SAND, sand, everywhere…
We aboard the good ship Chickadee are in the business of sand redistribution. It’s a simple two-way street (beach sand in, boat sand back over the side from the dustpan), but the roads themselves are littered with housekeeping chores, laundry requirements, and near-homicidal thoughts by our captain. Beach days are the kids’ favorites, but the idea of managing all of that sand on the boat end of things makes Andy just about as crazy as anything else. Inevitably the sand didn’t all get washed out of our suits on that last dip in the water, and goodness knows no matter how much ‘shaking out’, we transport quite a bit in our bags each day. (Stuck to water bottles, picnic things, books, etc.) This year we made the excellent choice to buy fancier new beach towels which are amazing at releasing sand even when wet, as opposed to the sand-sucking terrycloth we’d used until now. BUT. Fancy towels aside, the sand comes aboard. We spray the kids off on the stern, we shake the bags, we snap the towels a few more times… and the sand is still here. Hair is brushed, sand falls out. Dry bathing suits are taken off the rail, sand pours out. You pick up that one little thing that you forgot to put away last night, and poof, sand jumps into your arms. I personally don’t mind it too much. For a kid who freaked her freak out if that toe seam was moved to the ‘wrong’ spot when putting shoes on as a kid, it’s amazing what I’m willing to put up with when it comes to salt and sand. The girls joke that they sleep on the beach, there is often so much sand in their bed (falling from the depths of their thick tangled hair each night as it dries). Andy, not so much.
After a whirlwind of time here in Staniel Cay (laundry, provisions, dinner ashore with the monohull families one night complete with shark-petting (we’re back at the girls’ favorite conch stand/nurse shark feeding hole), beach pig visiting, Thunderball snorkeling (the Bond movie’s famous site), boom jumping and a lovely gathering on a comfortably spacious catamaran another evening, we were able to swap our sand concerns for wind concerns on Saturday night.
With gusts forecasted into the 40s, we had set a second anchor earlier in the day, but also spent a semi-sleepless night of anchor watching. We’re near an ocean cut where the current is brisk at times, and also in opposition to the wind direction, strong as it was (for most of the day it was a sustained 35kts with gusts higher). It felt like a puzzle to figure out which way we should be sitting, and which anchor is doing the work at times, but once we did, and feeling great comfort in our ground tackle, rest was better, and we cozied in for a lazy Sunday of wind-watching, movie-watching, and definitely not waist-watching.
Books were read, food was eaten, drawings were colored, Minecraft was Minecrafted (technically term that Lily would approve of, I’m sure), cribbage was cribbaged, the dinghy never left its davits, and not a new grain of sand came aboard. In fact, I had a little cleaning jag at one point yesterday, and I’m now confident that we have less sand on board than the day before, which feels like a miracle. Thanks, wind!
