Safe Shelter From the Wind

Thursday, June 6th – The forecast calls for increasing winds today with higher winds tomorrow including gusts up to 30 knots. We need to find a secure place to hunker down for a day. Ile Tié, about 8nm north, looks to fit our needs. None of these islands are very high so it is not so much the winds we want to avoid as the waves created by the wind. If we can’t get out of the wind, at least we can give ourselves a more comfortable ride.

Ile Tié is a very pretty island encircled by white sand. Anchored in 15 feet over a sticky mud bottom, we are secure. Though we can see the mainland in the distance and many other islands in almost every direction, we see no sign of human habitation. Only one small fishing boat is seen motoring along the shore of a far island. At night, without even a star shining through the heavy clouds above us, it is completely dark. Not even the outline of the island in front of us can be discerned. Away off to the horizon, the blink of a reef warning light can be dimly seen. Except for the howling wind, The First Mate feels like we are inside a lightless vacuum.

Friday, June 7th – Yesterday afternoon, winds pelted us well into the 20’s with wind gusts even higher. Today was supposed to be worse, but the morning’s forecast lessens the threat. Ile Tié looks like we could hike around it. Can we? We decide to give it a try.

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We follow the beach to the east end of the island. Looking back at Avante, she is picture-perfect anchored as she is.

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As the island curves around to its southern coast, we are now on the side which faces the prevailing wind. The way ahead becomes more challenging. Sand gives way to slabs of rock, and both give way to mangrove vegetation that we have to work our way around and through.

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Our trusty Rocket Guide says that there is a small settlement on this side of the island. If so, the whole thing must have washed away in some storm, for all we see is one solitary boarded-up house.

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There really is something called “Dumb Luck”, for it sure was with us on this hike! From Avante, we had seen all the exposed reef at low tide and knew that it would be difficult to get the dinghy ashore then. What we did not know was that parts of the coastline, which we could not see, are much too steep at the shoreline to be crossed at a high tide. Those sections only can be traversed at low tide. Fortunately, we did not encounter the first such section until we were well into the trek around the island, and that time span from when we had started had worked in our favor with the tide continuing to fall.

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Still the question remained: Do we retreat and return the way we came? No way! The First Mate counts herself lucky that all that got wet was her bottom half.

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The hike ended up longer than we thought it was going to be, but finally we reached the end point around which we knew for sure we would see our beach with Avante anchored off it. Fortunately, when we got to the dinghy and started out from shore, there was still plenty of water under us to get out across the reef. On reflection, we probably started just an hour earlier than the perfect time, but what a great hike it was! The First Mate likes a scrambling hike rather than just plodding along one foot ahead of the other.