Jennifer and I are in an inlet waiting out the northeaster that every fishing boat we spoke to warned us about.
According to every weather model the wind will be from the northeast. We’ve chosen an inlet where we should be protected from that wind, and if wind does come we will drag into deeper water and out into the channel as long as the wind comes from any manner of east or north.
But, the wind since yesterday has come from every direction except south, even from due west.
See the attached screen shot.
Until about and hour ago, the wind was calm with gusts to fifteen knots every ten minutes or so.
In the last hour, the gusts have been predominently from the east, rather that northeast. The northeast is blocked by the very tall hill near us. The gusts are reaching 38 knots.
The weather prediction says gusting to 25 knots.
The major factors are topology and the goodness of anchors.
The hills, mountains and valleys both block and funnel the wind.
We don’t understand why at this anchorage and others, the wind is completely still with intermittent gusts of up to 30-something knots. Our experience tells us that the wind out in the more open water, or even the channel running north to the head of the bay, is constant with gusts.
In this anchorage, we only get the gusts.
Jennifer feels it is some sort of threshold effect. The topology will block the wind until a certain volume or speed of wind floods over the top of the blocking ridge, tumbling over in a great gusting deluge.
That does sound plausible.
I’ve wondered if the wind varies in direction and periodically passes through the labyrinth of hills and valleys to get to us.
Jennifer’s theory feels more likely, but I don’t know. If you know, or have any ideas please comment or email us.
Our anchor fascinates me. Ever since Jennifer’s fears made me give more thought to the seeming impossibility of a half-inch string of nylon holding a ten or eleven thousand pound boaat in forty knots of wind, I marvel at the less than two square foot triangle of metal that is at the other end of the half-inch thread.
The design is such that the more force on the anchor the further the anchor digs in. I see the effects of this whenever I raise the anchor.*
That string and that piece of metal hold in these gusts that swing 180 degrees.
The bottom here is quite dense and hard. Once dug in the anchor is tenacious.
Yesterday, the anchor needed to be reset. The wind and tide, rather than swinging 90 degrees side to side for 180 total, just reversed direction traveling over the anchor levering it out of the mud. In this hard bottom, the anchor did not reset well.
We reset the anchor by raising it, replacing it, and pulling hard against it using Caro Babbo’s engine (backing down on it).
(We then decided we did not like the new location, raised it again, and then set it again, where it is now.)
I pulled up the anchor three times yesterday. My arms, back and legs get strong doing this. I suppose my abs must be strong as well.
This morning we dinghied to the next cove over thinking, perhaps, it would be better for this weather.
In more limited winds that kept to the north or northeast it might have been better. The swing in that cove was limited to a very specific place and given the breadth of wind direction we have been seeing, we feel we are in the best place.
This still leaves the question of where Hans and Sylvia are.
We expected them to arrive yesterday, but we have not seen them. We’ve called on VHF and sent emails with no response. Their AIS isn’t working well, so we can’t see them that way.
Jennifer suspects they went to a place called Hidden Harbor. It is a very nice place with a tight entry. We there in 2020. It might be a great place for these winds, but a valley leading eastward might, instead, funnel the winds.
Such a different year. In 2020, the weather was calm winds and sunshine, mostly. We did hide from weather more than once.
Hans and Sylvia are due to join us when the weather clears, this weekend, perhaps. But Jennifer tells me we may be here until Tuesday. I should start cooking fun things with this time to ourselves indoors. (Did I mention it is raining all the time?)
Given we would be here this many days, we took the dinghy off the foredeck. This makes the dinghy really accessible and allows light into the forepeak cabin. It is very nice.
It also means we can light our Newport diesel furnace. Hurray. It puts out huge amounts of dry heat, uses very little electricity as compared to the Webasto forced air unit and I believe (and hope) less diesel fuel.
The Newport requires a chimney that sticks out of the deck where we store the dinghy. The chimney needs to be assembled and is about three feet tall. In gusts of thirty knots we were afraid the chimney would be blown off the deck, so I taped the two joints with duct tape. The bottom of the chimney is only warm to the touch, the top joint is hot enough to discolor the tape.
We did try the furnace with the top fitting directly on the deck. The wind outside just blew out the flame and forced smoke into the cabin.
It was nice to be that warm. I need to be that warm occasionally: we shed our sweaters and long johns… Such decadence.
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It’s nighttime now. The winds have been completely erratic coming from every direction on the compass. The new forecast has the windy weather and large waves lasting longer than the previous forecast.
Last night the wind lay down completely around midnight. I’m hoping the same will be true tonight. The gusts have been fewer, farther between, and generally less powerful. As it was this morning, between gusts the wind is almost still.
Here’s to a quiet night, a good night’s sleep, a good anchor, and good holding.
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The next morning: the only important news is that the anchor held.
Until about 02:30, the wind blew consistently at 25 knots, with gusts to 30. Then, returned to no wind with gusts from all points of the compass.
The sky is dark, the Newport uses more diesel than expected.
We may watch a video together. Or read a book to each other.
* If you search our blog, using the search tool, you can find pictures and more about our Rocna anchor.
Find our location at Carobabbo.com along with blog posts
