April 17, 2008.

Well, it’s been about a week since my last update. We had stopped in Governors Harbor as we work our way up the west coast of Eleuthera. While there, we topped up our water tank and hit the grocery store for veggies and such.

As luck would have it, the weather forecast pretty much went in the crapper. We were due for a front to come through 2 days after we were scheduled to leave here. The only problem was that there really weren’t any good, protected anchorages to weather a front in our list of future destinations. If we stayed here we could just move to a cove a mile away which will give us great protection from the west, north and northeast. So that’s the plan…….

We stayed in Governors Harbor until the last possible moment. Once the wind and waves started coming into the anchorage we weighed anchor and moved into our protected spot in the next cove. White Bluff turned out to offer great protection and we easily rode out the front with winds gusting to 30 knots.

The water, while calm enough, was pretty silted up so snorkeling was pretty much out while we were there. We did spend a couple of very rewarding hours shelling and then Christy decided that she’d like to do some trolling in the dinghy.

I set her up with a couple of different lures and showed her how to interchange them, then she was off trolling along in the hopes of catching dinner. She ended up catching a few small fish that she released before landing a nice sized Nassau Grouper. When she got back to the boat I filleted him and Christy served him for dinner. So even though we were trapped by the weather for a few days it ended up being a good time.

We also had to deal with a first for us. When we anchored we were facing just south of west. The brunt of the front hit us from the northwest through north. So when the boat swung as the wind shifted the anchor chain fouled on a large coral encrusted block of concrete. We purposely let it hang that way until the day before we were to be leaving since it helped to increase the holding power of our anchor. The breeze was still blowing 15 knots when we decided to remedy the situation. I tied a line to the anchor chain just off the bow of the boat and Christy dragged the boat forward with the dinghy to relieve the pressure on the chain as it rounded the concrete. The chain had worked its way down under the corner of the block but with Christy keeping the weight of the boat off the chain I was able to dive down and free the anchor chain.

This morning after the winds had clocked around to a favorable direction we returned to Governors Harbor. There was a feeling of Déjà vu as we refilled the water tank and once again hit the grocery store.

This evening some friends of ours arrived in the anchorage. They weren’t feeling very secure with the set of their anchor so the Missus asked if she could hop in my dinghy with her glass bottomed lookie bucket to check on their anchor. I said sure and we spent the next five minutes with her “butt up” in the dink looking for the anchor. The water was still too stirred up for her to see anything. I was going to say something witty but remembered that they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Once again we’re primed and ready to head north but since tomorrow is Friday and there’s another Fish Fry we might as well stay one more day for that. Funny thing, we went to the Fish Fry last weekend and I really don’t remember much about the night, but there are pictures of me dancing, it looked like I had a really good time. Should be fun!