We left at 9:30 for an island 17 nm to our SE that has a good anchorage in both the N and S sides. It was a great day, mostly sailing, motoring just when in the lee of an island. We sailed between two and six kts per hour.
Of course with the NW wind we went to the South anchorage planning to move to the North side the next day. We approached our anchorage sailing at 6 kts with the wind slightly behind us. We rolled in the headsail then Rhea turned Vagari around into the wind so I could take the big mainsail down. As I worked on the sail Rhea keep turning the boat to face the wind. We ended up heading SE into the wind. Now the SE waves and wind are going right into our planned anchorage. Not good.
No problemo. Just go back four miles to the North anchorage. But wait, we could both see that back a mile or two there was still a good NW breeze. The next good anchorage was 13 miles away and usually crowded so it was unlikely that we could get a decent spot to drop our anchor.
Decision time. The South anchorage is small with rock reefs on both sides and it has a very narrow area of anchoring depth bottom with a steep drop off on the seaside. We had not spent a night there previously.
The North anchorage has a huge anchoring depth self and we have spent two enjoyable nights there two years ago.
By the time we motored four miles North the wind had almost died and all we had to contend with was the waves left over from the daytime NW winds. We are rocking and rolling a little as I write this.
(Tuesday AM) The "swell swells" decreased during the evening and we were fine.
Posted via Ham Radio from Isla Monserrate 25 deg. 41 min. N 111 deg 02 min W
23hrs UTC 4/21/09
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