February 15, 2014

From Rock Point (not necessarily inviting), we headed to Governor's Harbour and anchored in a bay that had a contraption tied of to a mooring ball. Well, that contraption was a boat / sailboat let's talk raff here. 10 X 10 with a cabin and a cross as a mast. We all thought it was a religious icon. The truth be known this raft was sailed with 4 guys across the Atlantic for 1 year; the boat should be in a museum.

So, the prediction was bad weather with Westerlies at about 25 blowing 30 and squalls at 40. We knew that there was a safe harbour in Alice Town to ride out the blow. there were mooring balls there but once we got there, many boats had anticipated the blow and the moorings were taken. I tried to anchor 5 times with no luck and finally dropped the hook in 25 feet of water with 130 feet of chain out.

We held fast,

We spent the night doing a vigil my point of reference was Mar-A-Lago, if I could see their anchoring light off my stern then I was OK.

Then a squall OH MY GOD,

Our boat swung right, left and center, both Claude and I were in the cockpit w.ith tons of rain falling and the winds blowing us all over. YES, the 130 feet of chain held us together.

WILSON ......

We almost had a tragedy on board. For those of you who know Amarone II, you all know that we have we have Wilson (our volleyball on board that keeps the hatch open)
Wilson has been with us for 10 years and he is our kinda friend, go to conversationalist and Mascot.

Well , lo and behold, Wilson is not on the boat any more. He usually keeps the forward hatch open and then he is gone. Claude was filling the generator with gas and likely nudged Wilson into the sea.

At that point we had lifted the engine and the dinghy on board and we became despondent.

Ray of sunshine.... We chatted with Brian and Jane on Mara-A-Lago and Brian said that he saw a white mooring ball floating by his boat "WILSON".

Generously without my asking, Brian boarded his dinghy and went looking for Wilson, Jane had the binocs and pointed Brian to the spot where Wilson had beached. Lo and Behold, Brian dinghies to Amarone to return a USB stick and chart book BUT more importantly....WILSON which Jane saw on shore and Brian picked up.

Is it not weird that these little moments kinda seal friendships?

Thanks Brian