The Flip Side of Our 18 Hours of Anguish
13 December 2011 | Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
Jeff
We got to thinking about the last 18 hours of the passage that brought us here to St. Lucia. After forgetting about the anguish caused by things like: will we be able to find a mechanic, if he wants us to come into the marina how will we get in there without and engine, will the wind last to get us to Rodney Bay and once there will there be enough wind that will allow us to get into shallow enough water to anchor? And that long series of questions are just a sampling of what was going thru our minds. But, the other day Pam and I sat down and set all those questions aside and said, "you know that was really a great sail.". And when we look at it objectively it was. The seas were relatively flat and the wind was sufficient enough to move us along quite nicely most of the time. Foggy Mountain is a real pleasure to sail having a very comfortable easy motion. That night was also punctuated by another event. As I was sitting on the cockpit coaming, with the only light provided by the nearly full moon, I heard a whoosh like someone taking exhaling. In fact it was someone exhaling, actually several, there was a pod of dolphins swimming along side and playing in our bow wave. I remember exclaiming to Pam, "dolphins"! They stuck with us for about ten minutes and then disappeared. As I watched them I thought of the commonly held belief among sailors that the appearance of dolphins is a sign of good luck. I have to say that after the good luck that followed for us that night, the belief is true and we will consider it that in the future.