A week of strong winds vanished on race morning for the start of the 41st Dauphin Island Race on April 24. The sailing competition, one of the largest one-day sailing events in the nation, attracted more than 230 boats from all over the United States.

The floor of the George Town laundromat was awash, and I was acutely aware of the crudity of the electrical connections to the washers and dryers. Several cruising types, apparently oblivious to the danger, sloshed about loading machines, folding sheets and stuffing fluffy clean laundry into their backpacks for the dinghy ride back to their boats.
         I suppose the mass electrocution of a group of patrons in the local laundromat is a little improbable, but it did occur to me that, if we were to come to any harm on this adventure, it was more likely to be from the bite of a rabid dog or by being hit by a gua-gua with defective brakes, or, yes, by being zapped with 240 volts from a mis-wired washing machine, than by the coral reef or hurricane against which we were on constant alert. It reminded me of the daredevil who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He died in Paris years later when he slipped on a banana skin.
         Carol broke into my macabre reverie to introduce a pair of happily un-electrocuted launderees: Wolf and Gail from the sloop Tanzer. Wolf is a German who speaks English with a regional accent of such authenticity that I will never again treat with scepticism those spy novels in which Nazi agents pass themselves off as English trawlermen in Cornish pubs.
         Gail was robust and was probably brilliant in hockey at school. She had a lovely sense of humor and a fiercely competitive spirit, and she exercised both at a dinner and Trivial Pursuit session onboard Tanzer that night. It was an evening of fun and merriment, and Wolf was generous to a fault with the contents of his liquor cabinet and wine cellar. The journal records that the following day was spent in quiet recovery, walking the beach on the seaward side of Stocking Island and lounging around in the cockpit.
         George Town is a delightful place to spend the winter. The seaward side of Stocking Island is a mile-long beach of silver sand, often deserted. The Peace and Plenty Hotel and the Two Turtles provide social contact to counterpoint the blissful seclusion of the more remote anchorages within Elizabeth Harbour. And there is always the bonhomie and community spirit of the popular "suburban" anchorages where there are volleyball games each afternoon and, now and again, barbecues and nautical flea markets.
         We were able to supplement our chart and cruising guide inventory at those flea markets, and, if we'd had the space, I could have added considerably to my collection of nautical knickknacks or snapped up tons of surplus ground-tackle for a song. The guy off Tacolopes bought an ancient but serviceable autopilot and fitted it to his dinghy!
         George Town has a small saltwater lake in which the formal dinghy dock is located, accessed via a narrow cut passing under the road. People would stop for a rest and a gossip on the stone bridge parapets and watch the dinghies buzzing backwards and forwards beneath, waving and calling out to anyone they recognized and generally having a great old time.
         One afternoon Carol and I were about to enter the cut from the seaward end, enroute to the Two Turtles for our Friday night jump-up, when we had to do a hasty about-turn to accommodate an outbound eighteen-foot speedboat. Standing at the steering pedestal were two hot-shots, looking cool in their reflecting sun glasses and baseball caps worn backwards for, I assume, greater aerodynamic efficiency. An enormous Mercury outboard, 90 horses at least, was popping and spluttering on the transom. With the acoustical enhancement provided by the stone bridge, it sounded like the grid of the Indianapolis 500 waiting for the flag to drop, and all eyes were upon the boat as it emerged from the cut.
         The pilot jammed open the throttle and they were off, the bow straining skyward and the stern squatting deep as the big prop bit, sending a rooster tail of water billowing behind them. One nanosecond later there was a "WHAM!" and then a silence so complete it was shocking. The speedboat bobbed in its own wake, and the crew, now hatless, were sprawled in an undignified heap in the bow. Of the monster motor there was no sign, save a small cloud of blue smoke drifting over a growing oil slick, just where the barely submerged sandbar is at the entrance to the cut.
         Communication between the Elizabeth Harbour floating residents and with many locations ashore is via VHF radio. It's used like the telephone, and you can tune in at any time to hear private conversations, requests for taxis, reports on the day's special at the Exuma Market, and a range of community service announcements. Every morning there is the news and weather presented by Fish Hound, who must have done this professionally in a former life because he does a really great job. First we get the weather report, then the world news, albeit with a strongly American spin, and then a series of announcements from listeners, usually other boats, on topics ranging from the lost-and-found, through requests for help with boat maintenance problems, to the time and place of the next Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. This latter announcement is often followed by some unkind wag butting in with "bring your own bottle."
         Such an easy place to stay, such a temptation to linger until the spring and then head back to the States for the summer, only to do it all again next winter. Get thee behind me, Satan! We must be off, there's adventure to be had down-island, and the hurricane season waits for no man. We had run out of excuses to dally. The last bureaucracy had been taken care of, our affairs were in order, the boat's proper registration document had arrived from England, and, as a former colleague used to say, irritatingly, "We're 'A' for away!"

