Today we moved Zanshin outside of the lagoon to Simpson Bay and otherwise played tourist.
Morning
The winds had shifted and strengthened a bit overnight. While drinking coffee aboard, I saw that we were anchored within the anchor/buoy range of any new incoming megayachts at the marina.
We headed ashore for a full breakfast, but then saw that big sailboats and powerboats were coming in on the morning bridge.
So I returned and that was a good thing, as Red Dragon was waiting to drop anchor and reverse into the dock in about my position. Another powerboat was having a difficult time reversing to Palapa and Red Dragon blocked my exit path, but in the end it worked out. I weighed anchor and went around their stern and then proceeded to wait for the outbound bridge opening. This took a bit of maneuvering, as a large crewed yacht blocked the approach, but very far from the bridge itself.
Noon and Dinner
Once anchored outside, we dinghied around the anchorage checking depths for alternate sheltered locations. Ashore, we had some late breakfast before taking a bus to the Driftwood Beach Bar to watch some takeoffs and landing. Afterwards we went around the inside of the lagoon and stopped at Lagoonies and Electec and generally did little of anything until the 5 o’clock opening came around again.
After the last yacht had entered, we had to decide where to go for dinner (after a pit stop at the Soggy Dollar) and ended up with some excellent shawarma at Little Jerusalem.
Night
Today we moved Zanshin outside of lagoon – and that turned out to have been a mistake.
We returned to the boat very late and found that some very uncomfortable wave systems had moved in. Zanshin was rolling periodically and things were falling aboard. The motion was harmonic, starting at nothing and slowly building to a very fast and uncomfortable roll. Sandra and Sascha were looking a bit green around the gills and I didn’t want to send them below.
We weighed anchor and motored across to the Kim Sha beach side. I got re-anchored around 23:00 but it soon became evident that this side was no better than the other.
So I bit the bullet and decided that we’d relocate Grand Case on the French side. With the engine limitations I knew it would be 2-3 hours, but it was unavoidable – I could have tried Philipsburg, but I’d never been in there before. And Marigot would be crowded with lots of unlit boats. Grand Case is smaller, but has extended good holding and I know that anchorage quite well.
We did arrive sometime after 01:30 and the anchorage was very protected with no sign of that secondary swell. We all slept well, and long into the next day.