent a lot of hours "on watch".