The roaring starts way before it reaches us, just to let us know it’s on the way. It’s deep and distant, like wind ripping shreds off a mountain peak, when looking up into the blue from the valley base. But it will soon reach us here.
It catches the top of the mast first. Rigging wire whistles as the force starts to slew QuickStar sideways on her anchor. The gust intensifies and moves lower down toward the sea, teasing out halyards and other cords from beside the mast and slapping them angrily on the resonant aluminium. That noise conducts straight down into the cabin, where the mast forms part of the wall before bedding it’s huge load against the keel. I put my head a little further under the pillow for sleep.
The wind bullet is now localised enough to catch QuickStar’s hull broadside. Lying in bed I can feel the hull pulled sideways, slewing us across the water, around the arc of our anchor chain which hopefully tethers us to the bay. Water sloshes against the hull a few centimetres from my pillow. Once again my mind goes down to the image of the anchor, which I swam down to inspect yesterday, to check how it was holding in the sand. With just a few minutes of untethered drift we would be blown onto the nearby coral reef. And that means likely severe damage, and possibly worse.
The wind generator has been quiet in the lull between gusts, but now revs up into a breathy, expectant whirr as air stalls over the blades, then hits it’s favourite speed and sings into a high pitched whine. It pumps energy into the batteries - power that we’ll use for all sorts of things during the coming day - radio, bilge pump, perhaps the microwave for cooking. But what I care about right now is the anchor monitor on the iPad. That tracks location during the night and sounds an alarm when the boat shifts, which causes a Pavlovian response in our adrenal system: it means the 12 tonnes of QuickStar is drifting downwind in the dark. Despite the technology, I get up and check the screen often during nights like these for a little peace of mind, just in case the alarm didn't sound. It’s happened before. This time we are holding fast and QuickStar’s movement paints a lovely solid arc on the map around the anchor.
The wind-bullet ebbs after perhaps only 30 seconds, and a short quiet returns, with the latent slapping of water and rigging struggling to maintain their rage, but now losing energy from the gust. I wait for the next bullet to come roaring off the peak in a minute or so. The distant sound is already building, and we’ve learnt to discern the sound of those that will hit us. These wind bullets are stronger than the actual wind outside the island, as if they circle in the shadow of the mountain, storing energy to pump down into the bay in short violent bursts. I stick my head under the pillow and drift back to sleep for a couple more hours.
Later: there’s crepuscular light in the cabin, and blue sky through the ceiling hatch, flecked with iridescent salt crystals catching first sun. The air feels very clean. The wind is still there, but daylight takes out some uncertainty and brightens the outlook - we can see the shore. Time to scratch the sleep out with a coffee on the gas as the Bosun, Squid and Dolphin stretch and stir from their cosy cabins and drift sleepily toward the saloon. The reef that was a dark, skulking threat is now beautiful shades of aquamarine and beckons exploration with a snorkel. Time to start the day.
Aubrey