Squall at Bimini

Ananda
Ron Welch
Tue 15 Mar 2011 19:47
Latitude, 25:43.44N. Longitude, 79:17.87W,
"Looks like the skies are building.......look again...definitely the skies are building....actually what ever that is...IS BUILT... and it's moving this way!....that little boat is awfully close......perhaps we should pull in some chain before that mess gets all the way over here......winds are shifting and picking up......changing direction".....This was pretty much the conversation on the deck of Ananda the evening before we left to come to Nassau.....So much can happen in the matter of minutes.........next thing we knew Ananda was dragging her anchor, and we were headed straight towards the dock.....Roger at the wheel, Ron and Sharon on the bow evaluating the anchor situation, while mother nature, the originator of natural behavior, was "pitching a squall"....seems when change is imminent pitching a fit is simply.....natural behavior......musing aside,..... our anchor had shifted as the wind changed from the east to the North swinging Ananda around in a different direction.......squalls are unstable gusts of wind and rain that precede a high or low pressure weather system change, basically a brief storm that arrises suddenly. Before we could pull up the anchor and reset it the winds were "blowing stink".....gusting to forty knots and rain pelting down......Roger's experience at the helm paid off, and he maneuvered the boat around and away from the dock........the windlass wasn't holding....chain was rolling out until we managed to put the snubber on and hold it.....we were drifting away from the docks, but into the channel.........we weren't alone however,.....across the channel throughout our little drama another boat was having troubles of their own.....the jib and the stay sail had come unfurled....thrashing in the wind......progressively being shredded. (The boat was called Anaconda, and I kept thinking of how the prey of an anaconda would struggle as the life was being squeezed out of it.....much like their sails)......nature she, reveals great beauty, and in equal proportions....great power.......there is little room for marveling in a state of awe....its in the looking back, one can marvel at it.......as fortune would have it....our delta anchor reset it's self and held for the next fifteen or twenty minutes through the gusts and pouring rain......as quick as it had come upon us, it was gone.......a noticeable change in temperature with the wind blowing from the north was the only remaining evidence....well and the fact that we were in the channel and needed to make a decision whether to tie up in a slip or reanchor for the night.....an early morning departure considered, and a little watching of the wind direction....we decided to anchor in the same "sleepy" harbor and prepare for the Bahama banks crossing the next morning......