Watching the Weather from Culebra
We made it as far as Culebra. Culebra, per usual, was mostly closed for reasons. They open their businesses when they want to, take the day off when they have better things to do. Must be nice, unless you’re an employee. Dinghy Dock was still open. Imagine, a dock where one can tie one’s dinghy with the reasonable expectation that it won’t be molested by sea or casual vandals. It strains the imagination.
Nate, Edgardo, Stu, and Laura accompanied us across the Sonda de Vieques, enjoyed a fine day on all three of the beaches here, and then they returned via plane and ferry to Vieques. I enjoy sharing a place with friends without needing to be an official tour guide. Culebra is bite-sized and pleasant on the eyes.
We’re late in the season. Very late. We should be south, south, south. But now it’s September and there are threats from the weather. Isaac now spins and approaches, generating spaghetti probabilities of death and doom in our general direction. It’s hard not to think back to Maria, and losing this whole year in so many ways. The image of stretching tendrils of possible futures on the chart of the Atlantic make it hard to choke down all that fine cuisine coming out of the galley and requires a thorough washdown of bloody red wine and what rum we’ve packed. Such is the lot of voyagers. Soon we’ll need to decide whether to jump ahead, or flee south, or hunker down as the forecasts coalesce toward what we imagine reality to be.
How I wish we had finished the hard dinghy! I’ve only been gluing it together for the past four years. I’ve anointed the exorbitantly overpriced yet under-built blow-up raft with yet another patch on her bow, the hole courtesy of the fuel dock while I was distracted. But my lower back is grateful. A few minutes with glue and sandpaper is a small concession to pay compared to the daily necessities of lugging water, provisions, and fuel across the rubble-strewn sand and launch into the surf back to our mooring at Isabel II.
Sara is learning the intricacies of our little outboard motor and dinghy pilotage in the relative calm of Ensenada Honda de Culebra. Max is spending his days in the water or playing video games. It’s warm and sleepy here.
We have a shroud to replace in St. Thomas. It’s not critical yet, but worrisome. We may make the Virgin Passage crossing tomorrow, or Monday.
