Devil’s Gate wasn’t a place to
make a mistake, but it intrigued Sam and he had his binoculars
ready to take a look at the overfall that would be created by
this ebb tide. On a few rare days when the wind swung from the
northeast in a roaring williwaw, it stiffened the overfall at
Devil’s Gate to heights normally not found on sheltered
waters. Some said it reached fifteen vertical feet and stood nearly
straight like a concrete wall. Today was becoming one of those
days, with the dark of the clouds and the blustery winds coming
ever closer. Williwaw was a winter phenomenon not uncommon in
late October. It referred to times when weather conditions in
these water-filled canyons drove the winds to near magical speeds.
The natives said the word with a hint of reverence.
Down through the companionway door
stood two screens -- one radar and one GPS. The GPS was an electronic
map showing islands and channels enhanced by a satellite signal
that could depict the precise location of the yacht, while the
radar painted an outline of the surrounding shores. Sam had noticed
the drift in his course and continuously corrected.
His current course would take him abeam
the opening where he would turn toward Devil’s Gate for
a quick look before he did a 180-degree
turn to escape the cold-eyed rock walls
that sucked the sea through and into the small passage between
North and South Windham Islands.
As the wind tousled his hair he slipped
into a familiar reverie, in which the rushing of water and wind
and the vibrations through hull and sail functioned like a sniff
of good food or the sound of enticing music. It drew him. In sailing,
as in most areas of his life, Sam was a purist. If the wind blew,
he traveled; if not, he sat, except in dire circumstances such
as when he was running out of Cuban tobacco leaves for a good
cigar and he needed to get to the appointed mail stop.
He was looking forward to dinner and
an anchorage that was almost Zen-like in its serenity where he
could sit out what felt like a building williwaw. When beating
to windward, as he was now, there was no competing with the lift
offered by the big diesel, but he wouldn’t use it. What
he took from the wind was too important to him. It caressed is
face, fed his spirit, shivered the boat through the mast, dampened
the roll – a thing in harmony with the earth and not a thing
in opposition.
