Wade woke to the sounds of wind howling. He looked at the chart plotter to determine we were still in the same place and the wind instruments read 35 knots and gust to 40. On deck he checked the status of our anchor and noticed the chain was fairly vertical instead of being pulled horizontally by the strong wind, indicating we must be wrapped around a rock. We had anchored in 58 feet about 300 yards from shore and backed down on our anchor to 3100 RPM, but our swing circle had us in over 70 feet of water. Back in bed he tried to think if it was a good time to let out more chain; so as to increase our anchor chain to depth ratio or scope. All we have on the boat is 333 feet of chain, so as Sara started to wake, we decided to put out the rest of the chain especially because right then there was a break in the rain.
Wade was challenged removing the snubber (a line that hooks on the anchor chain and is also cleated to the boat; used to take the tension off of the windless and absorb the shock load) because this required bringing in anchor chain that was wrapped around the rock straight below the boat. Being stuck on a rock isn’t so bad because some of the load is on the rock instead of our big anchor. We also realize this is going to make leaving this anchorage difficult and a greater possibility we’ll dive on the anchor the day we’d like to depart, oh darn, haha. Before heading to bed we set the chart plotter anchor drift alarm so if we “just drift” an alarm would go off. The rest of the night we slept soundly.
Wade is busy boat designing, while Sara is teaching herself how to make puff pastry pie shells and red bean soup. Today is a bit more rainy so we don’t have our inverter on because the solar is taking longer to fill the batteries. This is our third day boat bound, including the sail here, so today we both need a bit of exercise. Sara does yoga from Yoga Download while Wade does his own form of boat yoga, which is basically boat maintenance.
TD13F update: The storm has been upgraded from low to a moderate chance of forming a cyclone in the next 24 to 48 hours. The good news is this low has slid south of us and it looks like the worst has passed. We are expected to have gale winds for the next two days. Attached is our weather report for 11 AM HST. Each mark on the wind flag represents 10 knots. Our highest wind gust thus far is 43.5 knots.
King Neptune’s Garden update: We did not cover the garden with plastic like we do on sails because we did not want to put anything up that could catch more wind, so the garden is weathering the winds with only a sunshade protecting. Crossing our fingers there will be plants still alive after the storm.
Absolute bummer that our favorite ABC news from Australia, SSB 9580, stopped broadcasting weeks ago so we have no clue what is going on in the outside world. We are just hanging out watching the wind instruments fluctuate from 30 to 43.5, haha.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Boat Position: 16 degrees 26.655 minutes south and 143 degrees 56.978 minutes west.
Comfort Cruising Tip: Being comfortable and secure in an anchorage during a storm is just as important as being able to leave at a moments notice. There is always a possibility that you may need to anchor in a new location. e.g. Shifting winds
