Thunder, rain, and crabs?

Saturday and Sunday, August 22-23

In place of the Coast Guard boat’s noisy generator, Friday night brought wind and waves to Echo Bay, and the slapping and gurgling of the water against Braesail’s hull, the swooshing of the wind through the boat’s rigging, and the bouncing and swaying of the boat kept me from sleeping soundly. The breezes were less boisterous throughout Saturday, but they still sent wavelets scampering around the bay to set the fifty-some boats in the harbor dancing and swaying in the sunshine. As the hours passed, however, clouds assembled and thickened into gray billows, and distant thunder mumbled and grumbled about the speed with which the weekend was passing. We saw no lightning, no rain fell, and our cockpit remained very warm.

Walt finished constructing eleven Dyneema loops with which to fasten our staysail (a smaller sail that’s located forward of the mast but aft of the very large genoa sail in the boat’s bow) to the new Dyneema inner forestay that was installed in May. (Dyneema is an ultra-strong, lightweight polyethylene fiber that is 15 times stronger than steel by weight.) I finished my blog-post describing our activities of the previous two days and wrote to some friends, and we both enjoyed our normal routines of reading, writing, doing German exercises, napping, cooking, and cleaning. I watched the large anchorage fill with boats over the course of the day, and was pleased to see the elegant, locally “famous,” 160-ft.-long schooner Zodiac settle in at anchor near the bay’s mouth.

During the evening, Walt enjoyed a hot shower, one of the luxuries that living on Braesail affords, and the clouds that had threatened to bring us a dousing earlier, but that then had gradually dispersed, began to return, bringing their fascinating friends along to play with them in the sky above the hills as the sun sank slowly into the sea.

The predicted rain arrived during Saturday night—about a half-inch of it—and I was thrilled to hear its liquid fingers tapping out intricate rhythms on the top of our cabin every time I awoke! We rose at 7 am on Sunday in order to catch a favorable tide that would facilitate our two-hour journey to Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island, and how deliciously fresh and pure the air smelled as Walt raised Braesail’s anchor and we motored away at around 8 am! Some gusty winds were sufficient for sailing now and then, but Walt needed to run Braesail’s engine in order to test some of its systems and to recharge the boat’s batteries, and so we chose not to raise the sails.

After an easy trip, we anchored in commodious Prevost Harbor, where there were not nearly as many vessels as Echo Bay had housed. In addition to our usual activities, I took advantage of the boat’s wet exterior to do some cleaning, especially of surfaces adorned with dust and bird poop, and Walt did some work in the bow with our new removable forestay and decided on a way to store it safely against the mast when it isn’t in use.

In the afternoon, we spent a fair amount of time preparing to lay a crab trap near a protruding point of land near the entrance to the harbor. This involved unfolding and setting up a sizable circular dual-purpose crab/prawn trap, putting retained meat and fish trimmings into the bait compartment, launching our “tender,” Coracle, from Braesail’s stern, making sure that we could communicate via radio, and Walt’s motoring out to the mouth of the bay (with the large trap in the inflatable dinghy, there was no room for me!) to lower the trap into about 50 ft. of water. We have caught a few crabs over the years, but we have never been able to keep any because they were always too small or female. Will we have better luck this year?

This task accomplished, we set up my laptop so that I could use StarLink to participate in Sunday night Compline, a short online worship service (featuring prayers, readings, a psalm, chants, verses and responses, a hymn, and an anthem) that Walt, Martin, and I have participated in with some of Martin’s chorister friends since April of 2020. It’s a beautiful way to conclude one week and begin the next!

After enjoying a tasty dinner, we completed our daily German lessons, I began work on this blog post, and we crawled into bed on a perfectly calm and silent night watched over by a glowing gibbous moon.