We're approaching a week in Paradise and we have definitely been learning along the way. Our first day here was spectacular with sunny weather and swirling winds. Our first attempt at anchoring failed because I tried to set it so hard that it pulled out. The second and third attempt also failed. We moved to a different place in the back of the bay and tried again successfully. However, we anchored in 100 feet of water. It would have been prudent to accept the location but we decided that we needed to reverse ends of our anchor chain whichrequired anchoring in shallow water with another anchor so that we could drop all the chain. We raised our anchor with the windlass working harder than it has ever worked then tried to anchor up in the front of the bay where it was the most shallow and protected. After several attempts the rocky bottom defeated our Fortress anchor and we anchored somewhat back in the pack. I would have liked to be up front because I hate rolling but it was very tight and it wasn't to be. So we reversed our chain and re-anchored yet again with our main anchor and chain. Our work complete we met up with friends and rested.

The next day the weather changed. Now we had swirling winds of up the 35 knots in gusts coming down the mountains and coming from 180 degrees. The boat behind us, a Genoa 43 was surging and tacking at anchor so with some help I put down a second anchor to help pull me away from him. All was well! That is until the middle of the night when at 0130 we hear a bump and then a crash and when we get up we see our two bows contacting each other. We fended off, made our apologies since we had been the last to anchor and decided to spend the rest of the night in the cockpit assuring that we didn't hit him again. It was a miserable night with squalls and torrential rain and wind gusts blowing everyone in wild directions. Several boats had problems one reset his anchor in pitch black conditions and others were on anchor watch as we were. We ended up starting the engine at least a half a dozen times to power out of the way of our neighbor. I kept up pulling up chain to get out of his way but got to the point where I was concerned about our own scope. I pulled in some of the second anchor rode which helped only sometimes when the wind was in the right direction and then we had to watch out for the boat on our other side. Our neighbors boat surged more than two boat lengths after it stretched out his chain and then veered either right or left. There was no avoiding him without powering out of the way.

Day break finally came and we raised our second anchor and then re-anchored in the back of the pack....again. We dropped 200 feet of chain and then our anchor windlass died! Fortunately, the anchor caught and we took our time trouble shooting and repairing the anchor switch solenoid!

Well this experience has forced me to reset my anchoring priorities and I certainly will stay further away from fin keeled yachts. Forget being in close as when the weather changes you have no time to react to a dragging anchor. The boats that were in close were in constant jeopardy of being swept ashore by the big swells that were breaking maybe a boat length past them. They had a crazy night as well. All in all over the last two days six boats dragged anchors. One chaffed through their only anchor rode lost their engine and came within about 1 minute of being on the rocks rescued by a surge of dinghies that dragged the boat back to safety.

On the bright side we are meeting people that we like and are now beginning to explore the island. We have had no internet so we have not been able to post blogs. We hope to find some new radio stations to use to send email. Boat chores are getting done and all is well.

The Crew of Always Saturday