Bye bye Falmouth! Let's roll...wait...no, NOOOOOO!
There is a fairly lame but also fairly accurate saying among sailors "if you wait for the weather, you wait forever"
We have been in Falmouth Harbour for the last 13 days, waiting out some weather, then waiting out some more, then some more...next thing you know we've got tons of soft growth on the swim ladder, chain and hull, and it feels like we have soft growth on our butts (metaphorically speaking...gross).
The upside is that we got lots of homeschool done with the kids, had some amazing hikes, explored both Falmouth and English Harbour, went dinghy sailing with the kids, discovered some delicious local food spots, and soaked in the history of the area.
Last week we decided when we left Falmouth we would head to either Green Island on the windward side, or back to Jolly Harbour for a day and then up to Barbuda. Greg really wants to go to Barbuda so we decided that if the weather permitted that's where we would go before I had to head back to Canada for a few days.
So for the last few days we've been thinking, and sharing with people: Barbuda.
Being the island amateurs that we are, we checked the wind forecast a couple days ago and got it in our heads that today was going to be a good day to go, make a stop in Jolly Harbour on Antigua's west coast, before sailing 30 miles north to Barbuda the following day. This morning we woke up, had a little adventure (wait for it) and then did another quick check of the wind forecast and headed out. The winds looked perfect (SE) and the swell? Well we didn't really look at it too much. We took a peak and it said 8-10ft out of the NE but we thought we'd be fairly protected hugging the coast around the south and west side of Antigua. Until we got out there...hmmm...so Aden was immediately seasick (no pukes but the bucket was close). And as we came around the south end of the island and started to approach Jolly Harbour we began noticing some massive breakers in the distance. These were not there when we were anchored here 13 days ago. In fact, as we approached the channel we were in a shallow but safe amount of water and not too far away from us off our bow a HUGE roller broke and we immediately made a 90 degree turn downwind to get the hell out into deeper water.
Greg enjoying the sail, Grace munching on some lunch while Aden tries to not thing about food. Note: the bucket at her feet. It’s one of my laundry buckets…thankfully still puke free :S
We totally aren't used to how waves and swell bend around these islands. We also aren't used to how the swell and the wind can do totally opposite things. The forecast said NE swell, but on this side of the island it's apparently NW due to the wrapping effect (we think)...that's a pretty big difference. Plus there's the hyper-local wave effect as the swell wraps further around the immediate headlands. I feel like that's the kind of knowledge that comes with experience, and when lacking experience, could come from other experienced people. We really were set on going to Barbuda and to some extent we kind of waved off the wave forecast (hahaha).
So here we are sitting in the outside anchorage of Jolly Harbour, rolling all over the place wondering why we left our PERFECTLY PLACED and calm anchorage in Falmouth.
Greg and I trying to figure out where the eff to drop the anchor in Jolly Harbour given how boats are flinging all over the place in the swell. We circled around several spots before deciding to keep out…the way the rollers were building as you got closer to shore was NOT cool.
Now Greg and I are doing the whole 'hindsight thing' and thinking we shouldn't have left Falmouth, or should have gone to Green Island instead, or...just not be here. The motion means everything squeaks and the dinghy will stay up. It means we'll have interrupted sleep. Blarg. So frustrating and generally dissatisfying.
And yet.
Calm the eff down.
What are the real consequences? A couple nights with some uncomfortable movement before it calms down and becomes lovely again. A change of scene. A fairly benign lesson on considering 'what if' the swell isn't exactly what it's forecasted to be. When it's that big (10ft), maybe it's worth assuming NE won't be NE, at least where you're planning to drop the anchor. We need to stop the self-flagellation and just be happy where we are.
And we really did have a nice sail up the island (until we saw those rollers).
So we are going to try and cut ourselves some slack. Knock out some work, and homeschool and take breaks as needed if it starts to feel yucky down below. And probably go to bed early knowing it will be a night of movement.
And being us, also debrief and try and think about what we could have done differently.It's so hard to know, especially when you are deep in a protected anchorage, what's really going on out there. And when the place is so big it's actually not that easy to find people who have just come in. So our main take-aways here are:
listen to the local cruisers net, especially in the days leading up to leaving your anchorage...we got out of this habit when we left St. Martin and we really should have been on the radio getting much more local and first hand weather reports
don't forget to consider how the swell might bend around islands...10ft swell is probably not going to just disappear when it's coming all the way from Africa just because there are some smallish islands in the way.
sometimes you just have to roll the dice, it might mean anchoring in not great conditions but this is why you have good ground tackle
Greg and I seem to be cycling through periods of feeling pretty confident and then feeling really stupid. Today we feel stupid that we made an unnecessary move from comfortable to less comfortable because we had the idea of Barbuda in our minds. Maybe tomorrow we'll do something really well and feel confident again.
It's comforting to know that we will get some things right, and humbling to know we also have many many stupid moments ahead of us.
Much love,
M
WAIT!!! What was the 'adventure' I alluded to earlier???
On a Saturday night at the Antigua Yacht Club happy hour I met the Captain of a J-Class race boat...a BEAUTIFUL J Class race boat. At 43.6m long, this boat is the youngest of a worldwide fleet of 9 - only 9 - classic race boats originally designed in the early 1900's. After we chatted about various sailing things he totally invited all of us for a tour of the boat. AMAZING. So this morning at 9:00am sharp, we loaded our freshly showered selves into our dinghy and got to walk through this feat of engineering and ask as many questions as we liked. 55m tall carbon fibre mast. 16m long spinnaker pole. MASSIVE hydraulic winches. 9ft diameter wheel. What a cool experience. Sometime in the next few weeks we'll invite him over to our slightly smaller vessel (hahaha) for a rum among Beenie Boos and flip flops...on a day where we aren't feeling too stupid hopefully :P And now I have closure. Beer o'clock.
We are geeking out hard here.
And here… ;)
