Initially I had planned on staying another night in Cane Garden Bay as the slight roll wasn’t uncomfortable and it was nice to have no wind at all; but after working below decks I came to the back of the boat and saw the shadow of both my dinghy and boat on the bottom, which looked awfully close indeed. I knew that there were still a couple of feet between my rudder and the rocks, but I decided to get a bit more water under the keel. When I’d raised the anchor I changed my mind and decided since it was up already I should at least do a bit of sailing, so I left Cane Garden Bay and sailed to the lee side of Guana Island (a private one, but the law in the BVI is that all land to the top of the high-tide mark is public, so one can walk on and use the beaches there, one just cannot venture further ashore). I thought I’d anchored in 15 feet of sand and let out sufficient chain, but when I dove on the anchor I realized I was in a rubble field but the anchor was well-set, a good thing considering the buffeting winds coming off Tortola that are dead calm one minute then gusting to over 20 the next. At least I had tried to anchor in sand, a charter boat came in about 30 minutes after me and dropped anchor twice in the middle of the dark/green coral area. They had an interesting anchoring method – lots of shouting and Mr. Charterer was gunning the engine in full overdrive forward and backward and considering that amount of power it was no surprise that the anchor didn’t hold. Their third attempt, oddly enough, worked but the boat slewed around violently enough to have one passenger almost fall down. At this point I was paying more attention since they’d relocated to directly upwind of me. I can’t figure out why Mr. Driver was using so much power, when they left an hour later the method was the same, full power forward while the anchor chain was going up and then the boat swung around 180° while still under power because the boat was a lot faster going ahead than the chain could be winched up…
The anchorage emptied out towards night, with only one other boat anchored out and all the new mooring balls empty but then a rush of 3 catamarans came in to occupy some of the moorings and I should have done the same since nobody came by to collect the fees and the wind became very shifty towards sunset and I’m sure I swung around several circles during the night. Most of the time I was 100% back-winded and pointing right opposite the wind direction as indicated by the clouds moving by overhead.
Dinner was a simple affair, I had purchased hot-dog buns and made a small salad and hot-dogs with my favorite cheap French’s Mustard and some pickles and onions chopped up. I had cleaned out the burner on the BBQ earlier in the day and it heated right up so the meal was quickly finished and I at in the cockpit. The meal and the Caribe beers coupled with the gently rolling of the boat made me tired, so I gazed at the stars and enjoyed the solitude of a quiet anchorage before heading off to sleep.
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