White skies, Sunday, June 14, the jib sail is set to heave-to (seen in pix), as is the tiller (not seen in pix). Lolita (the 30' Beneteau) was deep anchored (hove-to) between Cayo Lobos and El Yunque. Silvia, Ramón and I (the crew) had our lunch, and then--Silvia on the port side (seen in pix), Ramón on the starboard side (not seen in pix), yielded to Morpheus (the Greek god of sleep)--the peaceful spell of the Caribbean ruled. I yielded to some muse, jotting down random thoughts on tender moments.
The skies were white, more than gray, with distant thunder heads. Threats of rain with occasional sprinkles, our rain jackets were square knotted by their sleeves--ready-to-use--in the cockpit area, in the event of the downpour that never came. The bright Caribbean blue waters were more teal-blue, choppy at times, becalmed, bewitched. We should have known when we left port. The flags on the first row of boats from the sea and the entrance sea rocks were flying west. The inner land rows, including our C row, were flying east. Something was sweetly amiss in our consistent tradewinds.
NOAA had no warnings, E winds, 10-15 knots, seas 2-4 feet, with isolated showers. All on their own, these numbers translate to an ordinary sail on an ordinary day. No magic there. Oh, but NOAA has yet to invent the magicmometer to measure Caribbean maritime magic (CMM). On my CMM scale, from 1 to 10, this was perhaps an 8.5, for the Caribbean is filled with much more magic--sea apples, sleeping spells, nirvana awakenings. All in a spell of four hours: 11:50 a.m. to 3:50 p.m. Our thanks to Lolita for all the magic (see Ramón hosing her deck after a well deserved scrub).
