I was up in the middle of the night to check that the mooring was doing alright and was "treated" to a rather spectacular display of meteorology. A cold front blew through at about 03h30and leading up to it the winds that had been gusting at about 20-25 knots all night suddenly veered and increased to 35 and we got two deluges and then came the lightning. Oh goodie and ugly memories of the Bermuda attempt! But the mooring held and we remained quite snug, actually. Then I noticed that the Canadian catamaran, Exhale, who had come in about lunchtime yesterday and anchored off our port side, was no longer there. I got out the spotlight and scanned around for her and found her at the dock. She must have decided that discretion is the better part of valour and that she wouldn't trust to her anchor and took a slip. There are a couple of other boats at anchor in here and some of them are to windward of us so I was a little nervous of them dragging down on us. There is a younger fellow in a small sloop just off our starboard and I watched him deploying three anchors and making sure that they were set so I didn't think that he'd be much concern other than for his comfort. The only reason that I watched him at all, considering he was abeam of us was that the wind was forecast to veer about to the west in which case he would quickly be the closest boat on our bow. His boat is much smaller than Nelleke and we were bouncing around. Nothing too uncomfortable but I can only imagine what it must be like aboard his sloop. Then in the middle of the deluge when the front came through I noticed some very bright lights where there were none before. The little sloop had its deck lights on and they were less than a boat length from us. In fact, as they sailed back and forth on their anchor, their dingy came within a yard of our mooring ball. The skipper was aware that one of his anchors had failed and he was on deck struggling to retrieve it. When he did the problem was clear. He had anchored with a Danforth in some weeds and the weeds had given way. After a half hour struggle in 35 knot winds and absolutely pouring rain he was able to motor upwind and reset the Danforth. I watched his struggles and when he finished shouted over to him that if it didn't hold and if he had more rode on the anchor line that was holding, he could ease back alongside of us and raft up until daylight when it would be easier to sort it out. As it turns out he didn't need to, but that was quite enough excitement for one night, thank you.

The one good thing was that the wind generator finally got to strut her stuff. Most of the night it was well above 5 amps usually at 7 or 8 but I occasionally saw it at 15 and more! It was rather like a small child who was told she was doing well and then had to go on and do more and more and more. At any rate, the batteries benefitted from the strong wind if nothing else.

This morning when we took Peri ashore for his poop-ambulation we had a chat with Brendel the dive store owner about the mooring and discovered that the mooring itself is two 8' galvanized auger s screwed into the mud bottom and joined together. Add to that about 60' of 3" chain links and we are in good shape for pretty much any blow. We also got more intel on where to be and more importantly where not to be when we depart tomorrow morning. Apparently the last marker is the shallowest and we should come so close as to almost scrape it to get the deepest water.

We tried our hand at fishing again, and again we had zero luck. The fish seem to have taken a dislike to us and are staying away in schools. This time we tried to troll using mackerel jigs and spinners and I guess these Bahamian fish are too smart to fall for that. (Sigh!)

On a serious down side, I went up to the cockpit to enter the course for tomorrow's trip into the chart plotter and lo and behold, that sucker has taken it into its electronic brain to stop working properly. Oh it turns on and sees the GPS antenna and fixes our position, but it has decided that it doesn't want to see our C-Map cartridge. I have entered the waypoints and will be able to navigate to Great Guana Cay alright, but I will not be looking at detailed charts with depths and recommended courses and lights and day markers etc. This thing is not even 4 months old! And, of course, being Saturday there is no one to contact at either the manufacturer or the national distributor until Monday, and then I have to get it to me wherever I am in the Bahamas. Our friends Barry and Marcia have recommended several places in Marsh Harbour that I will try to help diagnose what has actually happened and then I'll see if Standard Horizon will stand by their products or not.

We also discovered that our friends Ron any Pye whom we have been trying to contact though the Moorings Sailboat rentals are actually renting from Sunsail and are currently in Marsh Harbour to wait out a wind storm and get some repairs made to the boat. Apparently it has not been terribly well maintained. We are still hoping to meet up with them somewhere along the route and the first choice is at Great Guana Cay at a place called Nippers for a Pig Roast this Sunday. The only trouble is that none of our cell phones work and the internet connection is so sporadic that we can't even count on having text messages sent back and forth with any confidence. We have eventually made a date for the Pig Roast.

It looks like we are having a fish fry tonight aboard Patty Jean. Barb is making cocktail meatballs and cornbread as our contribution. When we get back we will be getting the boat ready for a first light departure tomorrow morning. The weather forecast is for NW winds at 15 knots and diminishing throughout the day. That makes for calmer seas at the Whale and we should be coming back in through Loggerhead Channel at slack tide. We are hoping to get to Nippers in time to pick up one of the moorings. If not we will anchor. The weather over the next couple of days is for much calmer winds.