Windy day in Gonzaga bay

The day started early, 3:00am actually, as the wind picked up and turned us to point north. It was a relief having the anchor well set and watching on the anchor alarm that we were not moving. Over the next few hours we saw a peak gust of 39 knots and steady upper twenties to low thirties. Ugh, this could be a long day. Listening to the wind whip over us while reading was interrupted a few times by the needs to secure a kayak and tighten the kayak seat straps to some them slapping on the deck.

By sunrise winds backed a little into the 20-25 knot range and I could see that what I thought was another sailboat was actually Sea Shepard who arrived in the middle of the night. We relaxed in the saloon waiting out the weather (truth be told we knew this was coming). I’m not sure that helps us prepare mentally but with our ground tackle holding we settled in for a few days on the boat with high winds.

At low tide we are anchored in about 25 feet of water but at high tide this jumps to 38 feet! Given our relatively short amount of chain (170 feet) the scope works out to about 4 to 1 – in rough weather 7 to 1 is the warranted. We do have another 200 feet of rode we can let out but then we can’t use the anchor bridle. With little fetch we don’t have jerking from waves but I still felt apprehensive so after a little breakfast we dug out our backup 55 pound Mantus anchor and rigged it up on the bow just in case the wind overwhelmed out ground tackle. Once more comfortable with a couple emergency plans we watched a bit of TV.

Throughout the morning we had periods of winds in the low 20s before jumping back into the low 30s. By the afternoon still no drama – hell I even took a nap which felt great. I got caught up on blogging and generally relaxed the day away.

A nice dinner with winds in the low 20s followed by back to back Black Sails episodes got us tucked in to bed by 9:30. An uneventful windy day on the boat, so no complaints.

No Comments

Leave a Comment