Our anchor alarm went off twice last night, but we hadn’t moved. Jeff figured that we must have lost the GPS signal, because our track on the chart plotter showed we were fine all night. It’s amazing how much the boat moves around overnight. One day I’ll get a good night’s sleep while at anchor.
We left the bay at 9:00am today heading to Warderick Wells for tonight. The wind is directly from behind, so we’re motor-sailing to make it there before noon. The park office closes for lunch, and we don’t want to have to hang out in the bank for an hour waiting to pick up a mooring ball.
What an incredible anchorage. We’ve seen this place many times in YouTube videos, TV, and online. We picked up mooring #12, had lunch and drove the dinghy to the park office to pay the fee. We met Bobby and Taylor from Sailing Doodles in the office and scheduled happy hour with them later. We hiked over the river and through the brush, along the Hutia Highway (it’s really just a dirt trail) to Hutia Hill and then to Boo Boo Hill. Beautiful. We waded through Banshee Creek back to the beach and then headed to the boat to get cleaned up before happy hour. Bobby and Taylor came by and we shared stories, appetizers, and some Panty Dropper Rum. (Yes, it’s really called that. You can only buy it from Callwood’s Rum Distillery in Cane Garden Bay on Tortola. It’s delicious, so we stocked up before we left BVI.) After they left, we had a lovely steak dinner, watched the shark show behind our boat (watch for the You Tube video), did some star gazing and went to bed at 8:30. Yes, 8:30. We have now learned that this is sailors’ midnight.
12/18/19
After a visit to the Doodles and a tour of their CT56 (They have a washer and a dryer. So jealous.), we slipped the ball and are headed north in 7 knots of wind directly from behind to Highbourne Cay for the next three nights. There’s a big wind storm coming in tonight, and we’d rather be at the dock when we’re hit with 30 – 35 knots of wind than at anchor waiting for the anchor alarm to go off again.
Docking was a bitch! Tall boat, lots of windage, lots of wind, no bow thrusters. This combination makes for difficult docking. We’ll either get the hang of it or get a bigger anchor. Wait, we got a bigger anchor, a 73lb Rocna that’s sitting in our kids’ living room. Thanks guys!
December 2019