Porpoises
Porpoises, like their outgoing cousins the dolphins, are typically thought to be good omens for sailors. There are however a couple of porpoises that one would not be so lucky to run into, figuratively or literally.
On the south coast of Grenada, just off of Prickly Point, lies a 3 foot high cluster of rocks that are “as nasty a group of rocks as you could find to get wrecked on,” or so says Chris Doyle in his book Sailors Guide to the Windward Islands. The rocks are awash and often difficult to spot, and as is typical in many parts of the world, they are unmarked by any buoys or lights.
Public Service Announcement 🙂 Please vote for our buddy Carlton Grooms in the Tommy Bahama Rumologist contest. Not sure why you should? Check out this excellent post by our friend Rum Shop Ryan! I’m sure it will convince you.
There is plenty of room to safely travel between them and the mainland, but one certainly does need to be aware of their location when transiting the area. These porpoises would not be too cute so see up close to your boat!
Friendly porpoise.
Not-so-friendly porpoise!
This would be pretty hard to pick up at night or in bad weather.
Always love to see photos of ocean wild life! Thanks for sharing my post on Carl, hopefully we can push him over the top.
Cheers!
You’re welcome Ryan, and yes, if everyone gets on board we’ll definitely be able to help Carl win.
As our friend Rich noted on Facebook, yes we did slip that plug for Carl in on “porpoise.” 🙂
I am partial to dolphins myself — Naia means dolphin in Hawaiian 🙂
But those rocks – eeek!
p.s. Go Carlton!
We sailed by those rocks today. Ugly! Naia on the other hand is Beautiful. 🙂
Some nice tips there Mike. My dad always told me to stay out at sea if your not sure of conditions of a port or light is poor. In particular, try and avoid docking at night in unknown ports. Sadly I personally know of people who have lost their life trying! Even if the wind is howling and you are dying to be on land.
On a separate note, concerning staying with your boat at sea is the facts that came out after the infamous 1979 Fastnet Race with winds in the region of Force 11/12. There were 15 fatalities. Most of these fatalities were caused by yachtsmen who abandoned their boat to board their liferafts which then upturned and were destroyed by the big seas……their unmanned abandoned yachts carried on and ended up foundering on rocks off the Southern coast of Ireland….So their boats were obviously safer than being in the liferaft!
Rule number 1. Dont enter a liferaft unless you know your boat is going to Davy Jones locker (i.e. sinking fast)!
Sad that you know people who were lost in that way, David. We always planned passages to arrive in port near mid day. We have only entered a new port at night on a few occasions and each time we did, they were ports with very well lit channels.
I too have heard those stats regarding the Fastnet race. Also sad. Not much risk of us abandoning ZTC though because outside of our dinghy, this IS our lifeboat!