Another Day of Crazy Wind

January 31st (Friday) 

Today was a fairly similar repeat of yesterday, without the excitement of a boat breaking free from the dock. We enjoyed our tea while practicing Spanish, and then, since the rain had stopped, I went out onto the dock to skip. As I was skipping, I was watching the seals on the breakwater, which were also watching me. Some of them slipped into the water, but many remained balanced on the logs. Occasionally one would snort at me, as though trying to tell me what a disturbance to their morning I was. The ones in the water would pop up to the surface and watch me, and then, as though startled by something, they would dive under with a splash. The seals that remained on the logs watched me intently, ready to slip into the water if I became more of a threat. It is interesting, Jason noticed while he was skipping, that as long as he continued to face the seals, the majority of them remained on the log, but as soon as he turned his back to them, and skipped facing the other way, they all spooked and splashed into the water.  

Since the wind was light, and it was still not raining, we decided to go out and check our prawn traps, and do some fishing. However, as we were getting into all of our layers, which took quite some time given the number of layers, it started to rain and the wind increased. We went out to check our crab trap, and since we only had one female, we moved it to a different area. Feeling the cold nip of the wind, and the chill of the rain, we decided to go back in and stay home for the rest of the day. According to the forecast that I had gotten from my parents, it was supposed to be better weather for the next day.

We worked on some projects inside the boat; we installed our inverter remote panel, worked on some wire looming in the engine room, and made water.

Around 16:00 the wind really started to build, and since it had been steady pelting rain all afternoon we were very glad that we did not go out fishing.  

The winds were back up to 40-50 knots from the southwest. Jason went out twice to check on everything, and luckily all seemed good. Inside our boat, during the gusts, we could really feel the impact of the heeling. We rocked around as though we were out at sea. Actually, we were rocking around much more than we did many days out on the water through the summer. At one point, sitting at our table in the salon, we got a particularly strong gust and our boat heeled over enough that straight out of our window I could see the 4x4 on the dock that we were tied to. I could also clearly see Kiki tied across the dock from us, whereas normally we looked out at the mountains and the sky. 

When it got dark, we could no longer see the water around us, but the waves were somehow managing to come into the marina more than they had been earlier. The Red Witch was bucking around and yanking on her lines as though she was trying to break free. The marina was definitely not a well-protected area from the southwest winds. 

We had been watching our barometer all day. Between 09:00 and 18:00 the pressure dropped 20 millibars, and five of those 20 were within one hour. 

We were hoping that the wind would calm off for the night, otherwise it would be unlikely that we would sleep much at all. The noises were loud and ever changing. The sound of the fenders rubbing against the dock echoed through the hull, and the last time that Jason went out to check on everything, he saw that the fenders were wearing away the wood of the dock, so it was not surprising that it sounded so terrible from the inside. Every time that quiet would settle around us, we hoped that it was the beginning of the end of the noise, but the next forceful gust seemed to be only moments away.