When I was younger (not all that long ago), I used to windsurf or sailboard. That was before kiteboarding and wing foiling came around. It was fun and didn’t require too much equipment, although carbon fiber masts and multiple sails could always be added to my inventory. Sailboarding wasn’t particularly difficult and didn’t require extraordinary strength. It was like learning to ride a bicycle. It required a good ability to balance, and a good ability to swim! But the most important thing was that you had to learn to be “one with the wind”.
When the wind was “up”, up came the board, the sail was rigged and off I was scooting around the marina. To be “one with the wind” meant that you had to feel the wind pressure on the sail thru your arms, the minute wind angle changes thru the hair on your back, and shifting your body posture to capture the energy to propel you forward.
This is also true while sailing small boats. But the larger the boat the less you have that connection. When you get to heavy cruising boats like Kalunamoo, these subtle wind changes have little effect and the sense of being with the wind almost vanishes. But not totally.
Living on a boat always involves “being one with the wind and weather”. I write this as we are anchored in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua and the start of a week or two of strong trade winds. It will be quite different than the last few weeks of gentle, if not calm, winds.
This was fortunate as our daughter Melanie and son-in-law Dave flew down and stayed with us for a week. The winds were very calm for a few days which made for an easy ride up to Nonsuch Bay and Green Island. This is usually a slog upwind with large seas and not something to look forward to. But the wind cooperated, and we had a great time behind the reefs. Snorkeling and swimming were very pleasant in those conditions.
In fact, the wind really didn’t pick up much for the entire week, so sailing was not really in the cards The downwind run back to Falmouth was another motor sail but at least we caught a barracuda to make an interesting run.
Dinners aboard and ashore were wonderful, fresh lobsters and French cuisine despite some pirate activity.
But weather changes, and it looks like the “Christmas Winds” came late this year as strong trade winds are forecast until the end of the month. Melanie and Dave departed, a day of cloudy rainy weather arrived, and the Windman Cometh.
Winds out of the east at 25 knots plus, gusts to near 30 for two weeks will build seas to 10 feet between islands. In other words, we will hunker down here for the duration. Falmouth is well protected so there is no danger, but we will have to get used to the wind whistling in the rigging again. There is enough to do here in Falmouth so that is not a problem. We could also go around to the west side of the island: Jolly Harbor or Deep Bay if we want.
The technical explanation for this weather pattern is complex but can be simplified. The relatively light winds were the result of cold fronts coming down from the States to around Puerto Rico. They eliminated the pressure differential between the tropics and the central Atlantic that powers the eastly trade winds. That pattern persisted for a few weeks. That pattern has changed and so typical pressures return and strong winter trades blow!
When the cold fronts come to the States, the winds react in the Caribbean. Fires rage in the west, the new President huddles indoors for his inauguration, kids play in the snow while we hear the rigging blow. When the Windman Cometh, we are one with the wind but with the realization that we can only acquiesce to its effects. It is a reality check. Is that a similarity with those delusional characters and their eventual reality check, Eugene O’Neill wrote about in the play, The Iceman Cometh? Some could say that the flow of Caribbean rum and the perception of living in paradise makes the comparison valid. When the character Hickey arrived on the stage, the parties began, reality faded. But by the end of the play, O’Neill wrote that reality catches up to all.
KORU has arrived here. The impressive, although not that pretty KORU, sits in Falmouth Harbor. Jeff Bezos’s 417 foot mega yacht shares the waters we both float in. That yacht itself can be considered a delusional idea of reality. A constant party in Paradise. Who lives on such a thing?
Yes, in the end we become one with the wind, and reality does catch up with all of us when the Windman Cometh. We acquiesce to its dictates and wait for calmer seas. Reality will not be
refused.
Kalunamoo 