February 14, 2010

Day after day of being stuck in Marsh Harbour as fronts keep rolling through, we think we may have found a day to leave, until we listen to the morning weather report. Tonight would be fine somewhere else but tomorrow we would just have to be back, the weather is not so fabulous anyway, so put we stay. Friday morning we awake to a beautiful, calm, sunny day, could this really be the day that is forecast for gale force winds? At least the morning looks good. In desperate need to stretch out our legs and get off the boat, we head over to nearby Mermaid Reef with our friends on Makani for a little snorkeling. It’s a protected reef, so the spears stay on the boat, no fish for dinner tonight. The sun is warm, the water is completely calm, it all made for an enjoyable snorkel. Heading back to the boat less than two hours later, the winds have picked up to 10kts and getting stronger. It has begun. The winds slowly build all day, the gale force winds are expected to arrive as the sun set. It was late… but it did not disappoint. While IB was on anchor watch, I drifted off to sleep for a short nap. I was abruptly awakened, as the boat heeled over to port, dumping the contents of the galley counter on the floor. We were battered with steady 35-40 kt winds with gusts up to 50. Fortunately, the strong gusts only last a couple of hours and the wind settled down to around 30kts for most of the night.

The following day anxiously hoping to get off the boat, I went outside and what did I see, but 20kt winds, choppy seas and white caps in the harbor.. I went back to bed. The day passed with naps, movies and a wonderful dinner my husband cooked for me. At one point in the day as I had recently awoken from a nap, IB looked up from his book to find me contentedly staring at the walls.. he suggested maybe we should play a board game.

Finally, Sunday morning greeted us with not only a pleasant looking day, but also a pleasant weather report, at least for a couple of days anyway. It’s time to leave. We pulled up the anchor, and prepared to head up to Guana Cay, today is the day we get off the boat. Before leaving, our first mission is to fill the water and diesel tanks. That of course, required waiting for the marina to open at 11:00am. Oh well, no hurry. Since we added a water maker to the boat this year it may be a wonder why we need a marina to fill the water tanks. The answer is simple, the water maker… not hooked up. That’s a project still waiting for mañana. Calm winds and an empty fuel dock made tying up easy and uneventful; filling the fuel tanks was seemingly uneventful. No problems? No way. Everything went great until we finished and I went below decks to find a puddle of diesel on the galley counter and seeping into the freezer. Apparently there is a leak somewhere in the overflow line. Guess that’s the next project.

We had tentative plans to have a nice romantic dinner out at a restaurant, being Valentines Day and all, but plans are made to be changed. We hopped up to Bakers Bay, to visit our friends on Windfall. Our restaurant plans were scrapped when we decided to have dinner together on our boat. There will be many opportunities for romantic dinners for two yet to come, a great evening with good friends we will be leaving soon as we head farther south, is not to be passed up.