The long-awaited storm finally arrived this afternoon. Based on the Satellite photo and the various GRIB files I have been studying, what we were hit with was the tail end of a long trough or front that ran between us here in the West Indies and extending to just north of Great Britain. The text files I have been reading indicate that the weather in the northern parts of the North Atlantic were getting a real dozy of a storm. Fortunately for us, the tail end that swiped over us was not bad. It mostly passed just to the north of us and the skies there looked really, really ugly. As the big, black clouds started to cover our sky, the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees and I was cold in just my tee shirt.

In anticipation of this storm, throughout the day a number of cruisers had come into our anchorage and most of the charter boats had left. Where they went to I do not have a clue. I sure hope they went to another anchorage and hunkered down.

As the storm approached, the seas started rolling in from the west and the winds rapidly switched from the west to the north. We only had winds up to 30 knots and they only lasted about 30 minutes. What generated our excitement was not the storm with the heavy rains or the blustery winds but a Canadian monohull that had squeezed in between us and our friends on S/V Blue Heeler. This boat had come in at the last second and dropped anchor way too close to both of us. At times he was within 20 feet of us and at other times, he shifted over to be within 20 feet of S/V Blue Heeler. I got our fenders out just in case one of us dragged.

Once the storm passed by, I was waiting for the Canadian boat to weigh anchor and shift his position to be a bit further away. The seas coming into our anchorage remained high and everyone was swaying, especially the monohulls. It was not very comfortable and the position of the boats were sliding all over the place.

The sun finally came out and I was sure the Canadians would move. Apparently, they were happy with where they were even though I am sure that Wayne and Alli were seething as much as I and Mary Margaret were regarding how dangerous the situation was with this Canadian boat. Finally, as I was getting ready to start yelling to them to move before they lost the sunlight, they came up and started to weigh anchor. Hooray! They went over to drop anchor between us and the shore which while still a bit close to us, was a much better location.

The winds for the next couple of days will be from the north as this massive storm moves out to the NE. The winds should return to blow from the E to ESE on Friday. Thus, it will not be until then that we will start our passage to Sint Maarten.

By the way, I have been informed that a few of our recent blogs have not posted the text portion. I apologize for this and well need to repost those blogs once we get Internet access. If you ever see a blog without text, please leave a blog comment so I will know of the problem. Thank you.