Wednesday 22 Jan, BHS day 23: Blowing a gale, and we are fighting to keep the mooring buoy from further banging on the hull. Plus, we feed sharks!
As forecast, the wind rose in the night. 25 gusting 35kts. By high tide at 5am the waves are coming over the top of the sand bar that had been protecting us at low tide, and now Cloudy is bouncing around quite a bit. But we are nice and secure on the mooring at this state of the tide.
I was up and down quite a bit last night monitoring things. The line that I dived down and tied to the mooring chain to pull us forward is only an old 18mm 3-platt line and it was taking the full strain of holding Cloudy against this wind. If it would have broken we were still backed up with a warp on the mooring pennant, but still ….
Once light, it’s an angry day outside. This wind from the north is quite cool, and there is a mixture of dark clouds and bright sun. And of course the wind. Out on the bank the sea is boiling with white water. We are glad not to be anchored out there somewhere.
As the midday low tide approaches my anxiety rises again. But this time the rudder doesn’t touch and when I dive down to take a look at dead low tide, we have a clear 8-10cm between it and the sand. Yes, not much! But enough 🙂 and once the tide turns we again swing into the deeper channel. For the next low tide the wind should have shifted from NW to NE, so there should not be a problem as it will be aligned to the channel. Meaning we won’t be blown to the side of the channel, into the shallows.
Most of the moored boats are, like us, staying on board today. It would be a wet dinghy ride ashore! But there are one or two adventurous ones landing their dinghy on the beach for a walk. We’ll wait for better weather, thank you!
We have a lazy afternoon. Oana reading her book, making some yogurt, finding my spanner that dropped under the generator the other day, and practicing splicing dyneema. Well, maybe not so lazy!
After dinner, I throw the left-over fish bones and bits into the sea and immediately 3 rather large sharks come from nowhere and gobble up the bits in quite a feeding frenzy. Wow! But by the time I call Oana, they have disappeared again. So we decide to dedicate the last piece of grouper (from the fridge) and try to replicate the scene. We cut the grouper into small pieces and ready with the GoPro we start throwing them in. The 3 sharks again appear from under Cloudy and eat every last chunk we throw in, and we capture it on the GoPro. Amazing. But how is it that sharks don’t get fish bones stuck in their throats like humans do, we wonder?
Our evening activity is to start the editing of next video. But we are only 15 minutes into it when there are unpleasant noises coming from the bow. Outside, the wind has shifted to be exactly against the tidal current and Cloudy is riding over the mooring buoy, making the chain bang on the hull. Cloudy then rides in the other direction and does the same on the other side of the hull. OMG we’ll have no paint left! And the catamaran moored next to us is literally going around it’s buoy in circles!
We fight it for a couple of hours then find the trick is to let the engine idle in reverse. This keeps the line and buoy just out in front and away from the hull. So we leave it like that, engine idling, until the tide changes at 11pm. Jeez…I hate mooring buoys or anchoring situations where there is wind against current. We always seem to get damaged by them one way or another. First time was Portsmouth in New England, where the chain got around the back of the keel, then again a few weeks ago in St. Augustine, Florida, where Cloudy rode back and forth over the anchor chain for several hours and now this. Certainly damage to the waterline paint and also damage to our new vinyl strip. Aarrrggh!! Maybe it’s just not healthy to be so boat proud as we are.
Once the tide has turned in the same direction as the wind, all it good again for the next 6 hours. Let’s hope the wind direction has changed further NE for the next tidal change. Till then, to bed!