Making the Best of the Hurricane Season
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Lydia Fell
Oct 14, 2010, 1:30:30 PM10/14/10
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Marsh Harbour
October 13, 2010
It’s been a couple of busy months since I wrote, but I’m moved to catch up now on this rainy day while the outer bands of Hurricane Paula reach us. There are several chores I should be doing – grocery shopping not being the least of which – but it’s too wet outside to motivate myself into action. Were the temperatures still around 90 degrees, as they were 3 weeks ago, I’d jump at the opportunity. However, Fall has arrived in the Bahamas, and while a nice long walk in the rain would be fine, the air-conditioned grocery store on top of that would not.
We’ve had a wonderful couple of months here waiting out the hurricane season With good plans in place in the event we had a big storm, in the end, we didn’t have to deal with anything larger than TS Nicole. Hurricane Earl, which initially looked threatening to our area, turned north and never got closer than 120 miles east of us, but there was a lot of swell and “rage” conditions in the cuts between the islands, making leaving the area impossible. This didn’t affect us; we were able to sail to Treasure Cay to our NW, and Guana Cay to our NE in the protected waters of the Sea of Abaco. But cruiser friends who were trying to inch their way back to Florida, had to negotiate the Whale Cay Cut before making any headway home, and The Whale (as it’s known to the locals) was a boiling sea of spume and froth, with breaking waves that screamed Death To All Things Cruising.
Hurricane Earl was long in the making, and like all cruisers, we watched its path from beginning to end, or at least until it was well past us. During that time, we anchored in Marsh Harbour along with another seven boat crews with whom we made good friends, and waited out the storm together. I had the brilliant idea that we should hold a “hurricane pow-wow” for anyone in the harbor who was interested in attending, along with libations and snacks of course, and the turn out was encouraging. We made lists of each of our boats and crew in attendance, with each boat’s plan noted in the event of a hurricane, their emails and local phones if they had one, so that we could all stay in touch or be of help to each other. It was a productive evening as we reviewed all the possible hurricane holes, the locations of hurricane-proof mooring balls in the area, and discussed general reminders about what to do and what not to forget. Best of all, we cemented some wonderful relationships.
Dick and Carol on S/V Gusto!!! were the most senior sailors at the meeting, and have cruised the Abacos every summer for the past 20 years. Steve and Kim on S/V Natures Way run the Boy Scouts summer sailing program in Abaco, and have endless local knowledge. Lenny on S/V Joss was over here single-handing for the summer from Florida. Paul and Malinda on S/V Daydream have been out cruising for a decade and more. All of these folks have had first hand experiences with hurricanes while aboard. Pete and DeeDee on S/V Marionette were newbies, fresh out on their first cruise. Chris and Linda on S/V Troubadour are also first season cruisers, although experienced racers in their other life. Franz and Olivia on MS/V Gabriela are in the Bahamas for the first time, en route as fast as possible to the British Virgin Isles. (They’re taking the quick route, due east out of here for 650 miles, and then due south for another 490 miles to Tortola). All of these cruisers are full-time liveaboards, and only one of them has a home in the States to take a break in.
Once everyone became familiar with everyone else, the fun began. Linda lead yoga in the mornings on the beach, or we did our 3 mile walks around Marsh Harbour. Paul and Malinda organized Mexican Train, a dominoes game, which was held in the afternoons around a pool and went on for hours amid great mirth. Kim had access to a car, and graciously drove several of us to the local version of Costco which wasn’t within walking distance, to load up on bulk items. Groups of us did laundry at the local Laundromat, groups of us shopped for groceries. A few of us (including Skip) hosted the morning Cruiser’s Net on the VHF, and kept fellow cruisers abreast of the latest weather developments. And because we had a hurricane out there, we all double and triple checked our boats, making sure that deck items were secure, talked through the process of stripping all the sails and cockpit bimini if the need arose, and waited. But unlike today’s rain, we didn’t get any bands of squalls off Earl; the majority of the weather was to the NE of the center, away from us, and so the wind blew and the sun shone, and you couldn’t have asked for more beautiful days.
