The music ashore didn’t stop until about 4AM, but it was just borderline bothersome with my “white noise” fan drowning out all but the heavy bass beat.
Morning
There’s not much wind in the lagoon today, quite different from the original forecast. It was already pretty toasty aboard in the wee hours of the morning. I got going with the sunrise and worked for a while in the virtual office, then stretched my legs up on deck and found that the winds had already shifted and I was quite close to the boat behind me. Typically, anchored boats will keep separation when the wind or tide shifts, as they usually have similar amounts of chain out, so the relative positions remain the same.
But the two boats I anchored between are on mooring balls, which don’t change much with the wind. Therefore, I had to move and turned on the engine, then lifted about 20 feet of chain to get more separation. I have more than sufficient chain out for the expected wind conditions.
Afternoon
After finishing up at the office, I zipped ashore and went to a local refrigeration company, Permafrost, to pick up 2 pumps destined for a boat in Antigua. The office was closed, but I spoke with the security guard, and she took me across the road to the Chinese grocery where the owner was shopping prior to going home for the day. We went back to his workshop, and I picked up the pumps and returned them to Zanshin.
I returned ashore and took a bus (for $2) to the Safe Cargo Services warehouse at the airport to pick up my 3 items (fasteners for the solar panels, oil seals for the engine, and a full gasket kit for the engine) and returned to Zanshin shortly thereafter.
The wind had shifted slightly and with my depth sounder I measured the depth at my rudder and concluded that I was probably now aground. But the wind was slight, so it wasn’t critical. I fired up the engine and instruments and re-anchored to give me separation and depth for the next 24 hours, then I’ll need to re-anchor again. But there’s no chance of me going outside, it is too nice here in the lagoon.
I’m glad I did this, as my bow roller assembly was loose and would have fallen out had I not caught this anomaly. After anchoring I managed to take the load off the anchor roller and get the long thread back into place.
Late afternoon
Not a breath of wind. It is hot aboard, despite the fans going. I’d planned on starting the re-assembly of my Kubota engine now that I had my parts, but I’d just drip sweat all over the parts. I’ll do this first thing tomorrow morning.
As I departed for shore, I saw that two boats upwind of me had become very friendly indeed and I snapped a picture before letting the two of them continue in their passionate embrace. I did dinghy over to ask if they needed help and was told that they would get it sorted out.