the morning followed by a strong west wind changing to north by
evening. We had lightening on the horizion when I crawled out of my
bunk, so I quickly took Prince to shore and got back just as the
raindrops started to fall. The morning was spent catching up on a few
chores and collecting as much rainwater as possible. We have several
methods for collecting rain on the Glass Slipper, the easiest of
which, is to set buckets in the cockpit on each side, where water
drips from the bimini. The other methods requite a bit more effort
and getting wet, so I lazily, just put out my buckets.
The sqalls, none of which had more than 30 knots of wind, continued
to roll in and out until around 3 p.m. As soon as the last one was
past, according to our radar, we raised anchor and headed south toward
a small anchorage between Hoffman and Devil's Cay. It was only a 12
mile journey and what wind we had was on the rear quarter.
Unfortuanately it wasn't much wind at all, so progress was slow but
pleasant. I tried without sucess to use my new whisker pole
arrangement and was a bit frustrated that I couldn't get it to work. I
had to hand steer to keep the jib out so we could sail wing and wing,
which is where you have the mainsail on one side and the headsail on
the other. It worked quite well for a couple of hours and we were
scooting along at 5 knots. Then it happened.
Somehow the jib got backwinded around the forestay, meaning it
wrapped around in the opposite direction. No amount of effort on my
part could pull it back in place. The sail was flapping and flopping
and making all kinds of angry noises. I could just picture my new,
very expensive sail being blown to pieces. Finally I decided to
trying turning the boat head into the wind. Of course as things
happen, the wind was now blowing around 20 knots gusting to 25. The
seas had piped up a bit and Coleen had a terrible time trying to keep
the boat headed into the wind. As soon as we got dead to wind, the
headsail unwrapped itself and I was able to roll it in. One crisis
averted. Now to any of my sailing friends out there... was this the
right thing to do? I've never had this happen before and didn't even
really know it was a possiblity. I'd appreciate any feedback on
this....
Anyway, by now, we had to turn to make our approach into the
anchorage between the islands. Of course it was getting late, and
almost impossible to read the water. I totally had to rely on the GPS,
which is rarely a good plan. Thankfully, it was fairly
straightforward although the motion was pretty awful as we had the
waves on the beam during our approach. Now the fun really began as it
was time to find a place to anchor admist the many other boats in the
small place. Our friends on Adante were already anchored and
Perservernce was in the process. We spied a place near Andante, but
not too close, with a small sandy patch to drop the hook. With Coleen
at the helm we slowly made our approach, but just as I dropped the
hook, the current grabbed the boat and I missed the spot. The anchor
landed in grass, not good holding. I had to pull it up again, and we
headed out to find another spot. I finally got frustrated and headed
out to a place far from everyone else, dropped the hook again and then
it dragged when backed it down. So I pulled it up again. Finally, on
the 3rd try, much yelling, angry words, and thrown headsets, we
finally were anchored in a fairly decent spot with good holding. I
was not proud of that performance, either the anchoring or my own
little fit.
It was time for a pity party. I declined Andante's dinner invitation
and instead stayed in and felt sorry for my own ineptitude all
evening. I just wanted to go home, but couldn't figure out where that
was. Then I realized I was home and that felt even worse. Yes, I was
in quite the mood and went to bed with a frown.