High Winds in Wrightsville Beach

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina – 24 nautical miles sailed, 8 kilometres walked

The strong winds had arrived right on schedule. By 10 am it was blowing at a steady 25 knots with gusts up to 30. The boat anchor held tight as she swayed back and forth, twisted and pushed by the relentless wind. After a slow morning, Ana was going stir crazy from being stuck on the boat for two days so I had to get her on land, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving the boat with the wild wind so I dinghy’d her into a nearby public beach then returned. I got back to writing, reading, and listening to a few albums Magnus had recommended to me while Ana walked into the commercial centre of Wrightsville Beach to pick up groceries. And I made bread.

The blustery winds had died down a bit so I dinghy’d into shore and met Ana on her way back to help her carry some of the groceries. We unloaded those at the boat then went back to shore to have a look around. What we found was a classic beach town. The main street had a number of bars and restaurants, a bike rental place, an ice cream shop, and a big surf shop. We treated ourselves to a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a sugar cone then walked down to the beach. The beach was huge and, surprisingly, full of people. I just wasn’t expecting anybody on such a windy day, but then we realized this was the start of the summer season here, and the clear skies and high enough temperatures brought everybody out. Since I missed the long walk earlier in the day I headed down the beach while Ana relaxed on our beach blanket. It felt like it had been a while since I’d done a long beach walk so I really enjoyed it and walked for a good hour, stopping only once to watch a seagull handle the front half of a fish he had picked out of the surf. The fish portion was too large for him to fly away with, and an endless stream of other birds swooped down looking to steal it, so this feller spent most of his time fending off the thieves with squawks and wing flaps between taking stabs at the open end of the fish, sometimes pulling out long threads of intestines which he was able to detach and eat. The incoming surf would then carry the fish away, but he’d chase it, and stay right on top of the fish rolling around in the whitewash, then carry on trying to eat it as the surf receded. I’m pretty sure there was a metaphor for human life somewhere there but I couldn’t think of it.

We returned to the boat and got her all sealed up as even higher winds were coming tonight and tomorrow.