Seabbatical Adventures: Day 27, Friday July 19th an interesting night

Day 27, Friday July 19^th

What a night.....we are very glad we were anchored in Gore Bay instead of out racing the 1^st leg of the MacMan race. The winds swirled all night. Gusts up to 40 knots (~80 kms) an hour. There was lightening and thunder all night. 3 Squalls had come through the area. At one point, Julie checked the anchor and the winds had disappeared. The air was still. This is always a worry and was what was happening just prior to the next squall hammering into the area. We were confident our anchor would hold, but concerned that other boats anchored might drag into us, and also that the racers would come into harbour in the middle of the night and not see us. We did have our mast light on, but not so easy to see during the downpours.

The skies look a little friendlier now that last evening, the canvas on the boat looked a little less happy and we could see more sky through the canvas which is a bad thing. Today we would move into a slip at the marina as it is included in the cost of the race. We have only docked once so far on the trip so we are waiting until the wind dies. Sporadically the wind seems to calm and then it looks like it may rain again and stir up some air. Finally we decide to move. It is almost noon hour and we have lots to do in town today. The marina does not have a full sized slip as no boats are leaving. It is a nice easy one to access though so all goes well. This is the first time we have hooked up our shore line power in almost a month. We have been self sufficient for 27 days. It takes us about 2 hours as the power is not coming on. We test the line, we test the outlets, we are out of ideas. Then the neighbour suggests we need our inverter on. Yeah that solves some of the issues, we see a flicker of power. The cord connection is also being fussy. Finally after tightening up a connector, and adding an extension to the shore line, we seem to have power. It is frustrating that even the easiest things seem to take forever some times. Every day there is a first of something.

Time to get to work now. We have internet connection now and need to get a yacht club membership, pay some bills, open some attachments we have received during the week etc. We also need to finish registering for the race, pick up the outboard, re-organize some crap in the boat to make room for our crew, remove the barbeque and see if we can make arrangements to off load the dinghy and outboard to someone going to Little Current.

As we walk down the docks, we see our fellow racers, most of who did leg 1 and all have horrific stories of the night they spent through the storms. Many are frazzled and many were terrified, but all are jovial now that they have landed. We hear that Azzuro (sister ship to our previous boat) had a knock down, and is holed up behind Vidal Island. Natural High has holed up at Meldrum Bay. The rest of the boats are in Gore Bay with lots of stories. Only 7 of 14 boats finished leg 1, the rest all got DNF’s as they turned on engines etc. to combat the storms and control the boats.

Soon Beth and Gary arrive, and we set them to work to help get the boat race ready. Fred and Marilyn are an hour behind them and it is now time to toast the crew and socialize. There is a fabulous fish fry sponsored by the Rotary Club. It is harbour days in Gore Bay so we are also provided with a small fireworks show. The band playing at the waterfront is only 2 persons, of which one is the high school principle in Little Current. They are very good and complement our night cap. We are off to bed by 11:00 as we have an early day tomorrow to get to the start line out in the bay by 9:00.

Cheers Julie and Dawson