Weather

A sleepless night – rolling around on the mooring in a 25-30 knot wind.  Daylight brought the rain.

Sheets of rain cascading over us like waterfalls.   Gigantic droplets flung sideways by the wind.  (No snow.)

Monday is garbage day.   The day you take your trash with you in your dinghy over to the freight dock.  Go into a tiny inlet there and a man will grab your garbage from your outstretched hand – you don’t even have to stop  your dinghy, just go slow – and he’ll fling it into a waiting truck.  But only between 8:30 and 9:30 on M, W and F.  And please don’t leave your trash there if the truck is gone.  So three days a week a parade of dinghies crosses the harbor with trash.  Except this morning.

In the worst of the downpour, one of the harbor rats – not his first rodeo – generously dons his foul weather gear, revs up his dinghy, and motors from boat to boat collecting trash – a sort of HopeTown-harbor-in-the-rain trick-or-treater.  “Don’t bother getting wet,” he calls when Goldwin pulls himself out into the rainy cockpit.  “I’ll just lean over and grab it.”  And he does.   “Thanks, Will,” we call from our dry, comfortable nest inside.

And then it was over – the rain only lasted about 40 minutes and then the sun returned.  But so did the wind, with a vengeance – 35 with gusts in the 40s.  Now the boat is rockin’ and rollin’, toing and froing.  She sails over to one side until the mooring line yanks her back.  Then she leans over, rights herself and sails to the other side to lean some more before being yanked back.  Looking out the companionway, I can see the tops of palm trees rushing past, then rushing back in the opposite way.  Back and forth we go, wagging in the wind.

Tomorrow we’ll claim the beach again.

Looking for treasures.

PS  Thanks for all your Facebook posts – loved them.