The decision to stay in Narragansett Bay a few days ago has meant that we're now in the middle of our second gale in 4 days. We stayed one night at Prudence Island but didn't sleep too well. Everything was fine until about 1am when the wind changed from a very light southerly to a strong north north-west at 25 knots with higher gusts. We checked our anchor pattern (see below) for a good while as it was pretty obvious that the anchor had dragged but reset itself. Once we were comfortable with the new anchor pattern, we went back to sleep.



In the morning the wind was down to 10 knots so we grabbed a mooring near the town of Bristol. The next day it blew 30 - 35 knots for most of the day and as you can see below, we repositioned our mooring just a wee bit. We were told that the mooring was good for 100 ton vessels and we are 75 tons. The boat before us had been on the mooring for 3 weeks while it 'blew like stink' we were told.



The day after the blow we visited the Herreshoff Maritime Museum in Bristol which is dedicated to the Herreshoff boat building company, yachting and the America's Cup. It was wonderful to see the half size replica of the America's Cup and photographs of all those involved in Australia's win back in 1983.

Anchor patterns tell wonderful stories. I wish I had kept a photographic record of all the amazing patterns we've seen over the years as they are all so different due to wind, tide, drag and snag which occurred once many years ago on a coral bommie in a near gale on the Great Barrier Reef. That particular anchor pattern was a worst nightmare situation as it showed a wind shift where the anchor chain wrapped itself around a coral head. With Maynard's brilliant ingenuity, we unwound ourselves and sailed back to port.

Our second gale is currently going on outside as I write this in Greenwich Bay. We are in a low and the main front is due to pass soon so the wind should die back to only 20 - 25 knots....please be good and do that. The weather report this morning read, Gale Warning, 10 - 15 kn with gusts to 35 kn. Are you kidding? What has happened to these weather reports? They should read 20 - 30 kn with gusts to 35 kn. People were out in pontoon boats, rubber dinghies and kayaks. Did they simply read 10 - 15 kn and stayed with their plans? I had been watching a group of 5 kayakers trying to paddle into 33 kn winds. One tipped over then another and another. We called the Harbormaster on the radio who then brought in two Coast Guard vessels to save them as had been in the 18c water for a long time and had drifted hundreds of meters in the maelstrom. The wind has been 30 to 40 kn with gusts to 51 kn. We heard many rescues on the radio and saw a number of boats being towed back to port. This time our anchor pattern was so steady that we felt we had very good holding even though the water depth is 4 meters. The main bonus is that this gale arrived during the day. It is definitely a much wilder weather year than ever before.

The next gale is due in about 6 days. Where will we ride that one out or can we avoid it?