Chicken Gulch At this time there were about 120 boats in George Town, scattered throughout Elizabeth Harbour, and more arrived each day. By the time of the "cruiser's regatta" in March there would be 300 boats or more. New arrivals were always a source of interest, and particularly if they were arriving from the east, because that way lay adventure. Coming from the east meant you were returning home to the U.S. after a Caribbean cruise or from Europe, completing an Atlantic circumnavigation. You'd been there, done it, got the T-shirt!
         Arriving from the west meant you were cruising down to George Town for the winter, probably nipping across the Gulf Stream from Florida after tooling down the Intracoastal waterway from home ports in the Carolinas, Chesapeake Bay or New England. Or, like us, you were leaving the U.S. to island-hop your way to the Caribbean, willing to endure excruciatingly uncomfortable windward slogs of short duration in order to enjoy lengthy sojourns in fascinating tropical paradises. Many of the cruisers in George Town arrive there with plans to continue on to the Islands, or to Venezuela, or to the Panama Canal and into the Pacific. Many go and many don't. George Town is known as "Chicken Gulch" in sailing circles, for it is here that many an ambitious plan has foundered before it has really begun.
         We spoke to several cruisers who were suffering the agony of indecision: To go or not to go? Wolf and Gail had already decided to go back to Florida in the spring. Both have Atlantic crossings under their belts, but to take their own boat on the thorny path to the Caribbean was for them, eventually, too onerous an undertaking. Todd and Maureen on Samantha had been struggling with the decision to go or not to go ever since we met them and were still trying to decide on the day we left. They may still be in George Town, for all I know.
         Once you leave George Town, you are locked in battle with the northeast trades, which blow relentlessly at 15-20 knots. The six to eight-foot chop they generate ensures the journey will be wet and bumpy while unpredictable currents and the close proximity of land guarantee that navigation will never become a bore.
         Even so, for Carol and I there was just no question. This was a dream too long nurtured to be killed by last minute nerves, even if it did take three attempts to leave and an effort of will not unlike that required to jump off the high diving board for the first time. Like the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, when they are trapped by the posse at the top of a gorge and the only escape is to leap off the cliff into the swirling waters a hundred feet below, we jumped.

The Out Islands We left George Town three times. The first try was via the Conch Cay entrance at the western end of Elizabeth Harbour, and it was quickly evident that we would not make it to Calabash Bay at the northern end of Long Island by nightfall. The wind was force six on the nose, and the chop was short and steep. Adriana was stopped dead every few waves, a matter of one step forward and two steps back, even with full revs on the engine. This scenario was no match for the tranquillity of Sanddollar Beach in Elizabeth Harbour, and we made a tactical retreat.
         Next day we tried again from the Fowl Cay entrance at the eastern end of the harbour, which gives a better angle on the wind. By late afternoon, after a vigorous beat under sail, we had the hook down in Calabash Bay. After a terrific meal of shepherd's pie, and a good night's sleep, we felt ready to tackle Cape Santa Maria at the northern end of Long Island, beyond which we would lose the protection of the land. As we reached northward in the lee of Long Island, I had not quite decided whether to fight dead to windward to reach Rum Cay or to take the easier course to Conception Island and wait there for a wind shift to make Rum, or even Mayaguana.
         It became academic almost as soon as we had cleared the lee of Long Island and encountered the steep chop on the bank, which runs a mile or so beyond the cape. Adriana was knocked on her beam's end, and Carol and I were sent sprawling across the cockpit. As the boat shuddered upright, shaking the green water from her deck, I remembered the golden rule for fighting the trades: "Wait for weather." I turned Adriana about, and we retreated to Calabash Bay.