The winds came in after the squall line passed, first from the west, then from the north. It was another long gusty night spent watching our position and hoping our spade, dug inches in sand and grass and our chain adding strength and weight to the operation would hold our 20,000 pounds as we twisted and turned and bobbed on the surface. There were also our bridle hook , line and cleats to worry about. There was no room for much sleep with the worry. David sat and read intermittently while keeping watch on our anchor alarm looking for clues that something may have changed.
Our anchor alarm is on the app called aqua maps. When you anchor, you have a little boat icon on your screen on the chart of the harbor. Then depending on how much scope (extra line/chain you let out) you can place a circle around the boat icon. You base the scope length on the depth of the water usually a 7:1 ratio. The scope changes the angle between the boat and the anchor. With more scope, there is less of a chance that your boat on the surface will affect your anchor on the bottom. Often people let out extra scope in a storm.
You can set your alarm at anchor drop but that is sometimes logistically difficult so we usually wait until we think we are pulling on it in one direction and then use that spot as the edge of our circle and use our scope distance for the radius of our circle. We then add a little extra in case our chain may not be completely straight. There is some guesswork and some tweaking.
The boat icon then swings around in the circle and the app makes a pencil line showing the track of the boat and also giving a reading of the distance to the center of the circle in feet. This reading changes every second or so but likely the gps is not quite so accurate so you look for trends. The alarm sounds if the boat leaves its circle. We usually hear it when we leave a harbor because we forgot to turn it off. It is great technology but watching it can make you crazy.
We also checked our position by something fixed on shore. And then we check the other boats around us. When the wind shifts, it can turn the anchor and sometimes it has to re-set itself by digging in at a new angle.
At any rate, our anchor held well through the night. I took over watching around 7 and David tried to get some sleep. I started the charging rotation after the sun came up adjusting all of the solar devices on deck and securing them from the high winds. I worked on a basket for several hours.
The winds continued all day. I tried to keep busy to pass the time. I listened to the boat radio. Other boaters were cleaning. Some were baking bread and beans. I did some laundry, baked a key lime pie and cleaned the cockpit. I kept the galley clean but could not muster the full boat cleaning. David read and napped again.
In the evening, we played guitar and practiced harmonica. Oh Suzanna is really coming along. At sunset we blew the conch horn. The winds were still gusting in the 20’s but overall diminishing as we went to bed. We hoped to sleep better with diminishing winds expected, no direction shifts predicted and 24 + hours of solid holding under us.
