Sunday February 15th, 2015
The North wind will not let up. The Gulf stream with any North component wind is not a nice place. Been there done that. Our potential window (3am Monday ) has evaporated. The North wind does not let up early enough to allow for a crossing in daylight and the winds never get low enough to make it palatable. Our location on the southern route means we need more time to get across.
There are worse places to be. I have to keep remembering to enjoy where you are not fret about getting where you are going. No schedule…no plan. I do have an end date though. I have to be back in Canada to do some work for the ORFA at the end of April. I trust that two days of mild wind will occur prior to that so that we can get to the friggin Bahamas.
I never told you the story of my rescue at sea. Actually a rescue in the dinghy well by the pump out boat lift. There are varying degrees of live aboard boaters. We are live aboard cruisers, there is some expectation that we will move. At the other end of the scale are the LIVE ABOARDS who acquire their boat on a mooring or ended their cruising here and moving is impossible if not very unlikely. This sailor, spends his afternoons it seems out at the Tiki Hut holding court with other LIVE ABOARDS while finishing off the contents of their coolers and snacks. This guy, let’s call him Gerry, swaggered from the tiki hut to his Carolina Skiff (with a relatively new mercury 9.9) and began his trek from the dinghy tie up to his vessel. As he was passing by the gunnel strip he was sitting on departed his dinghy and he along with it. The safety tether (that nobody wears on their wrists) was not on his wrist. His Carolina skiff continued in gear with him holding on to what was left of his gunnel.
This guy was over weight, old, his face reflected his life choices…and his dinghy motor was well on it’s way to cutting him up like an unfortunate manatee. Luckily for him, unluckily for me his boat veered to the wall where I was standing…I jumped in and shut down the Mercury blender that had taken an interest in his appendages. I pulled the tether and his prospects improved a little.
I thought I could paddle the boat over to the ladder and help him out. NO PADDLE!! I thought about starting the engine again. He has more than one leg. I thought better of this and grabbed a dinghy tied to the dock and pulled this parade of boat and man over to the ladder. As we went stuff started floating up from his pockets; his ‘smokes’ (which he salvaged and returned to his pocket (under water)), his wallet, other flotsam and jetsam and an orange looking thing that he reported was no f’ng good anyway. I tied up his dinghy and encouraged him around the dinghy to the ladder.
Next, the ladder. I continued to encourage him to get to the ladder and he finally did so. By now his color was that of a manatee and his breathing was short and laboured and he was round mouth breathing…here comes the heart attack. Now I’m encouraging him to get up the ladder but rest on each step. After what seemed like an hour his feet were on terra firma and he proclaimed “that wasn’t so bad. One of his friends was cat calling him from the other side of the well. It was then I noticed a thoughtful looking, well dressed man standing near me but just out of liability range. I said “I thought he was going to have a heart attack” and he said “I did too and I’m a doctor…
I think Gerry did say thank you between labored breaths. He needed a smoke and his were temporarily beyond lighting. It was then I had a flash of brilliance and asked him “do you know the Christmas lady”? At first he looked puzzled and then he said “Ace asked me about her to”?
Sister Mary Francis, Tabernac