Yeah, we're someplace new. Passages, Maja and we set out from Thompson Bay for the Jumentoes. Both Passages and Maja left before us because we had to take Fuzzy ashore and then secure the dinghy. We all figured that was OK because Earendil is the fastest of the three boats. Early in the day it was a motor-sail. We had some sind, but it was behind us and not enough to move us along. Once we got through the shallow, but very wide Comer Channel our course took us south, and soon we were sailing.

We sailed from between 6 to almost 8 knots. And yes, we did pass both Passages and Maja. It was really a nice sail, we did almost 60 nautical miles by our log. We were all nicely at anchor before Passages and Maja arrived. The only problem was it got shallow really quickly to the side and we were afraid if we got blown that way we'd go aground. We didn't figure that out until after Passages and Maja both came in and anchored. So we hauled up the anchor and moved, twice, and ran aground trying to find out how deep it was and an hour and a half later we were finally anchored again. lBud was pretty upset with me because he'd wanted to pull up and move over 50 feet or so from the beginning. I thought he was worried about the rocks, which were plenty far enough away, but he was worried about the depth, which wasn't good about 30 feet off our beam. Anyway, we finally did get anchored and all is well, almost.

The Jumentoes is a very remote chain of islands. We are anchored off a pretty little beach and were joined by the folks on another boat named Passages, so there are four boats here, and it's at least 10 miles to the next nearest boat and at least 30 miles to the nearest place where anybody lives on land. It's dark now and the lights from the 4 boats are the only lights you can see. I took a picture of the four boats at anchor just before it got too dark to see. the next time I have internet I'll post it, along with a pictures of Passages and Maja under sail.

The one drawback to the Jumentoes is that there are few places to hide out from a weather front that brings winds that clock around and have a western component. The prevailing winds here are from the east. We came here today knowing there was a front coming through, but the westerly component of the winds was supposed to be 15 knots or less and the bad winds were from the north and during the day on Sunday. Well, the weather forecast has changed. The winds are supposed to pick up during the night tomorrow night, and blow at 20 to 25 knots from the northwest and the north-northwest. We don't have protection from those directions and now Bud and I are thinking that we have to head back towards a safer harbor tomorrow.

All the boaters that are here met on the beach at sunset and discussed the situation but didn't have the latest forecast. I just got that off my sailmail now. The boats in the harbor shared it via the radio. Passages (the first) and Maja are both planning to stay here through this front, but Bud and I are thinking we're going back to Long Island or to another anchorage. I'll let you know tomorrow where we are.