Still sailing... cold and wet.
15 September 2011
With these heavy sees and the icy rain all I want to do is get past Scotch Bonnet so we will be in the lee of the land. That won't help with the rain but it will certainly calm the seas down. It seems that the minute I get to that point the wind drops substantially. It's dark. I have only a double reefed main flying and now there is little winds (but still cold rain). I shake out both reefs but I'm not about to try and hoist the yankee. That would be too much trouble and Michele has had about enough. She and the cat are below trying to keep warm because I am going to need her to spell me soon so I can get warm.
Off in the distance I see a ship trying to shine it's spotlight on me. I hear nothing on the radio (turns out it quit). I hate passing freighters at night. You can never see their nav lights for all the other bright lights they have on so you just can't tell their exact heading. I think it's off to starboard so I drift a little more port to give it as wide a berth as possible. It stops shining the spotlight (it did it three times) and I figure everything is fine. To be sure I am maneuverable (did I mention I hate freighters at night?) I start the engine. A few minutes later it gets really close and I am trying to figure out where it's headed. All of a sudden I catch the shadow of it's bow crossing my bow only a few hundred yards off (way too close for me). It turns out to be the Navy (not the whole Navy... just one ship). At least I assume it's them from the cannon mounted on the stern.
The sun begins to come up (not that you can see it for all of the clouds) and the rain stops. We're still cold and wet but I can now see. Another freighter passes without incident (or cannon) and False Duck is now in sight. The wind almost completely dies so the motor is back on and we are pushing to get this finished.
We round False Duck and start heading for Waupoos. The wind comes up strong enough to make good sailing. I still don't feel like wrestling with the yankee so we just motor at full speed towards Waupoos Marina where we can get power and plug in the fireplace.
Now you would think we would go to bed and sleep right? Wrong... after warming in front of the fire and eating a little more stew Michele decides we should go for a walk. After all it's now sunny enough out and we were told that half way to the Winery (we don't know where that is either) is a place where you can buy Waupoos lamb right from the farmer. So off we go. We get all the way to the Winery without seeing any sign for lamb (but we now know "all the way" so "half way" back will be easy to figure out. I'm way too tired to walk back so we go into the Winery for a bottle of their finest fruit offering (we tested half a dozen before settling on the one) and a plate of cheese. Now while we are there we get smart and ask where the lamb place is. They had to ask the Chef. Now we at least know the name of the people so we are in good shape. The new dilemma is that the menu looks pretty good and we also want to hit the local Cider place which is "3 minutes up the road by car". That's too far for me today BUT the Winery is on the water and has a Dinghy dock. We're coming back tomorrow!
We walk back along the road and find the lamb. No sign or indication of any kind that they have or sell lamb. We wander onto their back porch and there is a little sign, a box for the money and a freezer full of lamb with the prices marked. We buy our lamb (you have to love the country where they have a box full of money... lamb's not cheap... and a freezer full of meat... all unattended).
Back to the boat for a nap. I wake up from my nap just before midnight. So now it's time for bed!