A Wee Bit of Weather

The forecast for last night/today was 15-20 knots from the SW.  What we saw instead was gusts up to 60 KNOTS!

We,  like most of the boats in the anchorage weren’t prepared for such strong winds, we had left the motor on the dinghy & the dinghy in water.  I worried about the dinghy motor all night, but as the wind howled & the boat rocked around I knew it would be too dangerous to attempt to remove it.

First thing in the morning Johanna & I safely removed the motor from the dinghy & put it on the bracket on Ocean Blue.  The concern was this, when you get such high winds, especially gusts, the wind can actually launch the dinghy in the air & spin it around like a toy.  This isn’t the end of the world for the dinghy, but having the motor go upside down into the sea would be a major problem.

Within 30 minutes of taking the motor off the dinghy,  we were hit with a 60 knot gust.    When I went back on deck, there was Old Blue upside down in the water.  The only loss was the paddles, I watched one sink & Johanna watched the other float away (note – another boat has found one of our paddles).

Johanna & I were able to flip Old Blue back over & shortened her painter (rope connecting her to Ocean Blue).  20 minutes later another huge gust hit us & over she went again.  This time we knew she was safe upside down in the water & decided to leave here there until the winds calmed down.  Well, they did calm down, but not without a final gust that turned her back right side up!

We are very lucky, 3 other boats had their dinghies flip, with the motors ON, so the mad scramble for them now is to try & flush them with fresh water, oil them, then get the going again.  But once a motor has been submerged in salt water, it’s never the same again.

So, that was our excitement over the last 24 hours.

We are now in the cruisers lounge drying off, I forgot to mentioned it rained.  The is now blowing about 15-20  knots from the NW.  We are now preparing for a very strong storm that is predicted to hit on Sunday, so we’re going to stock up on the fresh food, as the next couple of days will likely be spent on the boat cursing the winds.