Eventually, Earl spun off to Bermuda, but there remained a track of storms marching like ants across the Atlantic in it’s wake. I marvel at the difference in an El Nino year (such as last year, when there was absolutely no storm activity all summer here) and a La Nina year, when the waters of the Atlantic are much warmer and conditions are more favorable for storm development. I will tell you that the difference between this year and last year in Marsh Harbour, are like chalk and cheese.
With a break in the weather pattern, Gusto!!!, Troubadour and Flying Pig sailed up to Guana Cay, where we all spent a lovely couple of days together. Dick and Chris both speared some lobster while we were snorkeling (Dick very graciously gave us his) and we all had a rare evening out at Grabbers which offers outside dining only, and where Skip and I devoured a delicious hamburger with all the trimmings. Dick and Carol, who are both 75, and who have been full time liveaboards for decades, are so inspiring. Despite Dick’s desperate need for new hips, and Carol’s crippling arthritis, they maintain a positive, can-do attitude and they don’t miss out on any of the fun. Gusto!!! (the exclamation points indicate the 3rd Gusto they’ve owned) had a lot of problems while Dick and Carol were here this summer, ranging from generator issues to mysterious engine leaks, and when they left us in Guana and motor-sailed through the (then) calm Whale Cay Cut to start their trip back to Florida, the rest of us kept our fingers and toes crossed. I’m happy to report that they are safely back in Delray Marina in Florida, after negotiating the Gulf Stream crossing with a broken alternator. Tough birds, those two, and we greatly look forward to seeing them next year. Daydream negotiated The Whale at the same time, also headed to Florida, while we tacked our way back to Marsh Harbour for provisions.
On September 29th, Tropical Storm Nicole formed off the northern coast of Cuba, and presented an anomaly in that there wasn’t any “weather” in it’s center. In fact, all the resultant weather was in the east-to-south quadrant a good 200 plus miles away, or in other words, eventually in our neighborhood. We weren’t expecting enough wind to have to strip the sails, (whew!) but we were expecting up to 50 knots (58 mph) which was enough to create a great deal of howling in the rigging. We battened down the hatches and hunkered down, armed with some good, spicy bean chili, movies and a small library of decent books, but actually, we were pretty busy for a couple of days just “maintaining”.
It poured with warm, tropical rain. This opportunity to get every last speck of salt water off the boat was too much to pass up, and during the lulls I went out in the rain and scrubbed to my heart’s content. And then there were the cockpit cushions, which were getting a good soaking, but needed a helping hand. Meanwhile, the dinghy was filling up with water so fast that Skip had to run it around the harbor and pull the plug to empty it on three separate occasions. Portia did very well with the noise, but stayed close. Once the winds were consistently reaching 30 knots, we tied down the wind generator (lest it blow away again) which quieted things down a lot, although we hated to lose the wind amps that we were making. It’s not often that we get to run two computers and watch movies without cranking up the generator, but we did that day.
The day after Nicole was amazing; azure blue skies and huge puffy white clouds. The sunset that night was truly spectacular, with such an array of color that it looked like Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) which I chanced to see once on a transatlantic flight. I took lots of pictures during the storm, and also of the sunset, but needless to say, it just doesn’t do either event justice.
The weather was improving by the week, with daily temps not exceeding 85 degrees, and night temps down to a brisk 74*. With Gusto and Daydream headed back to Florida, DeeDee and Pete on Marionette decided to head for Hope Town with us. We met new friends and put faces, finally, to people that we’d only heard on the Net. It was an enjoyable week in that beautiful little harbor, aside from our near-disaster.
