We crossed a great expanse of water and then
anchored for the night near a shoal because there is still a great expanse of
water to go until we reach the Berry Islands.
This shoal was chosen to help us ride out any waves and it's the middle of nowhere and the sky and sea meet at a point my eyes cannot
discern. The water was very flat today
and so we motored most of the way. The
water is still flat and feels like the calm before the storm. It's weird sitting on a boat, swaying back
and forth with the sea's rhythm and not being able to see land anywhere on the
horizon.
Settling down for the night, the wind picked up and
we had a bumpy ride there on out. It was
good for the next day's sailing though and Gary was in high spirits as the boat
took to the wind and waves with glee.
Nalani is a super boat and her weight helps to make the wave riding a
little more tolerable than it would in a lighter vessel.
Most of the day, we rode smoothly with the waves and
only when the wind direction shifted slightly, did we get the pounding into the
surf. Let me tell you, going to the head
in the middle of the pounding of the surf is a very interesting proposition.
We left at dawn and let Elliott sleep as he's been
reading like a maniac at night, which I love.
He's into the third book in this Orson Scott Card trilogy and he can't
put the books down, so sometimes I'll find him at 2 in the morning, reading,
reading, reading.
He finally got up and described a levitating
experience in his bunk from some of the surf riding that the boat was doing; he
swore he was lifted up in the air. After
that, his magazines came onto the bed and covered him. It wasn't uncomfortable until his 3-inch
thick history and biology books decided to join them!
I knitted, rolled yarn from skein to ball (with
Elliott's help), did crossword puzzles (which now Elliott loves), and played
games on my iPad to pass the time. Long
passages are not my friend; I have the motorboat mentality, I guess, of trips;
a little while on the water is good, but hours and hours try my sanity.
Elliott finally yelled, "Land Ho!" A few hours later, we had anchored outside
the island in a little bit of protected area.
We dinghied into waters further in and Elliott and Gary checked out the
island's "blue hole," which is just that, a hole in the sea bed that
is deep, deep, deep.
I used to want to be an oceanographer--I was crazy
in love with the idea of Jacques Cousteau and what he and his family did for a
living; I can't believe that now considering my fright of going in the
water. And I must have watched too many
sci-fi movies growing up because all I could imagine living in the blue hole
would be blind fish and eels and scary monsters waiting to gobble me up!
They said they saw a few fish, nothing
spectacular. I would think you'd need a
full SCUBA gear to explore it properly.
They also snorkeled near shore looking for the elusive Bahamian lobster,
but it proved especially elusive.
We got back to the boat and our reading and
researching and doing history (Elliott's learning about the Age of Enlightment (doesn't every age have one of those?)).
Anyway, I'm taking a more active role with his school work and so we discuss
what he's reading now. I hope it helps
him retain information better than just reading.
The wind was already a little wild yesterday during
the day, but nightfall brought worse.
Gusts made our boat bounce heavily in the surf and the dinghy got
slapped about quite a bit, too. It went
on all night. Our cabin is in the aft
portion of the boat and all those slaps and bounces and howling winds are
magnified. The sound of the wind is the
worst; while in the cockpit, it doesn't sound too bad. But down below, everything is magnified and
your imagination takes over.
Not much sleep to be had by any of us, I fear. Gary slept in the cockpit so that he could
keep an eye on things; our anchor held well, thankfully. But there's always that fear that a wild wind
will tear it loose and we'd be dashed upon the rocks. And the rocks around here are not smooth
boulders; they are coral and volcanic shards coming up out of the earth. Scary.
I got up before dawn and had a mini-breakdown; I'm
just not experiencing the stress as the guys do. Especially in the dark. Daylight changes everything and my eyes help
my brain make logic of what is going on. Dark, especially here where everything
is limited lighting (which is good for the environment), makes the imagination
go wild.
Finally, I just passed out on the salon settee and
fell into a fitful sleep. Gary tried to
wake me to help with motoring into the harbor (why we couldn't go there in the
first place, I don't know), but I asked that he wake Elliott to help.
We came into a canal before making the harbor and
even though we can still hear and feel some of the wind, it is so much quieter
and I feel safer here. Boats have been coming
in and going on, a few jet skiers have been circling, we even saw a Canadian
boat here that I'd seen tied up on the wall of the fuel dock area of Islamorada
months ago. We found out later that they
were headed out to run their water-maker in clearer water.
We will be visiting the town here in a little bit
and then checking into the marina, which gets good marks from other cruisers;
when we called yesterday for a slip, they said they could give us one if we
stayed three days, not the two we had asked for--someone's been teaching the
upsell here!. In town, there is supposed
to be a bakery, a telephone store (which Gary is excited about), a grocery or
two, and other shops that sound like a nice calm afternoon. Let's hope so.
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