SO, the saga continues...
We went hard aground in
front of one of the Musha Cay cabins...automatic lights on a timer, but the
voices were probably my imagination.
Anyway, according to the
tide tables we weren't going to get off the sandbar until 2-3 am. It was so
still...but I couldn't sleep. The wind generator was screaming all night and I
was extremely pissed off. [Sailing is supposed to fix my blood pressure!]
Around 1:30 am, I got up
because we were bumping bottom. I waited until around 2:00 to wake Rick up and
we tried again...several times. Finally at around 2:30 success... we got off
and went over to the channel and anchored there in 9 feet. He only put 25 feet
down thinking we would hold in that but he had me back down on it.
You'll never guess what happened...the rope
from the dinghy anchor had blown out of the dinghy and, you guessed it... I
backed over it. Only this time we had no line cutter. Luckily we were only in 3
feet of water. I held a flashlight and the dinghy off the back deck while he used a
diving knife, a hammer, screwdriver and
wrench in the dark in surging seas, [ because now we're floating in the channel],
to remove the prop, untangle the line and re-install the propeller, all without
losing any of the pieces!!! Not that we couldn't have found them in the crystal
clear water but neither of us wanted to go swimming at that time of night ...or
morning.
At 4:00 am I got up and
saw that we were dragging...100 feet...back to the sandbar. I woke him up and
we re- set the anchor and went back to bed. I don't think either one of us
slept at that point.
We were up at 6:30 and ready
to go. The winds started at 12 knots and ramped up to 22 by the end of the day,
but we got here intact. We were motor-sailing between 5-7 knots and when we
finally hit the harbour, I turned off the motor and we sailed down the Sound at
4.5 knots with just the jib close hauled. Non-sailors won't be impressed, but
those who sail know that's not bad, especially for a cat!
A few people have suggested
that I should write a book. I would call it:
"How
many stupid things can two people do on one sailboat?"
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