A day in the life of a sailor ……. waiting for a weather window

The wind is blowing 20-25 kn and I am tied up to a mooring ball off of Stocking Island, opposite Chat ‘n’ Chill beach. It is supposed to be like this all week with the wind settling down perhaps by next Wednesday or Thursday according to my PredictWind app. I’ve been here almost 3 weeks and the plan is to take my sailboat S/V Ileana back to Toronto before hurricane season which begins on June 1, 2022. The locals say it has been an unusually windy season in the Bahamas this year. Usually by April, the winds have settled. It would take a week to get to New York City under favourable conditions and then another week or so to get up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal, and then across Lake Ontario back to Toronto. The Erie Canal is not going to open up until May 20, 2022 so there is plenty of time to wait for ideal conditions to sail to New York City.

Typically I will wake up around 0600 in the morning…. It is very hard to break old habits but this is one of the nicest times of the day watching the sun come up over Stocking Island. I sit in the cockpit of my sailboat and have coffee. Ileana, (my wife not the boat) flew back to Toronto about a week ago so I’ve been spending time by myself. Usually I will recharge the batteries by starting the generator and let it run for for a couple hours. At 8 AM, there is a cruisers net on VHF channel 72. Here there is an update about the weather and any activities that are happening in and around Georgetown for cruisers. It turns out that there is a regatta this weekend. Since 1954, this annual event of traditional Bahamian sloop sailing takes place in George Town’s Elizabeth Harbour during the last full week of April each year. It is the oldest and largest wooden boat racing in The Bahamas and attracts the best sailors from all of the islands to compete to be the best in their class. The boats are made of wood and must be built by a Bahamian. They must follow strict rules such as no instruments onboard no tell tails on the sails and each boat must be inspected by the race committee and to make sure they are compliant.

To me, the boats seem a little bit flimsy. In fact while I was watching in the Georgetown harbor I saw one of these vessels leave and perhaps the wind was a little bit too strong and the boat flipped over. It sank…… but fortunately was rescued by a power boat and pulled ashore. I guess that’s all part of the excitement. People come from all across Bahamas to race in this regatta and I suspect that many of the boats never actually leave the harbor and remain strewn across the bottom of Elizabeth harbor. Another helpful reminder for me to wait for a good weather window before leaving Georgetown to head north…….

After getting updated with all the local news on the cruisers net, and a second cup of coffee, I then hop into my dinghy and motor to Georgetown which is about one mile away across the Elizabeth harbor. A dinghy is an integral part of their cruising life. It is like having a car at your home that takes you wherever you need to go but on the water. To go to the beach, take away the garbage or go to Georgetown where the grocery store is found, where I replenish my diesel supply for my engine, and pick up any parts that I might need to do various repairs of the boat. To get into Georgetown by dinghy, you need to enter through a small passage This takes you to the dinghy dock where you can tie up the dinghy and head to the grocery store or local bar depending on the time of day.

I then go on a 10 kilometre run. Although it is fairly hot, usually around 27 degrees Celsius there is a brisk wind which keeps me cool. I tend to run quite slowly so it is a very pleasant experience. I’ve almost been rundown a few times because I keep forgetting that they drive on the wrong side of the road here.  I suspect the drivers don’t pay much attention because they seem to listen to loud music and runners are pretty infrequent but so far I have been managing without getting picked off.

After getting my supplies of groceries, I then hop on my dinghy and head back to the boat. By this time it is often lunchtime. I then find it impossible not to have a nap. Usually this is in the cockpit under the Dodger and Bimini protecting me from the wind and the sun. The gentle motion of the boat puts me to sleep within a few minutes. After 45 minutes, I wake up refreshed and head out on the dinghy again to the local beach and tie up to a tree to prevent it from getting swept away on a rising tide. I then walk across Stocking island to the Atlantic side. It is here that the beach is totally deserted and goes on for miles. I spend at least 2 hours a day walking on the beach with my feet in the water. I have been doing this every day for the past two weeks and it never gets old. Because the winds have been so strong, the waves are huge and I can watch them for hours.

I then hike back to the dinghy and go to the sailboat. The highlight of the day though is watching the sun go down. Every night it is different. Sometimes there are some clouds and sometimes the whole sky lights up. It is always a surprise as to what it is going to look like.

It’s easy to get used to this lifestyle. I expect tomorrow, the next day, and the day after will be the same…….