Anchorage Invasion!

It's 4 a.m. when I am composing this (no matter what time I get around to posting it!). It's dark and windy, and you can see dark clouds from two squalls on either side of us, but not much else because it's that dark. And up until 5 minutes ago I was sleeping soundly until we got a call on the radio that our anchor was dragging.

It wasn't.

We sailed from Great Harbor Cay around the north part of the Berry Islands yesterday and headed south to a little anchorage behind White Cay and just north of Devil's Cay. On the way we passed the cruise ship island with two big ships anchored out and ferrying passengers back and forth. We caught another big barracuda, maybe we need a different lure - I'm sure this one was not labeled the 'ultra fantastic barracuda catching lure', but perhaps it was in the fine print.

Our anchorage was deserted and beautiful. 12 feet of crystal clear water surrounded by not one, not two, but three white sand beaches. After putting the boat away, we put on our wetsuits and went for a snorkle. Steve dove on the anchor to make sure it was set just right (because we'd tried about 4 times to ensure it was set right) and managed to dive down the entire 12 feet. I paddled around on the top, still not much for diving down with the snorkle yet, even though these are a special kind that don't get water in them. Steve then swam over to the closest beach and back.

The beach was so inviting that we paddled the dingy over for an exploration. You know all the pictures of a couple walking on a deserted island beach? That was exactly what it was like - just us, the waves, the white sand. The water was warm enough to swim in without the wetsuits and it was a glorious sunny day.

Back to the boat to prepare a romantic dinner for two and ... in comes another sailboat. There goes the privacy! And then another one, and another. Now it's decidedly crowded. We've been invaded!

And we had to watch them because our boat was at a funny angle to the anchor because of the tide. Usually a boat points towards the wind with the anchor laid out in front of it. However, ours was lying perpendicular to the boat (if the front of the boat were 12 o'clock, the anchor was pointed towards 9 o'clock) and people were cruising across it looking to put their anchors there, not knowing that our anchor wasn't where it was supposed to be. Finally everyone got settled in and started be-bopping around in their dingys, stopping by to talk about anchors, how well they were set and the expected weather for the evening.

Because things were just a bit more crowded, Steve put out another anchor which limits how much the boat swings and we settled in for a slightly cool and slightly less romantic dinner. After dinner we tried to watch a movie on deck, but the wind picked up and The Importance of Being Ernest is just not the same if you can't hear all the words. We watched for a while to be sure the anchor was holding and once the boat had swung around in all directions and held, we went to bed.

The other folks did not and it sounds like they stayed up all night watching their anchors. Steve calls it the Anchor Game and figures they didn't have enough players so that's why we got the 4 a.m. call on the radio. To be fair though, our boat did swing around exactly to where the anchor was set, and in the middle of the night could look like the anchor was dragging. We'd much rather that someone gave us a call than not!

The anchorage is now empty again, almost. We're staying for a day or two and it looks like one other boat may too. Think there will be quite a bit of napping today! And even after all the nightime antics, yesterday was the dream sailing / deserted island day!

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