Nor’easter comes in

Wednesday 11 December: St. Augustine FL day 5: Change anchorage and an all-around uncomfortable day as a nor’easter comes in.

Nor’easter coming in this morning so time to move anchorage before the inevitable large swell comes through the entrance and upsets us. It’s due to hit (literally) at 8am, so alarm at 7am and we are soon resettled across the river tucked in on the weather shore right next to the Bridge of Lions. As we lifted our anchor, so did the yacht next to us, but he goes through the bridge (which opens on the 1/2 hour) and disappears up river. We could have gone to anchor up there too but most of the good depths outside of the channel are taken by mooring buoys. And at 7:45 precisely the front of the wind wall hits us, rapidly increasing the wind from 2 to 25 knots. We anchored just in time. Arriving with the wind is also thick cloud and cooler air. Well, those 2 days of “summer” were nice while we had them.

Now here is a classic. We all know by now how many things I drop in the water. Even just yesterday it was an allen key for the bike, and today it’s my watch! How many times does your watch just fall off you wrist? Like never? Or at least rarely. Well there I was putting the snubber on the anchor and the moment my arm was over the side, off it springs, landing with the all-too-familiar “plop” and disappears into the murk. Usually, I put these losses down to clumsiness but surely this one was just bad luck!

Mid-morning the wind has swung to seaward a few degrees, putting us in the protection of the nearby houses. But the tide is now full ebb against the wind and Cloudy is doing a full figure-of-eight dance. Like an animal desperately trying to outsmart its tether, pulling one way against the anchor, racing back the other way just to be yanked back again. Goodness knows what’s going on at the anchor itself. It must be drilling itself deeply into the mud. I know, I know, this is the territory for the Bahamas style double-anchors, but really can’t be bothered to dig out the other anchor and get it all messy.

6 hours later feels like 12 as we watch Cloudy go all over the place. We even try to put the autohelm on. It works for a while, keeping her bow to tide and with the wind blowing up her stern she is staining forwards over the anchor. But after 30 mins of relative stability she is flying across wind and current again with the autohelm given up, wheel on full lock. So we give that up and just let her ride back and forth. Just hoping we still have some antifoul on the bow, because the snubber was scrapping passed the bow on every turn 🙁
When the tide turns and aligns wind, it’s a great relief. The boat is steady in one place at last. The tracking pattern on the anchor watch tells the story. Finally I can get on and do something without just sitting in the cockpit watching and worrying.

Job-of-the-day is to get the receivers for the new remote control furling system wired in parallel to the EmpirBus controls. Thereby giving us full back-up control for sail furling should the EmpirBus decides to give us a surprise, like it did in Bahamas in May, when we were hit by a massive squall and could only reduce sail manually.
This wiring is all done under the berth in the mid-cabin, next to the hydraulic unit and the EmpirBus unit where all the furling controls go through. It’s a fiddly job crouched in there with tools and head torch. In theory it’s all pretty simple, but I like to get all wiring jobs as neat and tidy as possible, so it ends up taking me all afternoon. Until, that is, Oana starts filling the cabin with delicious smells of mushroom risotto. First time she’s made it, and it’s damned good! It feels like soon there won’t be an item on the menu of restaurants that Oana can’t make better 🙂

We eat dinner in the cockpit, listen to the wind howling. And dreading the next tide change. We look across to the houses and think of all the things they have: hot water, non-moving beds, a roaring fire, bath tub, washing machine, dish washer, internet, netflix …. the list goes on. Pfff, I’m sorry to say that today is not a good day to advertise the merits of cruising life.

In the evening we chill inside. Where else would we go?! Dare not even think of a wet dinghy ride, let alone leave Cloudy while she is in this mischievous mood. At least it’s cozy inside and with the wind now a constant 25-28kts, we do actually seem to be keeping the bow to wind well passed the turn of the tide. The wiring-in of the remote control system is all done but I will leave it till the morning to test it. Tonight is not the night to find out if it actually works or not.

Talking of which, by 10pm as we are thinking of bed, Cloudy starts her dance again and the waves are now banging hard on the transom as she again weaves back and forth across the river. So we decide to sleep in the saloon, at least till the tide turns to align with the wind again. I sleep on the settee with the anchor alarm (boat track) right in my face, and Oana on a mattress on the floor. Neither of us sleep well. The motion and the noise of wind and slamming on the stern are too much. Finally at 2:30am the tide turns and peace again descends upon us, and we happily head astern to our aft cabin and sleep properly.