duuuunnnn duun… duuunnnnnnnn dun ... dun dun dun dun dun dun, March 30-April 1, 2022
Sometime, probably about 15 years ago, one of my nephews used to run around our house pretending to be the shark from Jaws and we would all shout out the famous theme song as he ran around. The way one pretends to be a shark is by holding one's hands together on the top of one's head in imitation of a shark's fin. At the time his head was relatively enormous and his hands couldn't quite reach to the top of his head, making it that much more amusing. Since then, Lisa and I use that as our code to indicate that the nephews are on the way, either with the song or the hand gesture or both when their arrival is imminent. Over these few days, the theme song was heard pretty often aboard Dragonfly.
Shopping was done, the boat was mostly clean and the weather was promising (or at least decent) for a run north. So, we headed out of Georgetown on our way back to Staniel Cay where my family was flying in a few days later. The first day, the winds were a little bit high and the seas a little bit choppy, but we couldn't wait for a perfect day and it looked like we would be able to make a go of it without the motor. My finger scrape was a bit disappointing, not even looking to merit a band-aid. I was hoping to show off my super-cool Sponge Bob band-aid to my nephews who are now way too old to do anything but roll their eyes at it. The first day we were on the outside and the waves were tossing us around a little bit, but we were sailing briskly. Unlike our prior run outside where we raced a dozen or more boats who were all jumping on the perfect conditions, there were only a couple of braver sailors out there at all. Dragonfly was pretty untroubled, stomping along at anywhere from 6-8 knots with a reefed main and the genoa (I really want to call it a jib, because I always think genoa looks wrong). The seas were a bit sideways to us, giving us a bumpy passage with waves running 4-5 feet. It wasn't anything like bad sailing, but nor was it perfection. The upside of making good time was that we arrived at our overnight stop by early afternoon and soon anchored at the same spot we chose for the way down. Amusingly, I mean the EXACT same spot. When we activated our anchor alarm, we were sitting in precisely the same exact patch of sand, not even 10 feet distant from the two weeks ago. This was not on purpose, but apparently our eyeball sense of a good spot is the same every time. Unlike that day, there was only one other boat in sight, so there would be no anchor drama that day. We had a nice dinner and noted with some satisfaction that the weather promised to be nearly perfect the next day.
The next day was as perfect as advertised. The winds were a bit less and very close to directly behind us. We ended up flying the Code Zero alone and were doing 7 knots or a bit faster in 12-18 knots of wind. Additionally, we were now on the inside in the nearly flat waters protected by the island chain. Honestly, if you didn't have the gauges, you might have thought we weren't moving at all. The breeze on the boat was very slight as we were going the same way as the wind, making it seem like maybe 6 or 8 knots of air and to the extent there were any swells, they were traveling in the same direction as we were at just about the same speed. It was the most relaxed and easy sail we've every experienced on Dragonfly and we'd have happily done it all day long. However, we fairly quickly drew near to to Staniel Cay as all good things must eventually come to an end.
We were lucky enough to find a free mooring ball very close to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, which is where we would shuttle the Goldens back and forth from airport to the boat. The next day, I went ashore to make arrangements to pick them up and dispose of trash. I was able to arrange a jumbo golf cart rental to carry the Goldens and luggage around the little island. When I came back to climb in the dinghy to head back to Dragonfly, I untied it from the rocks where I left it and had to jump awkwardly between two other dinghies that were tied up a bit too tight and managed to give the dinghy a nice kick away from me. I had visions of falling backwards and braining myself on the rocks, so I instead chose to abandon all hope of dignity or staying on the boat and dove into the water instead. I quickly stood up and hopped into the dinghy and started it while scanning to see how many people witnessed my graceful cannonball. Somehow I don't think anyone was quite sure what had happened because I assume they would be unable to contain their laughter if they had.
People on Facebook were hoping for a picture of me after I fell in the water,
but Lisa didn't get one. I'm pretty sure I looked like this.
I came back home to Dragonfly and helped Lisa with our final cleaning and hunkered down for the sharks' arrival in the morning. I think we even swore off drinking for several days to give ourselves a fighting chance once our bartender extraordinaire arrived.
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