March 2, 2007

Last night we had some rough winds it was blowing 20 and gusting to 35 on the docks and above 45 out on the Cumberland Sound according to a fellow anchored out on the sound itself. I woke up to really hard rain and thunder and lightning so I just pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep. It was grey and still raining this morning when I got up to fix breakfast. I messed around and read a little more in the chart book and some more in the companion book for the charts and watched the tides and currents here in the dock to give me some idea of how these might work if I was anchored out. Just when you think you have thought of all the details there is still one that might have been left out.

The Portuguese guys just up from me that have been talked to by everyone from Immigration , Coast Guard, etc. were told they had to be off the dock and on the water at midnight last night. I found that one of them spoke a little English and he told me they were from Brazil and that's where they were headed when one of them had his visa run out of days. Well, at midnight that is when the wind was blowing the hardest and I had gone out to help them turn the boat around with others so they could leave and go down wind. Every one thought that the Coast Guard could have given them until daylight to leave because they were waiting for a new engine alternator and it would arrive in the morning. It just proves how unbending the Immigration people can be. How can you make four guys go to sea in those conditions at night, unfamiliar with the area and the weather and hope that they will make it on a boat that I thought myself was questionable to sail in broad daylight. It was bad enough that the owner said he would probably only sail the boat at half of its ability just to make sure he got to Brazil with it. I wished him good luck and this morning when I got up it was gone. I went down to the dock house this afternoon and found out that they just sailed around and when daylight came they quickly sailed back in and got there alternator that they were waiting for and then left again. So in a way they won anyhow but it could have been bad had they been caught. Without the alternator they had now way to charge batteries as the old one was corroded.

I have been out walking around again today to pass time and sitting on park benches listening to the troubles of the world and everyone else with their problems. Sitting on the boat this morning I watched the pelicans. They have the most interesting little habits and gestures amongst themselves and each other when you have time to observe them. Today I noticed the brown and blackheaded pelicans do not like to sit next to the white and yellow-topped pelicans and the white ones really don't like any of them. Does that sound just like the world. Some sit and look like they are discussing politics and the females are always preening themselves and kind flirting with the males. There was one brown head though that really had a problem today.
He kept jumping in the water and ducking his head under and then he would throw his head up in the air and look like he was gargling with mouthwash. He must have got a piece of garlicky flounder or something that wasn't sitting right in his craw as he kept straining water through it. The folks here at the city dock are opening up a new section of docks and when they move to work on another section or wash you know what off the first one all the birds move over and go to the dock they just cleaned up. The animal world is so much like us but we never take time to look at them in that way.

After all of the things that happen in a day and when all hope is gone we all get the chance to see what really matters if we just look around and enjoy the good and it tempers all the things we cannot control when you see the wonderful sunset after period of bad weather. It just makes the heart sing and makes you really wonder who must be in control because in spite of it all there is so much to be thankful for.