A scary day in paradise

The morning dawned with mild wind but that changed by 10 o'clock.  It started blowing in the low 20s.  The anchor looked good but one never knows.  Several boats came in and tried to anchor.  The thick turtle grass makes it difficult.  Most had to reset and clear large mounds of sand and grass from their anchors before resetting them.  We made no comments but we worried what ours was doing.

Then around 11am a boat called Mayday!  They had a person on board that was unconscious after snorkeling near Fowl Cay.  There was a dive boat nearby that attended and transported to Marsh Harbour. Don't know the outcome but it is scary.  For the most part you have to depend on family and friends and strangers for first responders.

Then around 2:30 pm we drug anchor.  It happened quickly.  I just realized  I was getting close to the marina dock and we were closing quickly.  I told Karen we were dragging and start the engine.  I turned on the breakers for windlass, wash down, etc.  she started to slowly hold us off the dock while I retrieved the anchor chain and anchor.  The anchor was a mass of grass and sand and difficult to clear.  We moved to a nearby sandy spot and dropped the anchor.  It grabbed quickly.  I put out an extra 20 feet for a total of 90 feet in 10 feet water.  It feels good and looks good in the wind gusts.  The wind is supposed to relax tonight so shouldn't be too difficult to sleep tonight.  The next few days are calling for light winds.

How windy is It?  Well my windgenerator overheated and went into free run mode --- very loud and scary.  I have to manual turn it away from the wind until the prop feathers then put a restraining line on it.

We thought about going to town for a walk but not after dragging.   It will take a few hours to rebuild confidence in this anchor set.