November 7, 2010 - Hope Island

What a crazy week it's been; Halloween, a birthday party at Jungle Playland for a girl on Kevin's soccer team, half days at school most of the week, two parent-teacher conferences, Kevin's 6th birthday birthday and two nights of activity for that.  Kevin had a sleep over for his birthday party on Friday night which kept us from boating on Friday.

Kevin turns 6 years old.  Wow, time flies!

Kevin opens presents from his friends.  They all spent the night.

After the last child was picked up from our house Saturday morning we began loading the boat for an overnighter at Hope Island.  The wind forecast isn't great with a small craft warning for tonight.  But the predicted direction is from the south to southwest.  We plan to anchor on the north side of the island which usually provides plenty of protection.  At noon we are ready to go and head out.  The weather is good with overcast skies (but no rain) and no wind.  We anchor on the north side of Hope Island but we have trouble getting a good hook from the anchor.  It takes two attempts which is unusual for our Delta anchor.  But the second attempt looks good with no slippage as we back down on it for a few tests of the set.

Zappa watches Steve setting the anchor.

It's not really nice enough to head to the beach so we play games, break out the legos, watch some music videos, and Cindy works on a Spanish lesson via Rosetta Stone on the laptop.

Cindy takes a Spanish lesson on the laptop in Mom and Dad's bedroom.



Kevin plays with Legos while Steve watches a rock concert DVD.

After dinner the kids watch some of the movie "How to train a dragon" and then off to bed.  They were pretty tired from the sleepover (Cindy's friend Roxy came over to help and also slept over) and they went to bed early, and easily.  Kathy and I stay up for a while but also go to bed early.  The wind has kicked up a bit, but not bad yet.  Not long after retiring to our bed, the GPS anchor alarm sounds a warning that we have moved beyonds the boundary I have set.  I rush up to check out the situation and find that we have indeed moved;  we are now quite close to shore.  We will have to pull the anchor and move.  Kathy and I discuss the situation and decide the best plan is to pull anchor and head back to Shelter Bay.  The wind is not blowing in the forecasted direction, and it is much stronger than forecasted.  So, in our minds, the forecast isn't accurate and we just don't know how bad it might get.  This is the kind of scenario that leads to a very sleepless night while constantly watching the situation to make sure we are safe.

We pull our anchor and slowly motor back to our marina.  Obviously it is completely dark.  The moon is just a sliver and there is heavy cloud cover so there is virtually no light to help us along the way.  We have our driving lights, the battery powered handheld spotlight, and the remote controlled spotlight all turned on.  With that we can see well enough to avoid the several crab pots we observed on the way up to Hope Island.  The wind is really blowing, much more than the 25 knots that was forecast.

It's an exciting ride back to Shelter Bay.  The wind is so loud that Kathy and I can barely communicate to each other despite being only two feet apart.  There are white caps and rolling waves with spray being blown off the tops.  Spray is coming up over the boat and is illuminated in the spot lights, giving us time to duck under it if we can react quickly.  Kathy decides to ditch her salt-spray covered glasses and put in her contacts so she can see again.  There are no other boats out here.  We are hoping that the winds will be calmer in Shelter Bay, but as we turn the corner to navigate the narrow Shelter Bay fairway the wind is still very strong.  I'm concerned about getting into our slip in these conditions, in total darkness, while tired and stressed out, at midnight.  But, we get into the slip without incident.  Phew!  Our hearts are racing as we settle into the cabin after securing the boat to the dock.

We sleep well overnight tied safely in our slip.  We hear the wind whipping through the marina from time to time, and notice that the rain is intensely strong at times.  I'm glad we decided to come home.

After breakfast I set the clocks back an hour (daylight savings time this AM).  As I'm doing this on the weather stations we have onboard I decide to check the maximum winds they recorded last night.  Much to my surprise all three stations recorded a peak gust of 56 knots at 10:30PM.  That's 64.4mph!!!!!  For reference, category 1 hurricane strength winds are 65 to 83 knots, not much more than our 56 knot gust.  I knew it was stong, but I didn't think it was THAT strong.

It rains all morning and we hang out on the boat and have breakfast while watching a rainbow that ends on the Shelter Bay golf course.  The kids play with Legos and also spend some time learing more Spanish.

Kevin and Cindy work on their Spanish.

It was an unexpectedly short trip, filled with late night adventures on the "high-seas."  It's good practice to run around at night, and every time we do we discover issues that need improvement.  Our lighting still isn't what it should be, and the spotlight's remote control on the flybridge isn't working correclty.  Also, the handheld spotlight battery died about the time we got to Shelter Bay, rendering it useless.  I have just added more to my project list, but the next time we have to navigate at night we will be even better prepared.