5/5/02 | Too much wind

We're sitting in French Harbor, about in the middle of the south side of Roatan, listening to the rigging howl. Something about this corner of the Northwest Caribbean does strange things to the weather. The easterly trades get squished between the mainland coast to the south and the Bay Islands to the north, squirting out ridiculously high winds. In the last four days, I don't think it's been below 20 knots; 25 to 30 is more typical, and our max wind indicator hits between 32 and 36 each night. Most cruisers are holed up, exasperated, waiting for weather.

Helene Harbor, where we were for the first day of this blow, wasn't an ideal harbor in these conditions. It's protected mostly by reef rather than island, and it's so big and wide open that we had a good quarter-mile of shallow water to windward of us. The water there is so shoal that waves don't build up, so it's not really bouncy, but we felt exposed, so we nerved up for the short run to French Harbor. Just getting out into the open water was scary, as we were beam-to the strong wind which kept trying to push us onto the reefy shore. The waves built nastily across the deep reef, but soon we were out in the blue water and could turn downwind.

It wasn't exactly uncomfortable going downwind, but it was not very pleasant. The waves weren't big, 6-8 feet max, but they were steep and choppy and broke frequently. When a breaking waves slides under your stern, it's like a wild carnival ride, fast and bumpy and unpredictable. Whitecaps streaked the surface everywhere we looked. We had about half the jib out (I wanted less, Britt wanted more) and slid along at 6.5-8 knots. We couldn't imagine trying to go the other direction -- the waves would bash and slow the boat to less than 2 knots. Near the tricky entrance into French Harbor, we rolled the sail most of the way in, and then started the engine as we turned across the waves. Soon we were first in the relative protection of the offlying cays and reefs, and then deep inside French Harbor Lagoon.

French Harbor Lagoon is not a place you'd want to be in anything but strong winds; it's a small landlocked harbor, the sort of harbor that tends to be airless and buggy when only a light breeze blows across the island. Although the "French Harbor Yacht Club", a dive resort with a few docks for visiting boats, is an expensive and moderately elegant place, the rest of the basin is surrounded by the slums of French Harbor, foul and trash-covered and stinky. The water is opaque and greenish, and you'd better wash your hands if any splashes on you. Several dozen large trawlers from Roatan's shrimping fleet are tied up here, although most are in the larger commercial harbor just to the west. Most yachts anchor in an open reef anchorage near the entrance to the lagoon, but with these "reinforced trades" we headed straight for the inside. (The real reason these are called "trade winds", I'm convinced, are because after a week or so of them, you want to trade them for something else!)

We anchored with care -- the bottoms in these places are usually soft, squishy mud (with a large, um, organic component), so we did our standard drill for these conditions, letting the anchor settle by itself for an hour or so before pulling on it to set and test it. While we were letting the anchor rest, the only other yacht at anchor here, a large catamaran, dragged anchor and drifted gently into the mangroves next to where three shrimpers were tied up. They spent the next hour or so trying to re-anchor, finally bringing out a huge Fortress ("Our storm anchor, which we've never used," said the man aboard later) which did the job.

So here we have sat for several days, waiting for the winds to ease. Not that we've been just sitting on the boat. French Harbor has the best supermarket in the Bay Islands (which is not saying much!) so we restocked a few minor things and got fresh veggies; we ought to be able to make it clear back to the US on what we've got on board now. We did laundry, or rather, got our laundry done, as the cost to have someone else wash, dry, and fold it was about $5 a load, the same as the (ridiculous) charge at the yacht club for the use of a washing machine alone. I paid a visit to the local doctor to clear up a problem that had been bugging me since Panama, mysterious itchy spots that had appeared after our big hike on the Chagres River. I had been bitten by a few tiny ticks and had assumed these spots were complications, and had been trying various combinations of antihistamines, antibiotics, and other medications, with some relief but no cure. As it turned out, the tick bites were a red herring -- I'd picked up a parasite called scabies, easily cured with a prescription lotion, and apparently very common in the rural tropics. I guess after knocking around the third world for a while, I should be happy I got something minor and easy to cure rather than dengue fever or malaria.

In addition, we've done a few social things with other cruisers and some of the gringos here. (The population of Roatan consists of three groups:  islanders, some of whom are black and others white; Hispanic Hondurans who have moved here from the mainland, disparagingly called "Spaniards"; and the part-time and full-time residents who are American or European, undisparagingly called "gringos". Of course there are also lots of tourists, and a few stray yachties.) One couple who started out as cruisers and became gringo residents, Donna and Dave, still keep in touch with the cruiser community as Dave does the weather on the morning SSB net. We met them and a few other cruisers for lunch at the yacht club and a discussion of a new email-over-HF-radio system, and they invited us to come with them the next day to a local gringo hangout, the Hole In The Wall, which serves a surf-n-turf buffet every Sunday. The food was great, and it was interesting to talk to the collection of expats who had moved to Roatan to find their island paradise. We met a few other cruisers, too, including some who had been in Roatan for so long they were practically residents. I can see the appeal of staying in a place long enough to become part of the community; on the other hand, without some daily work or project, we would get bored in a relatively short time.

Speaking of getting bored, French Harbor is starting to seem like a prison after less than a week. As soon as the weather breaks, we are out of here!