The plan was to leave Red Hook on July 1st. Of course the weather was crap, so I didn't get underway till the second. The trip up to Coral Bay was dead to windward in 20-25kt winds and 6-8ft seas which made for an uncomfortable beat. Tacking back and forth we managed to miss the heavy rain squalls passing the islands, to arrive in Coral Bay around 1pm. The anchorage in Coral bay suffers from the same cancer as most warm water harbors in the free world, that of derelict vessels. I'm not talking about older boats that need a little TLC, I'm talking about floating bird shit dumps with no rigging, no engine and marine growth half way up the topsides. This not only detracts from the image, but also makes it more difficult to anchor in an already crowded harbor. After circling around for about half an hour, I located a good spot and dropped my 45 pound Bruce and payed out about a 100 feet of chain in roughly 15 feet of water. Backing down, I felt the anchor set and the boat settled in to the easterly breeze. "Great" I thought. About an hour later the wind switched around to the south, and as my half inch chain slowly shifted across the harbor floor, I began to drift uncomfortably close to a couple of the aforementioned vessels. Rather than move, I pulled another anchor out and motored as far south as I could and tossed it out. After about a half hour it became clear that this was not working, "damn"! Pulling the second anchor up was no problem as it had already freed itself. As the anchor reached the surface, I could see it was caked with thick black mud. What to do? I remembered down below there was an old fortress anchor that was stored in pieces under the settee, so I pulled it out, bolted it together and repeated the same exercise as with the second anchor, except this time it held, and I mean held fast! By the time I got the dinghy inflated and launched, and the outboard installed, it was about 4pm, so I figured I'd go to Skinny Legs for happy hour, which I did, and then went back to the boat around 7 for a much needed rest.
Coral Bay is a cool little town. There isn't much there except a couple of bars and shops. The anchorage is crowded and it can be windy. There aren't really any services for cruisers and I wouldn't really recommend it for a stop over unless you have a reason to go there. I spent three days in Coral Bay relaxing and reconnecting with some friends from St. Thomas.
Saturday morning, it was time to leave for Tortola. 1st was removing the outboard from the dinghy, and pulling the inflatable up on deck and deflating and rolling it up. Then after checking the fluids and firing up the engine, it was time to pull the anchors. Easy right? Nope. There was a problem. the wind had shifted again, and now a 50 foot sloop was sitting right on top of my anchor. As I pulled up the line, Valkyrie slowly nudged closer and closer to this boat, and the damn anchor just wouldn't give. finally I sat about half a boat length from this other vessel, and was within easy talking range of the lady on the other boat, who seemed unconcerned about the whole affair while sitting in her cockpit leisurely reading a book. A retired teacher from the Antilles School in St. Thomas, as if I cared. I sat there for about 15 minutes hoping something would happen. Nothing happened. Frustrated, I pulled more rode in, inching closer to the other boat, until the line was pointing almost straight down and guitar string tight. Every time a little ripple moved across the harbor, I used the motion to pull in the rode about a half inch at a time. this went on for about ten minutes until........something happened. the anchor grudgingly released its hold and I began to pull it to the surface. As it came up, it was covered with about six inches of coral bay mud. No wonder it held so well. The first anchor came up without incident after about 5 minutes of pumping on the manual windlass. Off To Nanny Cay!
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