Early Morning
Although some of us got up early, it took a while to leave the anchorage after sunrise. Our first coffee was while still at anchor, the second was made while underway.
The lee of St. Kitts is protected from the Atlantic swell but still had some wind to help us along. But once we turned the northwest corner of the island we were exposed to both wind and waves.
The wind had shifted north, making a direct sail to St. Barths impossible. The waves were also bigger than forecast. Particularly the first 2 hours were tough as the water was shallow and I had to avoid numerous fish traps. After we went off soundings the wave shape was more comfortable. We ended up motorsailing most of the stretch. We could point at Philipsburg in St. Martin, but that is 8 miles to the west of our intended destination at Ile Fourchue.
Afternoon
The final tack to Ile Fourchue took a while, particularly as I couldn’t rev the warm engine beyond 3 knots once the sails were dropped. We finally ended up back to Ile Fourchue.
We made it into the anchorage before dusk and found a mooring ball all the way inside. It had 9 feet of water under the keel and kept us (barely) out of reach of the rocks. Had the winds been less fickle it would have been a perfect spot. But we had long periods of no winds and then sudden strong gusts. These jerked at our mooring and made me a bit nervous; as I didn’t know how well-anchored the mooring was. But this is St. Barths and the mooring are well-maintained so I knew that we were good. But my paranoid side worried. I downloaded an anchor watch app for my smartphone and set it – just to be on the safe side.
Dinner
We made a simple pasta and meat sauce dinner and both Sandra and Sascha at healthy portions. They’d been feeling a bit under the weather during the passage, but once anchored any signs of vertigo had disappeared.
The gusty winds prevented us from eating outside, so we used the main cabin table for the first time. After dinner we soon headed to our respective cabins for rest. I was still worried about our mooring so didn’t get to sleep for a while.
Night
As soon as I fell asleep the anchor alarm went off. I jumped up and into the cockpit, only to find us still attached to the mooring. Which was still attached to the bottom. I silenced the alarm and tried to sleep again. As soon as I fell asleep the alarm went off again, but this time I didn’t just silence it. I checked the display to find that the GPS received in the smartphone had shut down, triggering the alarm. I changed the Android settings to keep the GPS alive and went back to sleep. Only to be awakened again an hour later. After that, I deleted the app and had a good night’s worth of sleep.