Back to Long Island to sit out the Big Blow!

We had a wonderful comfortable sail in gentle winds, with the Genneker up. Must be the lull before the storm. There was great excitement as we rounded the headland as there was a huge school of big fish leaping all over the place. We tried in vain to go through it hoping to catch something on our trawling lures, but no such luck.

Because of the storm we thought we would go to a marina and moor up so we could have shore power, water and full up with diesel. There is only one marina on this side of the island. We booked in over the vhf having read up how good the services were, and were surprised when another yachtie responded that there wasn’t much there. We had to follow a very narrow channel in and only on a rising tide. We gingerly crawled along absolutely shitting ourselves as the depth gauge went down to minus .10 – so theoretically we were ploughing through the sand. Thankfully we think the gauge must have a bit more leeway. We finally made it in, welcomed by a bobbing turtle. Rowan having executed a perfect docking in a pretty tight corner went off to look for someone, and soon realised the place is pretty much abandoned. A local fishing boat came in and told us it wasn’t worth staying – the fuel is in old tanks, the water is manky and the boat master lives half an hour away. We had to make a quick decision with the looming storm, as it was another 2 hours to the next sheltered place where we could wait out the storm. The only happy thing was that a huge old manatee had followed the little boat in and was chasing their propeller, she apparently loves the aerated water and is a well known local character. Phoebe decided to give her some fresh water and she absolutely loved it. Her face was a picture…..not sure why we think she was a female but she was so incredibly ugly but very cute.

Luckily by the time we left the tide had risen enough so that we never hit minus again, thank god! We hot footed it down to Thompson’s bay and were surprised to find about 50 boats all hunkered down for the weather. After a successful anchoring we went and had a lovely supper at Hurricane Hole, a very nicely done pub with good food and even better Rum Punches!