Wherever the Winds Blow

Through the Sky and Across the Sea

- Sam Weigel

Tonight I am nestled in a cozy corner of Windbird’s enclosed cockpit, feet propped on her helm and a rum drink in my hands as I watch her dance to and fro across the anchor chain in the faint light of a milky half-moon. We are in the Bahamas’ Berry Islands and have tucked into a serene sandy cove for the evening — but the mood is hardly tropical, for at sunset the wind picked up to nearly 30 knots from the southwest and transformed the turquoise water of the anchorage into an inky froth. A cold front is approaching in the darkness; a falling barometer and a towering line of squalls to the west foretell its arrival. Both the storms and the abrupt wind shift upon frontal passage present a potential threat to my little 42-foot world, and so I am staying up late to ensure that my boat (and wife, dog and most of our earthly possessions) stays securely anchored through the night. To pass the time, I open a notebook to scribble my thoughts of the day — but it is hard to write when you cannot think, and in sailboats as in airplanes it is sometimes hard to hear yourself think above the howling of the wind through the rigging.