The forecast was for force 5 to 6 from the west. That meant having the wind from aft of the beam almost all the time and it was only a short sail anyway. The anchorage that we had chosen was supposedly very well protected from anything out of the west.
We passed the sill in St. Peter when the light was still red but we had enough water under the keel and an ok from the harbourmaster. We got to Sark quickly with the wind and the tide and where hoping to find a somewhat romantic anchorage all to ourselves and would be able to chose any one of the seven public morning buoys.
When we turned the northern corner of the island we already saw the anchorage…. It was totally crowded. We were devastated. We couldn’t go back for a long time until the tide turned and we had counted on this place.
Upon getting closer we noticed that all of the mooring buoys were of course taken and many yachts were anchored but we saw a space fairly near to the shore that we thought would still give us enough water under the keel at low tide and enough swinging room with the 40m of chain that we would need for the anchor to hold at high water.
On the second attempt the anchor set and held and we started to relax. We got out the dinghy and the new electric outboard and after being pretty sure that my calculations weren’t totally off, we both set off to the shore, climbed up the hill and took a nice walk around the island. It was raining of course and pretty cold but it was really beautiful.
When we got back to the beach there was a large swell out of the east and waves breaking on the beach. It was a bit hard to get the dinghy behind the waves but we succeeded and got back to our boat safely which was now rolling insanely.
Cooking turned out to be an acrobatic adventure but we managed. The swell got worse and worse and I couldn’t sleep. But the anchor held perfectly.