We had been very kindly offered a friend’s mooring ball when we got to Hope Town, and lazily tied up to it, expecting no wind. When the wind piped up, we neglected to reattach our mooring safely, having forgotten all about it. The bottom line of this story is that our ¾ inch attachment line broke free (sawed in half with the friction) and our boat let loose, turning broadside to the wind, and moving at an alarming speed down the harbor towards a rock wall and a private dock.
Fate was on our side; it was high tide, I was in the cockpit when the mooring line broke, and Skip wasn’t doing the Cruisers Net. In the absence of any one of those facts, we would have been doomed. Fortunately, Skip responded immediately to my yell seconds after the line broke, and managed to run up to the bow and drop the anchor, just before we got pinned against a dock post amidships. The anchor held us off the rock wall long enough for us to dinghy long stern and bow lines out to the nearest mooring ball, where we winched ourselves, in 20 knot winds, back over to safety. Lesson learned, but it’s discouraging that it takes a monumental event to permanently reinforce the rules.
Having skirted around that disaster, we went on to enjoy Oktoberfest in Hope Town with DeeDee and Pete, while Franz and Olivia dinghied in from Man O’ War island for the celebrations. A fun afternoon was had by all, followed by a long walk on the Atlantic-side beach, hunting successfully for sea glass, and encountering one of the more colorful local characters, who was sufficiently crazy, drunk, or both to be unnerving. He wasn't doing any harm, nor did he appear to be violent, but his behavior was so beyond the "norm" that he was scary. It's a shame that should be so, because he looked very thin and ragged, but we were assured that he had a home to go to on the island.
Skip and I decided to take a trip south to Lynyard Cay after that, where we enjoyed great snorkeling and beach combing, and fabulous weather. We were surprised to see a couple of other motor boats down there, also enjoying the solitude, no doubt. The south end of Lynyard is uninhabited, although we noticed that since we were last there last year with Skip’s son and wife, someone had erected a large tent under the trees, and had augmented the existing beach barbecue into something closer to a galley. It was complete with pots and pans, a garbage can, and propane for the cook-stove, which was carefully shielded from the wind with a plywood surround. We never saw the person who, apparently, camps out on this beach on a regular basis, but he was doing his best to keep the beach raked and clean. Nice. I would have killed to have had a hide-out like that when I was a kid.
On our way back to Marsh Harbour two days ago, we stopped in to see a friend we’ve met here, who’s lived in the Bahamas most of his life, and is the author of a book on the now-deceased smugglers, spongers, and fishermen of these islands. He’s 79 now, and was anxious for us to see the home he built entirely on his own, over a two year period. He lives on the tiny island known as Lubbers Quarters, where he generates his own electricity and from where he produces beautiful art, which is his livelihood. Bill’s house could better be described as a camp; a one room studio buried among the native trees he loves so much, and at this time of year, completely open on the east side, facing the harbor. The mosquitoes were thick, inside and out, and while Skip and I were swatting them away, Bill seemed completely oblivious to them. I couldn’t help thinking how “soft” we must appear to this man, who hobbles around on two bad knees, and braved out the frigid temperatures of this past winter in his home with no heat. He knows every tree and plant in these islands, has sailed and fished most of these waters, and recreates the beauty of the landscapes and seascapes in his watercolors, pen and ink sketches and wood-block art. He gifted me a handful of Nikkerbeans from the vine in his yard, which is a dense jungle of foliage through which his conch-shell-embedded concrete steps wind their way. He sent us off with a signed copy of his book, “Seapath”, a CD of his latest writings this year, and a bag of treats for Portia. I’m honored to have met this gentle hermit; he’s the last of a generation who knew how to live with Nature in the Bahamas.
And that brings me back to the present. It’s a day later now, and the rain has gone. Even the peanut butter and jelly stocks are getting low, so I must bring this to a close and get to the grocery store.
I hope this finds you healthy and happy.
Love, Lydia
S/V Flying Pig
Morgan 46 #2
"The only way to live is to have a dream green and growing in your life - anything else is just existing and is a waste of breath."
