9/14/26: Delivering on Promises
Sep 22
2 min read
Today it was raining when we started and raining when we stopped. Our plan was to leave the protected inland passageways for the open ocean as we made our way towards Harrington Harbour. As we nosed out of our quiet anchorage, we were greeted by driving rain and 20 knots of wind coming right over the bow. No sailing was to be done. In hopes of lifting spirts I optimistically promised that before the end of the day we'd be sailing at 8 knots.
The first 10 miles of the day were littered with rocks, so we all stayed on deck to keep and eye out despite the weather. By the time we no longer needed to be on deck we were already soaked, and with little to lose we all decided to stay. The wind grew to 30 knots and built the waves to the point we lost a knot of speed on each of them. As such, we slowly made our way towards the peninsula before our anchorage, where we hoped we could bear off and sail more comfortably. When we eventually got to the peninsula, we bore off to put up the sails, which catapulted us to 8 knots as promised. We then came back up on to course where we were unable to carry our sails, bore off again, rolled them up, and went back to motoring.
The fog rolled in right before we got to our anchorage, so we anchored without being able to see the sides of our anchorage. We sent the dinghy out to check how far we actually were from the shore and found that our anchorage was very small, and we had to tie to shore to stop from swinging. After that, we all bundled up down below to finally warm up. The phosphorescents were spectacular, but it was still cold and rainy, so I happily watched the glowing waves roll by from my porthole.
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