Friday 31-Dec to Monday 3-Jan, Anchored in Boot Harbour, cruising days 34-37: Covid recovery in Marathon. Test-fit the new FinDelta sail. Edit videos. Rescue a boat aground. New Year.
The last few days all seem to have merged into one as I gradually regain my energy from Covid. The good news is that Oana still has no symptoms, but bad news is I can see she is getting pretty bored here.
On the Friday morning I felt much better so decided to test fit our new FinDelta anchor riding sail. This is a small sail that fits on the back of the boom and has 2 wings, and each one gets pinned down to a stern cleat. Similar to how a ketch, or yawl, will use their mizzen sail (held tight and central) to keep the stern pointing downwind, this FinDelta aims to do the same for a sloop rigged boat, reducing the boat yawing from side to side while on anchor.
Cloudy Bay has both a big genoa plus a cutter rolled up on the forestays, which do tend to catch the wind and attempt to start the boat sailing off in one direction or the other when on anchor. The more the wind the worse the movements. Anything over 25kts of wind can see her yawing almost 90 degrees to the wind in each direction, putting obvious stresses on the anchor system and often bringing us uncomfortably close to neighboring boats.
The wind is currently too light to worry us, but I need to find the best setup for this sail, before we use it for real. It is set up like this: the head of the “sail” is lifted by the topping lift; the foot is tied around the boom; and I experiment where to anchor the wings down to. I figure further aft the better, so first I try the ends of the davit arms. But this does not give the required 35-45 degree angle between the wings. Then to the front of the davits and finally to the aft cleats which are the suggested anchor point.
For over 2 hours I faff around experimenting in the hot sun. I even take the dinghy out to see how it looks from the distance. Then all of a sudden, I get dizzy and realise I’ve overdone it in the sun. Silly me. Impatient for healing time, as usual.
So I turn my attention to more sedate activities. Editing videos. I’ve still got a huge amount of footage to do from the refit in spring. So now is a good time to get down to it, quietly in the cool of the cabin. I really hate getting started on video editing, but once in the groove I simply can’t stop! Basically, this is what I do for the next 3 days, non-stop, with Oana popping over every now and then to have a giggle at a funny bit. I manage to get 2 completed and uploaded, with now only (only!) another 9 hours of raw footage left to wade through.
On Monday, a cold weather front comes through. We are yet again amazed at the accuracy of the forecast. 7 days ago it showed Monday at midday the wind would swing to the north and blow! Almost to the minute it did just that. Bringing some light showers and very welcomed cooler air. This same weather system stretches from Cuba right up to the Canadian boarder and brings heavy snow to Maryland, where we came from. Brrrrr.
The wind swing and turns Cloudy Bay’s stern very close to the shallow lee-shore of Boot key. On the chart it even shows us aground! Taking a measurement off the swim platform we have only 2.5m. The rudder is in danger of touching. We sit for a while, but as soon as the wheel spins, indicating the rudder tip had touched the bottom, it’s time to up-anchor and pull forward. So we do just that. We will just have to be out of here before the wind swings back again, otherwise we will be aground on the other shallows now in front of us.
While reachoring, we do have a problem with the bow thruster. Why is it that a system always seems to decide to stop working just when you need it the most? It seems that when I was dabbling under the pedestal a few days before, I must have upset some wires onto the bow thruster switch. Maintenance on boats so often feels like 2 steps forward then 1 step backward!
During the afternoon the wind continues to rise, and we observe a livaboard boat slowly drag its anchor passed us, towards the same lee shore. We cannot see if there is anyone on board or not. If it had been a “normal” cruising boat I would have gone and fixed it, person on board or not. But with these hippy-like liveaboards here you never know what state you will find their boats in, including rabid dogs and manky cats!
Just as his boat touches the mud, I see a guy pop his head out. About time! Stop smokin’ that stuff and wake up to what your boat is doing buddy! I politely call over and ask if he needs help. And surprise, surprise, he replies that none of his engines are working (none of them? How many does he have?). So our dinghy gets lowered and its Covid-Glen to the rescue.
He has 2 anchors out, on what I can only describe a piece of string, at probably a scope of 2:1 at best, and the anchors the size of which we would not even anchor our dinghy with! His boat is only about 28ft long so towing him off the mud with our 20HP is not a problem. But I could have done without his muddy anchor in our dinghy!
We get him all nicely re-anchored and persuade him to add some more “string” to get a better scope this time. Then he is into his small dinghy and off to work. A waiter in a local restaurant apparently. Let’s see if his boat is back on the mud before he returns.
And lastly, of course, during these days the New Year comes in. By the time midnight comes to us we already feel like we have had several New-Years-Eves, starting with family in Australia, then Romania then UK. While we cannot go ashore, all we can do it listen and watch the fireworks around us. Which are not that great. Mostly individual efforts with no apparent organized event. At least not that we could see.
So we end up having our 2nd “Covid New Year” as quiet as the first, last year. Let’s hope we all get back to some kind of normality during 2022. Though we have a suspicion, the freedoms of the old normal may never return.