June 5th 2019
We both had a poor night’s sleep. Every sound woke us with a start, but fortunately nothing had hit us during the night.
In contradistiction to previous weather forecasts, the wind was going to pick up and the barometer had already dropped significantly. A bad weather front was moving in, with thunder, hail and gusts of wind. Not a good day to go sailing. But should we go back to the marina then? The spot where we were anchored was relatively sheltered from the wind, and the gusts weren’t going to be too severe tonight, so we decided to stay. We were a bit worried about the idiot who was still moored close to us. But if the wind predictions were correct for once, we would end up parallel from each other, so he couldn’t cause much harm.
The weather in the afternoon was still relatively agreeable, but after dinner rain and thunder made their appearance. The wind was howling, the groaning caused by the constant strain on the anchor chain was getting louder and the rain slashed against the windows. There were so many discharges that it almost looked like a sunny day. If a thunderstorm passes over and you’re anchored in a boat, it makes you feel quite small and vulnerable. We sat in the saloon, too anxious to sleep, watching the force of nature at work. On top of that the anchor alarm went off. Not because we were dragging, but only to notify us that the battery of the iPad was low. We were already a bit tense, so the fright of the alarm didn’t really help.
You can imagine that we had yet another sleepless night…