Hurricane Delta
This is the sorry sight that awaited us the morning after the ‘storm’, which turned out to be the remnants of Hurricane Delta. This explains the 4m swell in the anchorage and winds gusting 65 knots…
Small consolation to the owner of this boat, who (like us) had heard a forecast giving only 20 knots of wind, and so wasn’t overly concerned and had gone ashore. When the wind picked up (it came in very quickly), he tried to row out to his boat but the dinghy was overturned by the waves. He managed to swim to another boat, but by this time, his boat was holed on the beach.
Even worse, he was uninsured (like most single-handers) and so is reduced to selling off all the salvageable bits, most of which have been submerged in salt water.
Dave, as ever unable to resist a bargain, has bought loads – generator, watermaker, SSB (long-range) radio, diving kit, lead ballast, various fittings and oddments of teak…
So that has been this week’s job – stripping everything down, washing the salt water out and trying to get things working again and find space to install it all. The deck of the boat is full of ‘stuff’, it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever be ready to go out to sea again.
It is now too late to reach the Caribbean for Xmas so we are planning to head for the Cape Verde Islands instead and cross from there in the New Year. The Cape Verdes are a group of Portuguese islands some 800 miles to the southwest, 300-odd miles off the coast of Senegal in Africa, and about 7 days sail away. We hope to set off in a week or so.
Small consolation to the owner of this boat, who (like us) had heard a forecast giving only 20 knots of wind, and so wasn’t overly concerned and had gone ashore. When the wind picked up (it came in very quickly), he tried to row out to his boat but the dinghy was overturned by the waves. He managed to swim to another boat, but by this time, his boat was holed on the beach.
Even worse, he was uninsured (like most single-handers) and so is reduced to selling off all the salvageable bits, most of which have been submerged in salt water.
Dave, as ever unable to resist a bargain, has bought loads – generator, watermaker, SSB (long-range) radio, diving kit, lead ballast, various fittings and oddments of teak…
So that has been this week’s job – stripping everything down, washing the salt water out and trying to get things working again and find space to install it all. The deck of the boat is full of ‘stuff’, it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever be ready to go out to sea again.
It is now too late to reach the Caribbean for Xmas so we are planning to head for the Cape Verde Islands instead and cross from there in the New Year. The Cape Verdes are a group of Portuguese islands some 800 miles to the southwest, 300-odd miles off the coast of Senegal in Africa, and about 7 days sail away. We hope to set off in a week or so.
posted by Katie at 10:32 AM
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