We have had a few very windy days. Wind is from the south, which means warmer air (it will be 22 tomorrow!) and some African dust. It still amazes me that we get dust from Africa. Maybe next winter we will fly there to visit.
The title image shows waves breaking over the wall to the south of the marina. The wall is 2 or 3m high. The two boats tied to the wall are heeling quite a bit from the wind. Last year the boat on the right (a charter boat) had a tiny bit of jib-sail out during a bad wind storm and we heard that sail get torn to pieces by the wind. The wind (about as windy as it is now) slowly worked the sail out and then proceeded to shred it after it was continually whipped around. Eventually the fabric gives out and it begins to come apart. It was crazy loud.
What windy here means is: at night you may have some trouble sleeping if you have a line slapping against the mast. If the wind speed creates the right frequency a line, even if tight, will start to vibrate and ‘slap’ against a mast (we have 2 masts: the main and the mizzen mast). I have a network of bungee cords holding the lines away from the mast which work most of the time……but still occasionally we will get a slapping sound, or a vibration in the rigging, or a neighbour’s boat (even far away!) will make noise.
At night the sound of the wind comes in waves, and you can hear gusts coming from far away. You hear louder sounds in the distance, and they get closer and closer until you get the gust. As proof you can get used to anything I can now sleep like a baby through the wind and various sounds and some part of me will recognize a sound that is not normal and wake me up. It is a bit like looking after a baby!
The wind today gusted to 60 knots (which is about 110km/h!) a few times which is exciting. I was on the deck walking around checking things while the boat got rocked by both some waves in the harbour and the wind…..so the boat is moving around a fair bit and the wind would be strong enough for me to grab something for stability. I’m not going to blow away but it might knock me off balance. Facing the wind you get spray from the ocean. The amount of energy required to move all this air must be astonishing.
Also, our dock, which is partially floating, became disconnected from the ramp to shore. I went outside to run an errand in town and saw a lots of our dock-mates outside looking at something, which turned out to be the marina personnel trying to reconnect the dock!
Adventures on Spruzzo 