Windstorms - Trapped in Paradise

Week 16-  Windstorms – Trapped in Paradise

We saw the forecast on a neighbouring boats weather service display. Winds 20 from the south building to peaks of 45 tomorrow. By midnight the winds were up and so was I. I doubled the windward lines and re-arranged the spring lines and then just sat in the cockpit, taking it all in.

The rope that I bought at the surplus store in Elmsdale is pretty stretchy. The 100 foot length of half-inch that is in use for the spring lines will be a 150 foot piece of three-eight inch rope after this storm subsides.

At 2:30 am I help catch lines for a Morgan 415 arrival.  The two guys handling her looked slightly ‘stressed’. I asked why they ‘shot the gap’ in the dark. The younger one, a passage captain from Charleston, explained that they had been out there looking for quiet water behind Cat Cay in which to ride this out and could not find any. With conditions expected to deteriorate further they chose to make the run in – their first time entering the channel between South and North Bimini. The surf was pretty bad...so to hit the center of and to stay in a channel that is only 150 feet wide ... was challenging. The owner was sitting in the cockpit and declined to go ashore – he was pretty stressed.

A couple of days later and they have another genoa sail bent on to replace the one they damaged during their ordeal. Wednesday was a weather window for boats going to Florida and our friends Larry, Terry and Bill on AFterwards departed to meet Larrys son, who would be arriving in Ft. L in about 6 hrs time. Marty and Lori took Caribee out the next day with a window that would take them to the Exumas if they hurried. They have been renovating their ‘new to them’ Bavaria 44 – and although only young, have moved their working lives (insurance adjusting in Mtl and then Alberta) to part-time basis so that they can sail the Caribbean.

The wall of water in the gulfstream near Palm Beach was reported to be 9 feet high yesterday. The marina went from nearly empty to full – with boats pulling in to wait for better conditions for a crossing to Florida. There are so many boats from Quebec coming and going here that the rest of Canada is sorely underrepresented. However, I am gaining much practical knowledge as a consequence. Just last night one visitor told me about his favorite restaurant in Riviere-du-Loup, with forty different recipes on the menu for ‘moules’ (mussels). This is information worth knowing and following up on.

The same guy said he was harassed by a couple of ‘Ontario types’ for flying the Quebec flag. He said that in retrospect it had not been an appropriate thing to do –but that these guys were pretty ignorant in the way they expressed their displeasure on the matter. One of them sold him a new Canadian flag to replace his distressed one.

While my French is still terrible, maybe I am making progress. The power boater alongside is a Quebecer from Matapedia and basically unilingual (francais) and so far we have managed to deal with a number of complex subjects such as fishing lure selection and ‘anchorage’ discussions with reasonably good comprehension. Yvan is clearly a Liberal, enthusiastically advising me that the fishing yacht at the fuel dock belonged to a guy named Champaign who is the personal assistant (or campaign manager...not sure which) of the next Prime Minister of Canada – JT. 

Yvan was the only witness (except for the victim) to a wake swamping the other day. He related the event to me –aided by gesticulations. We watched the fishermen trying to raise the boat. By sunset they had succeeded in partially refloating and dragging the boat to a shoal in front of the marina.

Larry had previously related a story about the swamping of a boat similar to his own. That Hatteras 63 met an oncoming barge pushed by a tug/towboat and passed close alongside (they encountered each-other at a ‘bend’ and had no time to adjust course or move aside for good separation space. The wake-trough of the barge lowered the water level sufficient to ground the Hatteras motor yacht, which promptly fell over at an angle on the bottom. The wake-crest which followed made sure the boat stayed on the bottom. Now that certainly puts more worry into waterway travel. Fortunately there no injuries or loss of life.

A one-hundred and five footer tied-up at the dock at midnight. Roving reporter Susan had spent much of the day interviewing ‘everyone’ about ‘everything’ – so when she returned to Panacea she knew the draught to be exceptionally shallow at 6.5 feet. It is an interesting cross between a cruise-ship and a canal boat.

The sexiest sailboat so far is also here at the moment. This Hutting-Lapine is an expensive looking sailboat – plenty of brightwork, cutter-rigged and with a rakish raised salon with big portlites. Very sexy. 

The owner of the H-L was in the cockpit ‘glowering’ at the hangers-on from the sundowner dock party – which the dockmaster had tied him up in front of. A few people were whooping it up. A few of the young guys from the charter catamaran were loudly celebrating their going away party. The guys are March breakers from Tennessee. A university associate has been running charters every year for several decades for those students who sail. He tells me that sailing is an elective part of the program at their school. They had been trapped in harbour here for most of their week away – but did manage a couple of good sailing excursions.

They certainly partied quieter that the two catamarans full of Ohio State March breakers from the week before. The unhappy guy in the Hutting-Lapine didn’t know just how fortunate he was to have arrived this week instead of last week when those two catamarans were tied-up beside his berth and the party was non-stop, 24-7.

In her travels, Susan has ascertained that there are no cameras for sale in Bimini – so the i-phone will continue to be our only camera for the time being. She took a walk while I harvested a load of redundant wire from the engine room. It took all day, and when finished, our tachometer and temperature gauges were working and the new ignition switch was functioning. I am becoming more optimistic about the engine running longer than a half hour at a time. It still remains to actually experience the breakthrough.

We decided that it is time for a day of serious tourism. The ‘serious tourism’ turned into lolling on the beach. We just returned. The overnight cruise out of Ft Lauderdale has brought a fresh batch of visitors, so we just sat and did what Sue informs me that I am a worlds champion at. I think she is referring to Bikini watching – although I had no idea there was a contest in that category. This has been one gentle day. I can’t make up my mind whether to play Sudoku or just have another nap.

OOoo, I just wrecked the day.  While tinkering with the engine I found that a misfit distributor rotor had deformed and gouged out the distributor cap plastic just a little bit. I put the other rotor in, checked the springs for the mechanical advance (my planned mission for tonight) and the engine started fine. However we did not get much run-time before it died.  The Atomic Four saga continues. I really miss my Detroit Diesel. It IS noisy but it is also totally reliable – so unlike the Atomic ‘Bomb’.