Georgetown #2 - WIND......and lots of it!!!!

I am sitting at our Dining Room table sitting out a series of squalls and high winds. It is absolutely amazing listening to all the broadcasts for boaters on the condition of the weather. The beauty of it is their accuracy. I know of at least 3 different ones around and I am sure there are more. One in-particular one that we listen to faithfully tends to be very cautious. For example, he predicted about 40 knot winds today and it didn't go over 30-35 knots at the highest. It's better to be cautious. We weathered out this mornings squalls beautifully and I pray that this hold up through the rest of the afternoon and tonight. The wind is supposed to increase again tonight.

There were a few emergencies this morning around the harbour. One woman, who was alone on her boat, was on the radio asking for help when her stacile broke and she was about to lose her sail. Several people went over to her boat to help her out. There were several boats who's anchors let loose and their boats started moving and were in danger of bumping into other boats. Fortunately, they were able to reset their anchors. One of the dragging boats didn't even have anyone on board and was moving on it's own.  Right now all is set and hopefully will remain so! I love how the giving and caring spirit is all around us! People are always willing to help those in need! The other day I did watch someone's anchor break loose and was freely moving on it's own with no one on board and the owners could not be reached. Several people got on their dinghy's and surrounded the boat keeping it from hitting other boats and someone went on board and reset the anchor. All ended well. I had never seen this happen before. I was glad to see what needed to be done.

Our boat is very sturdy and I feel safe on it. It was kind of scary, though, this morning hearing all the wind roaring, the emergencies around us, the rocking from side to side, and the ever present thought and awareness that our anchor could let loose. Ed has an app on his phone that will sound off if it does let loose and we'll be able to handle the problem quickly.  Hopefully, we will weather the storm well through the night!

This is what our water looked liked all day Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday.  Saturday night turned out to be a wild and windy night.  About 35 knot winds causing lots of noise, rolling and rocking of the boat and the need to an anchor watch through the night. 

At one point, our GPS displayed that we had dragged our anchor.  We ran out of the cabin and let out more scope which proceeded to alarm the boat next to us because we got way too close to it.  It turned out that our GPS "fooled" us and was inaccurate in it's reading - our anchor did not drag at all.  Ed reset the GPS and it showed we hadn't moved at all!  My heart was almost beating out of my chest!  My body was on high alert after this, and during our
anchor watch of getting up every hour to check the anchor I just couldn't sleep in-between the checks.   Ed was able to sleep in-between - not fair!  So, needless to say, I was a sleepy sailor on Sunday!
There were quite a few boats who dragged.  There was one not too far from us that dragged and I watched the boat next to us flash lights at them, sound their air horn at them and tried to hail them on the radio.  It took a while to wake them up to let them know their anchor let loose.  They were successful.  That boat was anchored safely further up.  This morning they moved their boat somewhere else.

This weather is supposed to last for the next 3 days. We won't be leaving Georgetown before Thursday because of it. It's no fun or safe to sail in high choppy waves!