Harbour Island day two

Monday, September 1, 2014

Stats:

Harbour Island Anchorage – hunkered down.

The weather forecasts were not looking good for later in the afternoon.  Severe thunderstorms were apparently on the way.  Eos and Fairways decided to travel the five miles or so to a marina in DeTour.  Panda Bear was staying put in the anchorage. All things considered, we decided to stay put in the anchorage as well.  The boat would turn into the wind instead of being fixed to a dock.  It was a big anchorage with tons of room and only Panda Bear and us there, so lots of room to swing on the hook.  Additionally, at a marina, there would be loose stuff to get blown around in the wind and hard docks to bang against.

We enjoyed an afternoon of hiking around the island with Larry and Flora from Panda Bear and decided to meet again for happy hour around 5:30. 

We went back to the boat and Jeff stretched out on the couch to watch a little golf, an indulgence for him at anchor.  An emergency broadcast cut into the golf game to announce that the thunderstorm warnings had been upgraded to tornado warnings, and they were headed in our direction! Yikes.

The sky started to get dark.  We battened down the hatches, putting away anything that might become a projectile.  Jeff let out more anchor rode and threw out an extra anchor.  Panda Bear moved farther away from us and did the same.

The rain came on hard and fast and we had one hard crack of thunder and lightening south of us.  It rained hard for awhile and figuring there was nothing else I could do, I had a nap. 

It rained about an hour then cleared.  Pretty anti-climatic after our apprehension. We dingied over to Panda Bear for happy hour as planned and had an early night.

State Park at Harbour Island

There's our beautiful new dinghy...  ready for action

Panda Bear and Gran Vida...  The only two boats ready and waiting for  the bad weather to roll in..