Abrupt dinghy stop

Thursday 9 Jan, BHS day 10, Harbour Island: A dramatic STOP in the speeding dinghy, followed by a walk in town and yet another visit at Dunmore resort.
The strong easterly wind arrived as forecast during the night. The gusts howl through the rigging at 25kts and Cloudy Bay is, as usual, kiting around on her anchor. We are nicely tucked into shelter of the shore, with only very small wavelets around us, but out in the bay it’s white water and waves crashing on the opposite coast of Eurhera.

We have no agenda today other than getting the golf cart back by 11am. So we leisurely head ashore at 10:30. Actually, not so leisurely. Our drama of the day happens as we speed in between Valentines Marina’s empty mooring piles, while trying to cut the corner to the dinghy dock and to avoid getting spray. As we go behind a superyacht, Oana shouts “LOOKOUT!” But it’s too late, we are both violently thrown to the front of the dinghy as it comes to a very sharp stop! WTF? Oana had seen it in due time but I hadn’t. The superyacht had a line tied out to one of the piles, right across our path. It was slightly under water, holding out their inflated toys platform. As we sped along, it arrested us on the outboard skeg, just like an arrest wire on an aircraft carrier! I curse the superyacht like hell. But in reality it’s totally my own fault. The result is that I get a jarred neck and Oana gains a big bruise on her elbow, to match the one she got on her other elbow a few days ago. I lost more than a few brownie points in that little maneuver 🙁

With the golf cart returned we set out on foot. We go up and down the streets of prettily coloured Victorian cottages and end up back at the Dunmore hotel for a coffee. On the windward side of Harbour Island the sea is raging in the onshore wind. Quite the contrast from yesterday. The reef is stopping the swell and the white beach is still swimmable. But you would get sandblasted getting to the water, hence no one on the beach today.
We sip our coffee inside the shelter of the hotel club house in very pleasant surroundings. Kind of shabby-chic, with less of the shabby. Nicely decorated and lots of interesting books to bury ourselves in as we while away the morning. We depart nicely relaxed.

On the way back through town we stop at a holiday rental place and are shocked to see prices ranging from $10,000 to $27,000 per week for one of the cute Victorian cottages. Goodness knows what the selling price would be! No wonder everything is so expensive here.

We then decide to have another go at eating Cracked Conch at the Snack Shack on the government dock. Our order takes over 30 minutes to arrive but is really quite yummy. However, in all that deep fried batter and hot sauce we still can’t decide if we have managed to taste the actual conch or not. Or maybe it doesn’t have a taste?

With some more days to kill waiting on the wind to subside, we don’t want to over walk the town today. So we are back on board by 2pm having a civilized mid-afternoon cups tea and a relaxing rest of the afternoon and evening as Cloudy Bay rocks in the wind outside.
We considered going ashore in the evening especially as some of the people we met last evening have texted us where they would be. But we can’t face getting wet and cold in the dinghy tonight. Hopefully the winds will subdue tomorrow.