January 23, 2016 Red Bay to Boat Harbor

Well, that was a rough night.  Neither one of us slept very good.  Our anchor held, but we still didn’t like the position.  Mid morning, we decided to sit outside in the cockpit with our side curtains up to protect us from the wind.  When Dave saw another sailboat out on the Sea of Abaco, he thought it would be OK for us to be out there, too.  We decided to move the boat for more protection from the north.  We anchored here for protection from the west, but the shoreline angled to the north west.  So when the wind started swinging from the west, to north west to north east, we were much more exposed to the north wind, which sent us towards the shore with rocks.

We talked through how we wanted this to go.  Once Dave had the anchor up, I needed to head away from shore immediately and not let the wind push us back towards shore.  Dave went out on the bouncing bow in 20k wind to raise the anchor.  As I was watching him, I thought about how smart it would have been for him to be wearing a life jacket.  But we were only in about 10 feet of water and close to shore, so I didn’t panic.

We left Red Bay/Water Cay about 10:15 am and motored to the south side of Marsh Harbor, not the inside harbor.  In strong winds, you can’t always trust that your neighbors in the harbor know how to set an anchor.  A 100% jib sail fills the space between the mast and the forestay.  If it is larger, it is a genoa, or jenny sail.  We have a 150% genoa and used 100% today to sail in the strong winds.  The wind was generally between 25-30k with gusts into the upper 30’s.  There were 2-4 ft swells with white caps.  On the net they called it meringue.  We actually enjoyed the ride. 

love the color of that water

We anchored between the Boat Harbor Marina and the Marsh Harbor Boat yard (where we had work done last spring) by 1:00 pm.  As we approached the shore, the wind decreased to about 15k and the seas were much calmer.  Wow, what a difference. 

Dave napped, I read, then we started a Harry Potter marathon tonight with popcorn.  We have all the movies and may watch them all this week.  We were also looking forward to a good night’s sleep.