Zen of Sailing the Caribbean in the Hurricane Season

“If you are unhappy it’s not because of external factors. It’s nobody else’s fault or problem. It’s not because you are poor or live in a small house, or even because you are ill. It’s because you have an inner emptiness that needs to be filled with light, and only you can do that. It is every person’s responsibility to seek that light. Happiness is not a right; it’s an obligation, because without happiness you have nothing to give back to humanity”

From: Walking the Himalayas by Levison Wood quoting from an audience with the Dalai Lama

I love this quote even though we just seem to go from one hurricane watch to another. There actually haven’t been any hurricanes this season but lots of possibilities. What will happen when one of these possibilities turns into a hurricane?

At the moment we’re tied up to a dock in St. Lucia but soon scheduled for departure for points south. We took a dock space for two weeks – a luxury. We haven’t been at a dock and living onboard since the end of January. We did have a wonderful break when two friends from Edmonton rented a house with a dock but apart from that we’ve been at anchor all of the time.

We  now have hot showers, unlimited water, garbage pick up and electricity. Amazing how all these simple things that one takes for granted onshore become luxuries when living on a boat. Talk about living simply – we collect water from the rainfall when it comes or snatch a container or two from shore based spigots, we try to recycle our garbage as much as possible but that’s hard in the Caribbean. We’ve taken to putting all used plastic into a single empty 5 litre container so our plastic waste doesn’t get scattered into the wind when disposed of on shore. It’s amazing how much plastic you can stuff into a 5ltr water container. Try it sometime…

Our electricity comes from solar panels. Here in the Caribbean we would be better off with a wind generator. This is the first area we have been where the solar panels don’t keep up to consumption and we have to occasionally start-up the engine to replenish our batteries. The wind however blows constantly unlike many other areas of the world. In an Australian anchorage many years ago our wind generator never turned for 7 months! Mind you we were in a very protected spot but that’s where we realised we would be better off with solar and for 25 years of sailing we have always relied on solar.

I’m trying to get on the ‘green’ bandwagon now that the full impact of our world’s environmental  problems are well laid out in Naomi Klein’s recent book – This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Environment. For a truly depressing outlook on our challenges then this is a good read. Not only does it outline the challenge but it offers some possible solutions. I’ll leave it up to this readership to take up the challenge and at least read the book if not at least challenge your views on our economic system.

Back to sailing: the winds blow (sometimes with great force), the forecasts continue to talk about tropical waves and dry Sahara winds contributing to mid atlantic tropical storm formations, the rainy season continues to deluge the roads and ditches and fill the water tanks, boats from many nations continue to go north and south in the Caribbean and the humidity continues to rise.

We haven’t had many sailing adventures other than to sail south from Martinique to St. Lucia a few weeks back, had a cell phone stolen while in the shop for unlocking, made a tour of St. Lucia with some sailing friends, sat in volcanic hot pools for the afternoon and had a few meals out but nothing much to rave about.

In a few days time we should be heading further south as the hurricane season heats up in August and we want to be somewhere relatively safe and south of the hurricane belt. Of course we’ll get warmer weather and right now feel like I want to be in the Arctic.

For those sailing the Caribbean at this time of the year ‘be at one with NOAA’!