Ann Davison
October 13, 2010
It’s been a couple of busy months since I wrote, but I’m moved to catch up now on this rainy day while the outer bands of Hurricane Paula reach us. There are several chores I should be doing – grocery shopping not being the least of which – but it’s too wet outside to motivate myself into action. Were the temperatures still around 90 degrees, as they were 3 weeks ago, I’d jump at the opportunity. However, Fall has arrived in the Bahamas, and while a nice long walk in the rain would be fine, the air-conditioned grocery store on top of that would not.
We’ve had a wonderful couple of months here waiting out the hurricane season With good plans in place in the event we had a big storm, in the end, we didn’t have to deal with anything larger than TS Nicole. Hurricane Earl, which initially looked threatening to our area, turned north and never got closer than 120 miles east of us, but there was a lot of swell and “rage” conditions in the cuts between the islands, making leaving the area impossible. This didn’t affect us; we were able to sail to Treasure Cay to our NW, and Guana Cay to our NE in the protected waters of the Sea of Abaco. But cruiser friends who were trying to inch their way back to Florida, had to negotiate the Whale Cay Cut before making any headway home, and The Whale (as it’s known to the locals) was a boiling sea of spume and froth, with breaking waves that screamed Death To All Things Cruising.
Hurricane Earl was long in the making, and like all cruisers, we watched its path from beginning to end, or at least until it was well past us. During that time, we anchored in Marsh Harbour along with another seven boat crews with whom we made good friends, and waited out the storm together. I had the brilliant idea that we should hold a “hurricane pow-wow” for anyone in the harbor who was interested in attending, along with libations and snacks of course, and the turn out was encouraging. We made lists of each of our boats and crew in attendance, with each boat’s plan noted in the event of a hurricane, their emails and local phones if they had one, so that we could all stay in touch or be of help to each other. It was a productive evening as we reviewed all the possible hurricane holes, the locations of hurricane-proof mooring balls in the area, and discussed general reminders about what to do and what not to forget. Best of all, we cemented some wonderful relationships.
Dick and Carol on S/V Gusto!!! were the most senior sailors at the meeting, and have cruised the Abacos every summer for the past 20 years. Steve and Kim on S/V Natures Way run the Boy Scouts summer sailing program in Abaco, and have endless local knowledge. Lenny on S/V Joss was over here single-handing for the summer from Florida. Paul and Malinda on S/V Daydream have been out cruising for a decade and more. All of these folks have had first hand experiences with hurricanes while aboard. Pete and DeeDee on S/V Marionette were newbies, fresh out on their first cruise. Chris and Linda on S/V Troubadour are also first season cruisers, although experienced racers in their other life. Franz and Olivia on MS/V Gabriela are in the Bahamas for the first time, en route as fast as possible to the British Virgin Isles. (They’re taking the quick route, due east out of here for 650 miles, and then due south for another 490 miles to Tortola). All of these cruisers are full-time liveaboards, and only one of them has a home in the States to take a break in.
Once everyone became familiar with everyone else, the fun began. Linda lead yoga in the mornings on the beach, or we did our 3 mile walks around Marsh Harbour. Paul and Malinda organized Mexican Train, a dominoes game, which was held in the afternoons around a pool and went on for hours amid great mirth. Kim had access to a car, and graciously drove several of us to the local version of Costco which wasn’t within walking distance, to load up on bulk items. Groups of us did laundry at the local Laundromat, groups of us shopped for groceries. A few of us (including Skip) hosted the morning Cruiser’s Net on the VHF, and kept fellow cruisers abreast of the latest weather developments. And because we had a hurricane out there, we all double and triple checked our boats, making sure that deck items were secure, talked through the process of stripping all the sails and cockpit bimini if the need arose, and waited. But unlike today’s rain, we didn’t get any bands of squalls off Earl; the majority of the weather was to the NE of the center, away from us, and so the wind blew and the sun shone, and you couldn’t have asked for more beautiful days.
