The halfway point

The trade winds have been howling! As we get further South, winter looms in the rearview and the transition from sub-tropical to tropical finds us in right in the transition zone. The past week has been just plain windy. The Exuma islands lie mostly flat with sparse arid, almost desert like vegetation on the few rocky high spots. Great Guana island in particular is long and slender and provides great protection from ocean waves and swell, but the winds roll right over and scream past us in our anchorages on the West side. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to just sit around and hang out in 30 knot winds. The anchor digs in deep into the sand in around ten feet of water, and the hundred feet of chain between the Button and the hook lifts and falls with each gust and subsequent lull. We use what is called a ‘snubber’ to lessen the shock of the tightening chain.  The snubber consists of a steel hook sized to fit perfectly around one link of chain that is led forward and tied to the boat with lines sewn with a bit of elasticity. The net effect is a smoother night at anchor and less stress on the windlass mechanism that feeds in and out the anchor. However, with consistent winds like this week the whole system is super tight.

We don’t worry too much about the boat dragging the anchor backwards, and the water is relatively un-choppy, but the noise takes some getting used to. Howling is an appropriate word, and that low rumble of wind around the boat comprises the meat of the symphony of sound. The accompaniment comes from anything not completely tied down.  A percussive whip from a drying towel, a tapping pulse from a snap undone, a clanging of a halyard against the mast, the ever-present squeak and creak of the wind generator turning, and whistling – lots of whistling. Everything with a hole in it joins in at it’s own pitch. Beer bottles lower their tune with every sip. All of these sounds, of course, rise and fall in intensity along with the force of the wind and it’s regular ‘puffs’ or gusts. So this past week there were spells of several days in a row where the gradient winds were sustained in the high twenties with gusts near forty. At those speeds the boat is pretty loud. It takes time to adjust to the sounds; it takes time to know what’s regular or irregular; it takes nerve to sleep through it. All the sounds and the motion of the boat swinging around its anchor pivot is a bit nerve racking. These constant reminders of how precarious of a position you are in don’t occupy thoughts constantly. I probably make it sounds like we sit around on edge biting fingernails at all times, but it’s not like that. We stay relaxed and make meals, and read while anchored during a blow. There are usually many other boats in the anchorage riding it out with us, and that sense of community provides additional comfort. We take dinghy trips and go to shore to walk or play on the beach, but the wind is ever present, relentless, pulsing – howling. The line between what conditions are comfortable to sail or not is a blurry line, and comfortable is a blurry term. So we live, therefore in a blurry world for long spells… until the wind settles down.

We made our final push to Great Exuma and pulled into a nice comfortable marina for the first time since we left Georgia over seven weeks ago. Our goal of reaching Georgetown has been met. Good friends from home were here to meet us and we slept in their condo in a bed that was not moving last night. Our senses, having been on alert for such long stretches, are slowly unwinding with feelings of pride and accomplishment flooding in to replace any leftover anxiety. We’ve sailed our first thousand miles. It’s an accomplishment unlike any other I can think of. The steep learning curve of gaining seamanship aboard your own vessel has been broached. In other words, we know how to sail now. Our experience will take time to reflect on, but we will never again sail our first thousand miles. Sailing is something that absolutely has to be done to be learned, and we just passed the first grade. The trip back through the Exumas and Eleuthera are “easier” sails, and we will have time to move slowly and take everything in. The locals have been telling us the same story since we entered the Bahamas, that ‘dis wedda is not normal’ and other cruisers with many trips under their belts have agreed. This is why we sailed South and East to Georgetown against the wind as quickly as we could. We are underneath where most cold fronts reach their Southern terminus through these islands now, and the weather from here out should be more stable and predictable. We will hang out here for another few weeks and then start a gradual Northwest return trip with the wind behind us the majority of the time, making for faster, more casual sailing. An old salty joke states that “a gentleman never sails to windward” and if that is true I should be quite the gentleman for our next thousand miles.