Gusty winds from the north on an August evening in Tashmoo

This past weekend we spent aboard Yuletide. Arriving on a Friday night, I could see the lights from the Oak Bluffs fireworks color the eastern sky. As I sat in the cockpit in the dark, I could see the colorful glows to the east, and a more ominous, regular burst of light from the sky to the south. As a storm quickly approached both the glow of the fireworks and the glow from the approaching storm became one, it started to rain and I could see that we were in for a spell of heavy weather.

By midnight the boat was rocking and rolling all over what is normally a protected anchorage. The wind was coming directly out of the North: cold, crisp and blustery. North is bad for Tashmoo, plenty of running room for a good chop to build as it marches south.

In the darkness belowdecks I could hear the halyards all banging against the mast in a huge calamity of noise and jerky motion. The boat shook as the wind grabbed her hull, and she would heel as the wind caught her broadsides. It was pitch dark, and raining. Numerous times I was awkened, very glad to have a one ton granite block holding me safe and secure.

The next morning I woke to the storm still blowing, yet the sun was out, and it was crystal clear. The waves were quite substantial, more than I cared for. Vessels around us dove their bows into the waves, coming up and over as the whitecaps raced by. I turned on the knotmeter, 23 knots..the weather radio announced we were getting thirty knot gusts...yeah, sounds about right.



By mid afternoon the wind had died to a whisper, and we started to see people coming to check on their boats.
A wild morning, followed by a peaceful evening. Sailboats were sailing about the harbor by night time, as if nothing had happened to break the peaceful summer.