We spend our obligatory vacation in the Channel Islands. We left in a frenzy, scooting out in a nice weather window. When we dropped anchor, we realized we had the island to ourselves, and it started to blow.
Tucked away in a cliff sandwich in Pelican Bay, the whitecaps curled and the wind whistled and the trimaran faced the gale.
The next day we sailed to Prisoners bay and never even left the boats. we did, however, go explore the multitudes of caves in our inflatable dingy. Vince caught some mackerels and a fish that looked like the side of it should read "Lemon-zest yellow", and I snagged a leopard shark, but it was their lucky days, because it wasn't them we were after. We got two nice lobster that kicked their tails as Vince flung them aboard, hell no I wasn't going to touch them. before heading back to the boat, Vince hauled up his bait and discovered an alien of full force on his line. Bright neon colors (danger! duh!) and a bug's amount of creepy little legs, I thought it was a radioactive lobster mutant. Vince innocently grabs it, places it in the bottom of our little raft and then we realize how quickly the tables of predator and prey can turn.
We heard this thwacking sound, then I asked if the thing was hissing because it was flicking and flailing more than the lackadaisical lobsters did. Turns out the thwacking was on account of these hidden yellow and teal 2 inch spikes that lied hidden in an appendage like a shank, and flicked out like a cracking whip. Next mystery was solved when the raft began to deflate. The little bugger pierced our raft! We wouldn't have realized how dangerous the thing was if it's weapon didn't spear and get caught in a line, thankfully it didn't spear Vince when he pulled the foot-long creature on board.
realizing we better not let it sit on the fragile raft material, he tossed it in the tackle box like it was a hot potato and we lugged our ragged raft back to the boat.
we ate the thing, snipping and thwacking the whole way to the plate. It was a bit like crab. Later, my friend Cassie told me it was a Mantis Shrimp. They usually never get that big and they have the most advanced pair of eyes in the animal kingdom!
Our neighbor John had a tiny one in a tank once that killed all his fish.
Vince patched the raft.
We had an early Valentines day Lobster feast.
we spent 3 nights in a 40 knot wind and small craft advisory, reading, telling stupid jokes, filling up bags and bags of agates only to leave them on picnic tables to a shallow dismay... and we felt like courageous little sailors when we decided to throw up the storm sails and head back to civilization in all those white caps.
We got very wet, but it was fun after the seasickness passed.
Dolphins don't let courage (or fun) go unnoticed. Soon we were joined by hundreds of them all playing in the wind waves and the 7-12 foot swells. This was a great time for me to study their behavior (of course after I got my float suit on and didn't mind the waves hosing me). They stayed with us for almost 3 hours through 1 knot to 14 knots. They paced us easily, I could see the reactions of their muscles and bellied when they weaved eachother. I panicked when they dove under the thrashing amas, but they knew what they were doing. At first they jumped in twos, but as they became familiar with our three hulls, they jumped routinely in threes! Sadly, lots of them bore the twisted scars of motor props down their slender backs.
The howling wind stopped suddenly as we approached the oil rigs. Towering ugly hunks of stinky metal and plastic, these are not where you want to be stranded in waves and without wind because in those circumstances the outboard engine cannot save you. It's flabbergasting to be hauled at 12 knots in one instant, and to be sucked in by currents toward your doom in the next. The dolphins didn't like the oil rigs, so they peaced.
After eons, the wind picked up as before and we sailed back to anchorage where we realized two sailboats were missing and our friends dingy was drifting away, destroyed by the storm we somehow avoided completely.