Happy New Year from Hatchet Bay! - MOORINGS UPDATE 1-5-15

Last night there was a private fireworks show just south of where we anchored, but I have a news flash for the land owners – there is no such thing as a private fireworks show.  The pyrotechnics that scream as they gain altitude sure had the roosters screaming back.  I could not help but giggle at that back and forth banter.

The wind kicked up out of the east this morning and turned a little south of east as we worked our way through Current Cut.  We had several squalls that made it quite rough, but the double rainbow stayed with us for over an hour.  No rain, no rainbow.  We considered hanging out at an anchorage near Glass Window, but a check on the forecast showed higher winds tonight with an increasingly south component.  That solidified our decision to head to Hatchet Bay and see what would come of us taking a mooring.  The word on the cruisers net was that they were charging $20 a night for a mooring - an unmaintained mooring with no tackle. 

There are some missionaries here from NY working with the kids during their winter break.  We could not find them tonight but hope to connect tomorrow.  

UPDATE ON MOORINGS:  On Sunday, January 4, 2015, an hour after returning from church, a man named Francis who runs the ‘Front Porch/Back Porch’ restaurant, came out in a small sailboat without rigging and told us the moorings were private.  We told him we would move off the mooring as soon as we could ready ourselves.  Francis had previously engaged the gentlemen on the mooring behind us and Francis became quite irate when our new friend took a picture of him.  Francis returned with the police, or at least someone carrying a badge that appeared authentic to our friend from 25 feet.  The policeman was calm and diplomatic.  When our friend offered to pay for the night, Francis said he had a boat coming in that night for that mooring.  Then Francis recanted and said he would take the money, but when our friend said he would pay only if he got a receipt, Francis became irate again and said there would be no receipt.

Due to the poor holding in this bay, Myron set up a tandem anchor rig for us.  After we dropped the anchors and paid out scope, Myron pulled against our new setup at 1700 RPM.  That is more than 300 RPM over our regular running RPM!  The ground tackle would not budge.  As a result, we slept better than we had the two previous nights on a questionable mooring.  However, given the hostility demonstrated by Francis, we will likely be moving on after we touch base with the school principal.  I wanted to tell Francis that it would be really helpful if he would mark the moorings private and give folks a name and number to call to reserve them, but he was completely unapproachable.

The people of Alice Town (Hatchet Bay) are lovely.  For their sakes, I hope this gets resolved soon.

Love to all,

Dena

Posted via 3G.
{GMST}25|20.791|N|076|29.310|W|Moored|{GEND}