We left the Exumas and sailed across the blue 5000 foot deep ocean to Rock Sound Eleuthera. The next morning we pulled anchor and sailed to Hatchet Bay entering a very narrow slot through the rocks, fortunately in daylight.

There was one small mooring ball unoccupied, and it was full of barnicles. Tita was uneasy but we grabbed it and put out 4 lines and attached our own shackle. The water was not clear and we could not check the connection from the bottom of the mooring ball to the ocean floor with our "looky bucket".

Tita was visibly upset (tears), since the whole reason for coming to this harbor was to get prepared for the coming strong cold front, Friday night and Saturday!

I said, "I'll try to break the lines", and backed down on the engine expecting no problem. At only 1200 RPM however, we and the mooring started to drag backwards toward another cruiser! Yikes.

We immediately dropped all the mooring lines and looked for a safe spot in Hatchet Bay to anchor. After letting out 125 feet of chain, we successfully tested our hold to the bottom by throttling up the engine to 2000 RPM astern. We never moved an inch!

Never - Never doubt the intuition of a Tita!