Well, I’m feeling kind of smug about spending all that money on renewing Escape Velocity’s ground tackle these days. Apparently it’s called the Christmas winds. Weather guru Chris Parker says they’re reinforced, whatever that is, and it’s like when I was a kid I’d listen to Dylan songs and I thought I knew what they meant, that was until I really didn’t have a direction home or I truly was on my own…how does it feel? It’s a little unnerving… that’s how it feels, Mr. Zimmerman, unnerving.
It’s just like this wind. We’ve been anchored in higher winds but just not day after day of consistent high twenty something into the thirties, and the weekend is threatening to be worse. It’s kept us cooling our heels in Bequia, in truth not a bad place to be stuck, but it’s not cheap and you can just forget about a decent chandlery.
However, Bequia boasts having its own self-proclaimed Ferrari expert…but how would one know? A fellow cruiser and I hunted Mr. Wallace down, a proper Scottsman engineer, in a back alley shack behind the Bequia Bakery…no Ferraris in evidence.
He lives on a huge white rust-streaked ex-naval ship really, moored out in the harbor flying an over-sized blue with white X Scottish ensign. He did a great job on the weld for my friend’s humble generator exhaust elbow but he did it at a Ferrari price. Welcome to Bequia.
We’d planned to be in Puerto Rico for the holidays but the sea state around here is to be taken seriously…so we will. Nine to twelve foot swells or more with wind driven chop is just not fun. Still, we see yachts coming in and going out all the time. It’s one of those very familiar tough calls. Stay in windy but well-protected Admiralty Bay or take a pasting in the passes between the islands just to head up island and wait out the weather in a more productive place. What’ll it be?