Eventually, Earl spun off to Bermuda, but there remained a track of storms marching like ants across the Atlantic in it’s wake. I marvel at the difference in an El Nino year (such as last year, when there was absolutely no storm activity all summer here) and a La Nina year, when the waters of the Atlantic are much warmer and conditions are more favorable for storm development. I will tell you that the difference between this year and last year in Marsh Harbour, are like chalk and cheese.
With a break in the weather pattern, Gusto!!!, Troubadour and Flying Pig sailed up to Guana Cay, where we all spent a lovely couple of days together. Dick and Chris both speared some lobster while we were snorkeling (Dick very graciously gave us his) and we all had a rare evening out at Grabbers which offers outside dining only, and where Skip and I devoured a delicious hamburger with all the trimmings. Dick and Carol, who are both 75, and who have been full time liveaboards for decades, are so inspiring. Despite Dick’s desperate need for new hips, and Carol’s crippling arthritis, they maintain a positive, can-do attitude and they don’t miss out on any of the fun. Gusto!!! (the exclamation points indicate the 3rd Gusto they’ve owned) had a lot of problems while Dick and Carol were here this summer, ranging from generator issues to mysterious engine leaks, and when they left us in Guana and motor-sailed through the (then) calm Whale Cay Cut to start their trip back to Florida, the rest of us kept our fingers and toes crossed. I’m happy to report that they are safely back in Delray Marina in Florida, after negotiating the Gulf Stream crossing with a broken alternator. Tough birds, those two, and we greatly look forward to seeing them next year. Daydream negotiated The Whale at the same time, also headed to Florida, while we tacked our way back to Marsh Harbour for provisions.
On September 29th, Tropical Storm Nicole formed off the northern coast of Cuba, and presented an anomaly in that there wasn’t any “weather” in it’s center. In fact, all the resultant weather was in the east-to-south quadrant a good 200 plus miles away, or in other words, eventually in our neighborhood. We weren’t expecting enough wind to have to strip the sails, (whew!) but we were expecting up to 50 knots (58 mph) which was enough to create a great deal of howling in the rigging. We battened down the hatches and hunkered down, armed with some good, spicy bean chili, movies and a small library of decent books, but actually, we were pretty busy for a couple of days just “maintaining”.
It poured with warm, tropical rain. This opportunity to get every last speck of salt water off the boat was too much to pass up, and during the lulls I went out in the rain and scrubbed to my heart’s content. And then there were the cockpit cushions, which were getting a good soaking, but needed a helping hand. Meanwhile, the dinghy was filling up with water so fast that Skip had to run it around the harbor and pull the plug to empty it on three separate occasions. Portia did very well with the noise, but stayed close. Once the winds were consistently reaching 30 knots, we tied down the wind generator (lest it blow away again) which quieted things down a lot, although we hated to lose the wind amps that we were making. It’s not often that we get to run two computers and watch movies without cranking up the generator, but we did that day.
The day after Nicole was amazing; azure blue skies and huge puffy white clouds. The sunset that night was truly spectacular, with such an array of color that it looked like Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) which I chanced to see once on a transatlantic flight. I took lots of pictures during the storm, and also of the sunset, but needless to say, it just doesn’t do either event justice.
The weather was improving by the week, with daily temps not exceeding 85 degrees, and night temps down to a brisk 74*. With Gusto and Daydream headed back to Florida, DeeDee and Pete on Marionette decided to head for Hope Town with us. We met new friends and put faces, finally, to people that we’d only heard on the Net. It was an enjoyable week in that beautiful little harbor, aside from our near-disaster.
