Wayward Sun Sailing

Saturday we moved the boats north to Great Harbour Cay anchorage on the west side of the Island for Protection from strong west winds and squalls forecast for the front rolling through on Sunday. The good thing is the front will move through quickly and during the day light hours, but leave behind it strong NW winds veering N later in the day on Monday. The anchorage is not good for N and E winds and E winds predicted for late Monday, Tuesday and Wed are upper 20's with gusts to 35.

Trip up from Soldier was uneventful, however when reading the charts the night before it listed "poor holding" in the spot we were to anchor in for the best protection. Not the best news since that means a scowled bottom of rocks and hard sand. Anchored in a beautiful spot about 10' of water and backed on it, seemed good then all of a sudden it broke loose and started dragging. CRAP! Anchored again and this time Capt'n wanted to just let it sit before backing on it, ok whatever, so I went below. Next I hear voices and a guy saying I thought you anchored on top of me, in broken English laughing. I poked my head out and two "younger" people in a dinghy now talking to Dave. They were way far away in their dinghy and from that distance it looked like we were close, but we were actually very far from them. Discussion came up about anchors and Stephon, still in his wet suit said he'd dive down and make sure the anchor dug in, actually he insisted. Wow, that was super nice and we accepted the offer, well Capt'n jumped on the offer since our next step was to have the Capt'n do the same and he wasn't quite up for it. Got the anchor dug in a little better and offered them a beer, Stephon accepted and chatted for a bit longer then headed back to their boat. Winds picked up during the night and we didn't budge, but the real test was for Sunday with 35 knot winds and gust to 50 in squalls.

Sunday, Tim from WCS came over to discuss plans for the move on Monday and all of a sudden we hear thunder - look out and the sky was black and Tim raced back to his boat (he had dove on his anchor in the morning and wasn't happy how it looked). Tons of rain, high winds, but no lightning close to us, highest gust I saw was 42 during the worst of it. Right before dusk Stephon moved his boat to the northern part, which sparked Tim to do the same and when I looked at the chart low and behold I saw the words "SAND" where we would anchor so pulled up the hook and headed up and anchored in the beautiful sand that our CQR anchor loves to bury itself it. We never got to get together to finalize the plans for Monday, but it was pretty much decided by all we should get our butts out of the Berries and start moving south and the only choice was Monday leaving before daybreak.

So up at 4:30 AM radioed the others that we were up and ready and about 4:55 in 30 knots of wind pulled up the anchor in the dark. Yes, I had thought my night sail days were done for a while, but no such luck. Good part is there was a full moon out and it really lit up everything around us so wasn't too bad and only an hour or so until sunrise. After a slight battle with the anchor - Capt'n wrapped the snubber line into it while pulling it up, we were off and now battling to get a reefed main up in high winds. That was fun too seeing 35 knots and wondering what the heck we are doing out here right now in the dark and with rough seas accompanying the high winds! Then as soon as we started heading south winds lightened up to 20 or so, which meant we needed the full main now and turning around in sloppy, rolly seas to do so was also tons of fun. Bottom line - cruising is a blast when things go right and are calm, but also a real test of relationships when things are bad. The other boat traveling with us did not make it out of the anchorage and radioed for WSC and us to keep going, they would catch up after it got light. Problems getting the anchor up in the dark, not sure if they have a deck light or not, both WS's do and made a world of difference. Oh, one other thing, our new tack with only 80 hours on it quit working too, Capt'n couldn't find anything wrong with it so thinks it might be in the sending unit, Another project for the Capt'n during a nasty weather stuck on the boat all day, day... Last project was fixing our Davis light that quit working at Soldier, our main anchor light is an AMP eater and we prefer using the Davis light that uses very little amps. We carry 4 batteries that supply all of our power, Capt'n tried to get solar panels before we left, but we have no great place to put them. We have a wind generator, but it's built for the Artic and takes tons of wind to produce very little amps. No leaving the lights on here - we have an amp Nazi on board (Dave calls me the rhumb line Nazi - no going off course when I'm around).

Sail down to West Bay, New Providence Island (Nassau) was relatively nice, but with decent size following seas that our auto pilot hates so mostly hand steered for 10 hours. Got into West Bay around 2:15, good since it was slack tide (no dealing with wind against current and having a 15 foot breaking wave crash down on WS like last year!), but bad since it was low tide and one spot has 7' on it. No problem though never saw anything less than 12' there. This is a nice anchorage and we will be well protected from the strong E winds forecast, but we also have not had a ton of luck anchoring here. Both times we stopped here it has been in high winds and taken us two tries to get the anchor set, charts also list "poor holding" here, but it is really the only option without paying for a slip. To our surprise the anchor set well and Capt'n backed on it and we were holding, great! So time for a couple anchor beers and later dinner with wine. Places like this make me nervous so I left on the chart plotter with an anchor spot set and continued to check it. Well we moved off the anchor a tiny bit, but most likely due to a shift in wind direction. Then around dusk it looked like we moved a tiny bit again. Capt'n says - do you think we need to reanchor - if so we need to do it now before dark. I looked and not so reassuringly said no, I think we are okay. So, it is dark now and I check the chartplotter again and we have definitely moved. CRAP we are moving, it's dark out, we've had a couple beers and a glass of wine with dinner and now we have to try to re-anchor the boat - so much for our good luck getting the anchor set the 1st try here for once. So, pull up the anchor in the dark and I shoot for a spot in between the two boats ahead of us, trying to get to the only sandy area here that is was too shallow for us to get to on low tide. We got in a little close, dropped the hook and set it again, no luck, so pulled it up and tried one more time, inching even closer in and finally it set there. It is definitely something you really don't want to ever have to do in an anchorage, but as Capt'n said last night we are lucky (or not so lucky) to have experience doing it before (guy anchored a boat too close to us one time and left, it later dragged into us leaving us having to up anchor in the dark to get away from it), so it didn't unnerve us. Now - it's all eyes on the chartplotter for a bit, then set the anchor alarm to let us know if we move. Yes, I could have done that before and should have, but sometimes you don't want to know what you don't want to know, stupid, but true. Watched the chartplotter while the Capt'n went to bed and fell asleep watching it and drinking another glass of wine that I really didn't need, but had to drown my sorrows with something. Capt'n comes out to get me around 11pm and I'm like we have to do anchor watch, at this point I'm really groggy and tell I just need a half hour of sleep ok - you watch now. Capt'n nicely agrees I go back and crash only to wake up an couple hours later with the Capt'n in bed too - so much for the anchor watch! Either way, the chartplotter was set to alert us and we hadn't moved in the few hours I was on my so-called watch.

So now it's Tuesday and blowing like stink with small waves in the anchorage. Capt'n wants to get off the boat, I'm not so sure about that. After a nice shower I'm not looking forward to getting sprayed with saltwater and soaked, just to walk on a beach for a minute or two. Although, I do remember a little stand a ways up that sold cold Kalik's, hum that could entice me, we'll see..