Is That Boat Going To Hit Me?!

The noise of the wind quickly increased from a low roar to a loud roar in just a few seconds. This noise makes me jump out of bed and race up to the salon to look out the windows. The first thing I see is one of the seven seat cushions in the cockpit is lifting up on one side. The cushion has two snaps holding it in place, the wind is trying to pry the snaps loose and then another reinforcing gust comes and pops the snaps free and the cushions is airborne flying across the deck. All this happens just as I arrive in the salon and look out the back window.

One seat cushion gone, six must be saved quickly! I open the back door and race to unsnap the remaining cushions. I jump through the open doorway and I am hit with the blast of wind, the lights of the harbor allow me to see into the darkness of the night. Before I start gathering up the doomed cushions, I glance into the water where the flying cushion should have landed, but me eyes stop at the edge of the boat where the cushion is unbelievably pinned against the parallel twin life lines that run around the entire boat. I froze for what seemed like a few seconds as I can’t quite believe the scene I am seeing. The three foot long green seat cushion is hanging in midair like a picture on a wall not moving despite the howling wind coming side ways across the boat.

Forgetting about the others, I leap across the boat to grab the lone cushion before the wind lets up and allows gravity to pull it down away from the metal lifelines into the waiting churning water. I grab it and pull it away thankful for the wires that held it in place. I toss it through the open doorway into the salon and gather up the other ones and toss them through two at a time. I follow the last one into the shelter of the salon. Juliette is standing next to the pile of wet green cushions. Through out the seat cushion ordeal I barely noticed the light sideways rain that accompanied the wind.

When we went to bed earlier, we knew a blow was coming and we thought we were well prepared for it, that afternoon we anchored in a better spot with a sandy bottom that helps hold the anchor in place. The place I chose in Nassau Harbor was away from the large group of other boats on the south side. We were on the north side with one other boat, a fifty foot double masted wooden sailboat.

The harbor is open to the ocean on the west end were the gigantic cruise ships with names like “Carnival Princess” enter and tie up to a large dock and empty their cargo of thousands of tourists on to the waiting streets of Nassau’s souvenir shops and the east end of the harbor is open to the shallow banks of water that extend down into the Exumas Islands. It is a very busy harbor with a current that runs through it, changing direction every six hours with the rising and falling tide. That night the out going tide was making our boat and all the other boats face east, but when the winds from the cold front arrived they were blowing from the west. So, the current in the harbor was flowing in one direction and then the sudden strong winds show up blowing in the opposite direction coming in over the backs of all these boats. The results were eerie.

As we stood next to the pile of wet green cushions looking out over our “backyard” the large wooden sailboat behind us is being driven by the wind away from the current and out toward the middle of the harbor. It looks as if neither the current nor the wind has won in choosing the direction in which the boat will lay, but the boat is squeezed out between them like a seed of a lemon wedge that gets spit out from its squeeze. As the boat moves out toward the south, I know the guy has out 150’ of anchor line and I hope that when the boat reaches the end of it, the set anchor keeps this large boat tethered to the sea bottom, because if the boat pulls it’s anchor free of the bottom there is a chance it could drag itself into me! We watch the boat over the next ten minutes being squeezed to the south, reaching the limits of the anchor line, then turning north until it reaches it again. Their anchor holds! Yes! All the while my boat is doing the same and my anchor holds as well. For some reason I felt that it was a bigger deal if I had to react to a boat bearing down on me in my some what helpless position of being anchored securely while the other boat drags into me, than if my own anchor becomes dislodged and I have to jump up and start the engines and pull the anchor up in the 40 knot wind and then try to find a place to reset it in the dark, windy, rainy night.

The wind increases to a steady 30-35 knots with minute long gust of 40 knots. The current loses its battle with the wind and all the wandering boats are now firmly lined up with the direction of the wind. We are watching our position on the chart plotter and we are sticking like glue to the sea bottom. Unfortunately not all the boats in the harbor are unscathed. As we look out the windows into the rainy, windy, night the seas in the protected harbor are building to two footers with the tops of the waves being blow off down onto the next sets of waves behind them, we spy a lone sailboat slowly motoring into the wind out in the middle of the harbor. Over the next hour I watch him motor past us then a few minutes later he changes course and returns by us again. For the first thirty minutes and three trips by us he doesn’t have on any lights, no anchor light or any running lights. Its obvious to us that the wind came up on him and dislodged his anchor. In his haste to secure his self and his boat, he forgot to turn on his lights, it’s no big deal. On the fourth lap around the harbor I look up to see he has turned on his lights. I can only image that this guy is all alone and trying to reset an anchor in this harbor (bad holding in most areas, [not enough sand over a hard bottom]). I realize that there is nothing I can do for him and sit back and both he and I wait for the wind to die down.

Accepting that there is nothing more for us to do, Juliette returns down to the bedroom while I remain in the salon deciding to sleep on the sofa so I can keep a closer eye on the situation. It seems strange to get a kick of joy from being in somewhat dangerous circumstances, but I think maybe I am becoming addicted to the doses of adrenalin that course through my body during times like these…. Yes!