We had been very kindly offered a friend’s mooring ball when we got to Hope Town, and lazily tied up to it, expecting no wind. When the wind piped up, we neglected to reattach our mooring safely, having forgotten all about it. The bottom line of this story is that our ¾ inch attachment line broke free (sawed in half with the friction) and our boat let loose, turning broadside to the wind, and moving at an alarming speed down the harbor towards a rock wall and a private dock.
Fate was on our side; it was high tide, I was in the cockpit when the mooring line broke, and Skip wasn’t doing the Cruisers Net. In the absence of any one of those facts, we would have been doomed. Fortunately, Skip responded immediately to my yell seconds after the line broke, and managed to run up to the bow and drop the anchor, just before we got pinned against a dock post amidships. The anchor held us off the rock wall long enough for us to dinghy long stern and bow lines out to the nearest mooring ball, where we winched ourselves, in 20 knot winds, back over to safety. Lesson learned, but it’s discouraging that it takes a monumental event to permanently reinforce the rules.
Having skirted around that disaster, we went on to enjoy Oktoberfest in Hope Town with DeeDee and Pete, while Franz and Olivia dinghied in from Man O’ War island for the celebrations. A fun afternoon was had by all, followed by a long walk on the Atlantic-side beach, hunting successfully for sea glass, and encountering one of the more colorful local characters, who was sufficiently crazy, drunk, or both to be unnerving. He wasn't doing any harm, nor did he appear to be violent, but his behavior was so beyond the "norm" that he was scary. It's a shame that should be so, because he looked very thin and ragged, but we were assured that he had a home to go to on the island.
Skip and I decided to take a trip south to Lynyard Cay after that, where we enjoyed great snorkeling and beach combing, and fabulous weather. We were surprised to see a couple of other motor boats down there, also enjoying the solitude, no doubt. The south end of Lynyard is uninhabited, although we noticed that since we were last there last year with Skip’s son and wife, someone had erected a large tent under the trees, and had augmented the existing beach barbecue into something closer to a galley. It was complete with pots and pans, a garbage can, and propane for the cook-stove, which was carefully shielded from the wind with a plywood surround. We never saw the person who, apparently, camps out on this beach on a regular basis, but he was doing his best to keep the beach raked and clean. Nice. I would have killed to have had a hide-out like that when I was a kid.
On our way back to Marsh Harbour two days ago, we stopped in to see a friend we’ve met here, who’s lived in the Bahamas most of his life, and is the author of a book on the now-deceased smugglers, spongers, and fishermen of these islands. He’s 79 now, and was anxious for us to see the home he built entirely on his own, over a two year period. He lives on the tiny island known as Lubbers Quarters, where he generates his own electricity and from where he produces beautiful art, which is his livelihood. Bill’s house could better be described as a camp; a one room studio buried among the native trees he loves so much, and at this time of year, completely open on the east side, facing the harbor. The mosquitoes were thick, inside and out, and while Skip and I were swatting them away, Bill seemed completely oblivious to them. I couldn’t help thinking how “soft” we must appear to this man, who hobbles around on two bad knees, and braved out the frigid temperatures of this past winter in his home with no heat. He knows every tree and plant in these islands, has sailed and fished most of these waters, and recreates the beauty of the landscapes and seascapes in his watercolors, pen and ink sketches and wood-block art. He gifted me a handful of Nikkerbeans from the vine in his yard, which is a dense jungle of foliage through which his conch-shell-embedded concrete steps wind their way. He sent us off with a signed copy of his book, “Seapath”, a CD of his latest writings this year, and a bag of treats for Portia. I’m honored to have met this gentle hermit; he’s the last of a generation who knew how to live with Nature in the Bahamas.
And that brings me back to the present. It’s a day later now, and the rain has gone. Even the peanut butter and jelly stocks are getting low, so I must bring this to a close and get to the grocery store.
I hope this finds you healthy and happy.
Love, Lydia
S/V Flying Pig
Morgan 46 #2
"The only way to live is to have a dream green and growing in your life - anything else is just existing and is a waste of breath."
Ann Davison
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