Chickadee’s first all-female crew is having a great go of it, despite the less-than-pleasant sexism that pervades this sport and lifestyle. (Enough of “Be so careful!”s and “Your husband isn’t with you?!” to make my ladyskin crawl, but it’s also easy enough to set aside, because… turquoise waters and vast sand beaches and also, they can get over their garbage thoughts on the matter already.. I’ll be over here enjoying the scenery from the helm.)
We spent a couple of days in Hope Town, where ‘thoughtful tour guide me’ thought it’d be fun to rent bikes and see Elbow Island from tip to tip, not quiiiite taking into consideration the freshly arrived’s lack of acclimation to the heat and sun of the day, especially when biking up and down the baking hills. (I maaaay have said that “There’s only one hill!” for the pump-up pre-game, and she maaaaay have mentioned “having hate in her heart for me” as we made our way back at the end of the day. Tons of fun!
We had a great sail leaving Hope Town, enjoyed a quick but torrential rain cloud wash down, and then saw the creepiest of water spouts not too far away. Our rain cloud didn’t have winds with it, so where the spout cropped up I do not know, but wowza, it was eerie. It looked like a boiling cauldron, and we could see the funnel of water above it shooting skyward as it traveled (away from us, thankfully). We watched it hit the shore of Guana with crazy explosive force, and after the bulk of the water shot up into its core, it dissipated quickly. Fingers crossed that I’ll never have to experience one any closer.
We anchored off of Guana, walked to the beach, dipped in the pool on our way back to the boat, and woke to ’round the Whale’ yesterday morning. Two really pleasant days’ journeys, even though the knowledge of heading back to the barn is sinking in with no small amount of weight.
As the primary photographer in the family, I often jokingly think that once I’m gone, any historian looking at our family will think “What a nice man Andy was to adopt those children and raise them by himself!”, but now that Jessie’s aboard, I have some choice shots to add to our albums. My favorite, perhaps of all time, is the one below. The backstory (and I may have mentioned this years ago) is that at one point when we were in Miami waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream my father called. “A weather window?! Who needs a weather window? We never thought about such things!”. My response had the obvious “We want our children to be safe.”, etc. underpinnings, but it was a funny thought I had whenever we mentioned watching the weather for any crossing. Fast forward however many years, and he sent me the story of a single-handing German man who had gone missing, only to be found off of the coast of the Philippines seven years later, his boat floating, and his body perfectly mummified (from the salt air, theroretically) at the nav station, where they theorized he had had a heart attack. Accompanying the shared story was my dad’s commentary: “This goes to show that you can sail even when you’re dead! You think he was worried about weather windows?!”
Fast forward to me always thinking about that when planning for a trip, and then also having photog Jessie help me plan my PSA poster for keeping things in perspective. (Also, sorry about the gross dead person photo.)
We’re now tucked into White Sound on Green Turtle for a windy weekend forecasted (it’s certainly begun), where we’ve started the winding down process and will work on the pre-haul duties. The end is near! And while that in and of itself holds its usual annual sadness, I will be very ready to be with ALVio again.
