We sailed into a snarling squall as we came around the point of Lizard Island. We were about 30 minutes behind Danica by then, and we heard Glen on the radio remarking that it was a windy anchorage. Drat! Just at that moment a 34 knot gust hit us broadside, and even with only the triple reefed Genoa up, we heeled over smartly. It was not reassuring to hear it was still windy in the anchorage. We furled the sail and started the engine and nosed into Watson’s bay. Here we were met with several WARC boats, a few power boats, a giant tour barge, and 26 knots of wind. Oy vey! There was plenty of room in 6 meters of water, and the only thing the pilot book was right about was that the sandy bottom provided good holding. (The book had proclaimed this to be the BEST tradewind anchorage in the islands; obviously, the author had never been there when the tradewinds were actually blowing!) We threw out 50 meters of chain, 5 meters of nylon snubbers with compensators on each of the two lines, and sat back on our haunches, as it were, for 30 hours as the wind just howled! First order of business after the hook was set was to have a lovely second breakfast. Cooking and eating this gave us almost an hour to assess the holding. Perfect. We didn’t move backwards at all, so we set the anchor alarm and turned in for a long nap. After our nap we dropped the kayaks into the surf rolling by the stern of the boat and had a mighty work out paddling up to Danica. It was worth it, we had a lovey time catching up with them as well as the crews from Atla and Alora. We made it back to our boat without incident. (Catching the stern line was an interesting challenge in 26 knots of wind and one meter cresting surf!) We had a yummy dinner of vegetable lasagne and splurged on watching an episode of Black Sails on the t.v. Screen while we ran the genset and charged batteries and made 30 gallons of water. We had a great night’s sleep, despite the near gale howling overhead.
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