We have a busy morning getting ready to go. The laundry opens at 8, so Tracy and Katie head straight there. Luckily, because within a few minutes all machines are full and people are waiting. Tim and I stop at the hardware for a new dinghy lock and then continue on to the market to pick up our meat that we left in their freezer overnight. Of course while at the market we pick a few more items as well. Back at the boat, we fill the water tanks, finish laundry, gas up the dinghy, get ice, check out of the marina, make a couple of t-shirt runs, and one last trip to the market. I need a vacation.
We shove off by 10:30, and have a great sail over to JVD. The bay is completely full, busier then we had seen it during our last stop here. We manage to find a spot to drop anchor, but its not a great spot. I snorkeled over to look at the anchor and its not set well, just wedged on a rock. The wind is out of the west, which can’t last long, and when it swings back to the east there is a good chance it will come out of the rock. Katie and the kids swim to shore, while we watch for a better spot to open up. during the 3 days we were here earlier in the trip, we saw a huge turnover in the early afternoon, so we are confident that something will open up. But of course that didn’t factor in that it was a Saturday on a holiday weekend. So no balls open up, and we end up circling around and looking for a better spot in more sand. After being blown around a bit, we do find a better spot and set anchor well enough to confidently go into shore. On shore the kids swim while the birds dive bomb the minnows all around them, and we get to stop at the Soggy Dollar for a Painkiller. By 5:00 all but one boat has cleared out of the west end of the bay, but we are comfortable with our spot t the east end, so we just decide to stay put. The wind is still from the west, so we know that things will change and we will still need to check our position after that happens.
Well after dark, we see a large power boat come in to the anchorage, and of course the magnet on our boat is working perfectly. He heads straight over between us and the next boat on a mooring. I holler out that there is no room there and for a minute they move off. But then they are back and dropping anchor. This is a tight spot, and with the wind now out of the south, will get worse after the eventual shift to the east. The people on board are clearly trashed and could care less where they anchor. We see them leave in the dinghy and soon hear splashes and yelling as in the moonlight we can see 3 or 4 of them swimming onto the beach. The ‘Captain’ swings by in the dinghy to assure us that he knows what he’s doing. He’s been here 3000 times and has lived here for 20 years. The boat now has ‘serious’ engine trouble and he’s not able to move it. He’s totally trashed and belligerent, but guarantees us that he will not hit us. We suggest that he put out some fenders for when he swings into the sloop on the mooring, but now he’s heard enough from us and heads off to his boat. Minutes later he is back in the dinghy pushing his boat away from the sloop. Now the worst part, he pulls his anchor chain and drags it over towards us to give himself more room with the sloop. Great, now instead of watching him hit the other boat we get to wait until he hits us. More drunken guarantees that this won’t happen, of course when we point out that’s what he said about the other boat, he gets mad, says we must be from Boston, and jumps in the water to swim in for more beer. Soon the wind shift occurs, and he is right behind us. His anchor chain is hitting our dinghy. We have no choice but to move forward. So in the dark we haul anchor and creep forward towards the next moored boat. more confident with the wind now blowing from the east that we won’t swing much. We don’t have enough room to let out a full scope, so we can’t really back down on it hard to set the anchor like we would normally do. Hopefully it is set. We are still close to the drunk, but now have a bit of a cushion. Long night, with several trips on deck to make sure we are still ok. In the morning the guy on the sloop looks over to us in disbelief of the moron on the power boat. Soon he is fending off, as the wind has dropped down, and the boats are all just drifting around, instead of being pushed in a similar direction from the wind. So much for the ‘Guarantee’.
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