More waiting on weather

It is Friday now, and the forecast keeps pushing the favorable weather ahead, as it is Wednesday could be a more likely departure day.

Had an eventful afternoon yesterday. Once the pump out boat had come by I decided to move the boat. Where I was there was too much current, and very little protection from the E-NE winds. On the west side of the island things should be a little more quiet.

Picking up the anchor went pretty good this time, and I sailed between the two islands (the inhabitaed Tank Island and the uninhabited Wisteria Island) to the west side of Wisteria. Found an opening between anchored boats on the south west corner and dropped one anchor (trying to prevent the eternal twisiting of anchor rodes). It was holding and the first try and I went on doing other things. After lunch I waited till it was close to slack tide and planned to take the dinghy into town. When I came outside with my computer all wrapped up in three bags the island behind me looked awfully close. And indeed, I had drifted southwards a lot, and was still going south, heading straight for the piers on the north side of Tank Island. Cranked the engine, end started bring the anchor in. I had paid out about 40m of chain. so it took me a while to bring that all in. Alternating between idling the engine and slowly running in gear forward (which meant a lot of running between foredeck and cockpit) I brought the anchor in. Just before I got it above the water it saw that it had picked up a large steel wire with a huge (1.5meter) anchor attached. Briefly thought about trying to bring it on board, but given that the boat was backing closer to Tank Island I just took the hook and lifted the wire from my anchor to let it drop back to the bottom. Then I tried to set my other anchor (the Danforth) hoping that it would hold better. Well, that was definitely not the case, it never even was close to holding, so that had to come back on board and I went further away from the island to find another spot. Guess there was a good reason why that gap was available for anchoring.

On the new location I had better luck, and the anchor held on the first attempt. It was in a little deeper water so I paid out almost all the chain I had. That eliminated my plans to go on shore for the day: better to stay on board just in case the anchor broke loose again.

Overnight we had a few showers come by, once they were past it was a quiet morning. Since then the wind started picking up again, and we are back to 15-20 knots winds from NE-E.

This morning I cleaned my lifesling, one of those man over board devices. It has not been mounted for a long time, but once it is cleaned up I will put it on the stern pulpit. Its battery light expired in 1990, so maybe I will look for a new one in town.

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