The fishing report, part 2

It is so much harder to describe an ordinary day. The first two days of our long awaited week of overnights in Cedar Keys were postcard picture perfect. We motored out to our favorite spots. We fished. We caught fish or not. The mooring we chose was just the right distance or not. We looked around uncovered at the morning and then covered up for the afternoon sun. We paused and gazed.

To write about an extraordinary day is so much easier. On Wednesday, we had read the oracles and understood the risks. "Scattered thunderstorms." We've been there. It's not so bad. But when we got out there, the current would not let us go, we could not tack, and so we made choices. We went behind Atsena Otie toward Snake Key and found ourselves under a black anvil cloud. It delayed and delayed and delayed and then it was right there. We waited ten minutes too long to take down the sails. Then we waited twenty minutes too long to abort our run to safe harbor at Snake. Then we were fighting the wind rain was driving horizontally from right to left the boat was heeling over then turning into the wind then heeling I was tying the mainsail I was holding the jib I was waiting for the captain to tell me to drop anchor and bring the bow into the wind. Mostly I later realize I was grinding my right lower ribcage into the top of the cabin and holding on for dear life. When the worst was past I said to the captain, should we drop anchor? He agreed, and even though the anchor did not hold fast in the wind, and we saw that our position shifted, I knew we were safer and going to make it when we pointed into the wind.

The captain kept a calm head throughout the storm. He was determined to make it back to shore under our own power. The jib halyard had got loose during the storm and when he started up the motor he found it wrapped around the prop. He realized the jib halyard had come loose and he was not going to budge without reattaching it to the mast. That meant the mast had to come down.

We demasted. The captain relined the jib halyard. We raised the mast. My part was very small. I don't have the strength to be much in the way of a crew after nine months of teaching English. But fortunately I have an understanding captain who is forgiving of my shortcomings.

Meanwhile I have been watching the Cornell redtail hawk nest and keeping an eye on the NYU hawk nest remotely. The fledgelings faced storms, captures, and releases. I don't wish to minimize the severity of our near gale experience. I can see it in my mind's eye. It is green sky and green sea and green island appearing and disappearing and reappearing. The wind is pushing the rain and the waves horizontally. An hour later when we were motoring toward Grassy Key, it was hard to believe it was the same place.