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January 03, 2006
I'm All Alone...
“I’m all alone, there’s no one here besides me …” sings the unflappable Donkey in Shrek. Chis left Monday for a brief but important trip to Toronto – an unfortunate funeral of a close family friend. I would have gone, too, except for the fact that we are 150 miles from a marina that can take our draft of 7 feet. We are anchored in the harbour at Georgetown, Exuma.
At first, it terrified me. On anchor, alone. What if the wind kicked up? What if the anchor starts to drag? What if I can’t start the generator to charge the batteries? What if the water-maker doesn’t work? What if the dinghy breaks lose? What if…
The first night, I didn’t sleep. I worried about everything. Did I put the anchor light on? Would the anchor chain break? Would we drag and beach the boat? Or hit another boat?
The second night, I slept like a baby. I realized that none of these things is controllable. Like, what if the furnace blows up? What if the pipes freeze? What if I forgot to shovel the sidewalk? And I also realized that Georgetown has an awesome community of boaters (last count 134 boats on anchor), ready on VHF Channel 68 to help.
This afternoon, I go to the meeting on Volleyball Beach for Southbound Boaters. To share experiences, watch weather, etc. Then, off to Por Fin with Mike and Judy for spaghetti dinner. And to review their southbound plans. And to lose a game of chess. Tomorrow, dinner with Sherri and Doug on Bad Boy. And to review their plans to head for the Turks & Caicos Islands.
There are 28 boats heading south, and probably 25 are headed to Trinidad and Venezuela for hurricane season. The rest of us are planning only as far as the Turks & Caicos, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Regardless, the voyage from here to the Virgin Islands is into the prevailing winds. Sailboats can’t sail into the wind. We all watch for cold fronts. After the passing of a cold front, the winds shift to the north. A cold front is passing over us this morning, and the winds are already in the northwest. Not much wind, though. 3 boats are leaving tomorrow for various places south. A second cold front will pass over us on the weekend and extend all the way down to Puerto Rico. We may go on the back side of that one. Oh, fickle weather.
Posted by dave at January 3, 2006 03:30 PM