Tuesday 19th July 2022

Wind!

We’ve had more than our fair share of wind this week, while traveling up the chain of the Yasawa Islands.

We had dropped anchor in a lovely bay alongside a very long deserted beach, with no village and no other cruising yachts; my first thought “maybe I could find that elusive shell I’ve been searching for, for the last 6 years”,  a Precious Wentlewrap,  I’ve no idea how it came by such a strange name, but the shell itself, while it’s not a large shell, at about 2”,  is absolutely beautiful in its eccentricity, it’s apparently not rare, although for all my searching, I’ve yet to find one. 

Anyway, due to the excessive wind in the bay (30-40 knots) Bob was reluctant to leave the boat and venture ashore, he was concerned that with the strain on the anchor because of the strong wind gusts, there was a possibility of it dragging over the reefs, or the snubber breaking; we had put out as much chain as was possible given our proximity to the reefs around us, and we were in a very isolated spot, miles from anywhere, not an ideal place to run into trouble.  Consequently we decided to stay aboard and wait it out. That didn’t work, the wind just got stronger,  there wasn’t much sleep to be had that night, Bob was up every hour checking the anchor. So the next morning we decided to up anchor and head back down the island chain, in search of a calmer anchorage. My shell hunt would have to wait…

It was a blustery 4+ hour sail back, with 30 – 40 knot winds the entire way, but the weather otherwise was lovely. We eventually arrived back in our favorite bay on Waya Island, which is a fairly sheltered spot, but even in the bay we still had white water and 30 knot winds, so we ventured into the far corner of the bay, an anchorage we’ve not used previously, near the village, which was much more protected, and the water was calmer. 

There were two other boats in this part of the bay one was a catamaran, and the other a monohull. The guy on the catamaran appeared on deck shouting at us not to drop over his anchor (which we couldn’t have been anywhere near), while the guy on the monohull waved and smiled, and as soon as we had the anchor set he came over to introduce himself, how nice.  Why are so many people on catamaran’s such bad tempered morons?