Storm

[Kyle]From Footprint we listened to the forecast and it was worse than before. I decided, while I still could, to row out another anchor and double up our bridle lines. I didn’t want to drag even a little as we were surrounded by rocks. The wind started to build and the rain came hard. We tried to have dinner and a normal night but we were both distracted by the sound of the building wind and waves. When you’re alone in the dark and a storm is approaching, you hear everything.

We went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night, the anchor alarm went off. Maryanne was having a dream about a tumble dryer going off. When she woke up and told me, waking me up, she did not even get through her sentence before I was out of bed and moving aft – fast. I went from completely asleep to full alert in two seconds. It turned out we hadn’t dragged but had swung sideways around our anchors due to the shifting wind. I reset the alarm and went back to sleep.

We got up in the morning and listened to the forecast. It was terrifying. It was made even more terrifying by the measured calm with which it was delivered. It seems that a scary forecast should be read in a Mwoo, hah hah hah! kind of voice, like the villain in a melodrama. Instead, we get the even creepier total calm of one of the little girls from “The Shining”, only with a Scottish accent:

Wind…..Southeast…..Force 6 or 7…..Veering South……Imminent Gale Force 8 …..to Severe Gale 9……….Veering Southwest…..and increasing …..to Storm 10 ……then Violent Storm 11…..Soon.



Violent Storm 11…..Soon. Eeek! ‘Violent Storm 11 – Soon’ means that within the next 6 to 12 hours, winds are expected to be between 55 and 63 knots (63 to 72mph). The next force up –force 12 – is Hurricane.

We had anchored in the lee of a little island which was in the lee of a bigger island. I would have preferred being in the lee of one of the many 300m cliffs around but the seabed drops off just as precipitously behind them making then way too deep to anchor so that was a no go.

As the wind increased, it got to where we had to shout to be heard inside the cabin. The seas in our little harbor rose to 4 or 5 feet. We had taken up all of it with our rode and were lying just ahead of the only other boat in the harbor, a little gaff rigged sloop. At the height of the storm, we saw a maximum wind of 53 knots (just as I happened to be outside), so we had a little protection.

The other boat was both a horrible and a mesmerizing thing to watch. Her bowsprit plunged into the water and scooped waves over the deck. She rolled and yawed and jerked wildly at her mooring. She looked to me exactly like an animal, wild-eyed and insane with terror, using every last ounce of strength to try to break free of a tether that she was sure meant certain death, like a horse in a burning barn.

Footprint fared a little better. Our bar tight bridles kept us pointed directly into the wind and we rode through with only a little pounding. We decided to use the time and the power from the wind generator (Which was putting out more power than the engine driven alternator and so was essentially more than we could even use) to repair our enclosure. Lockers were emptied to get to the various supplies. The boat was a total disaster area. Maryanne had me cutting cloth with our butane hot knife while she did all the repairs with the sewing machine. It is a truly impressive thing to watch Maryanne sew. In our tiny space, she is able to manhandle (Maryannehandle) big, stiff, thick pieces of canvas work into bunches and feed them through the machine as if she had hundreds of square feet of floor area and a recessed, floor level machine. She does all this while occasionally being electrocuted – not oh-I-touched-a-9-volt-battery electrocuted but sticking-your-finger-into-a-light-socket electrocuted. I’ve felt it. It’s bad. It’s intermittent and we’ve never been able to find the cause, so she just lives with it. Occasionally, with perfect British calm, she’ll say, “Would you mind turning off the inverter? I’m being electrocuted.”

So…we got that done. The boat is now a complete mess. We’re going to wait out the weather one more day so we can tidy up tomorrow.

The wind has died down quite a bit now – into the 20s. The other boat has calmed down as well and now just looks like she doesn’t like being tied up. Our batteries are nice and full. It seems like a nice night to pop in a movie.