We were awakened a little after 1am by Kathleen who was sleeping in the pilot house when she heard an anchor alarm. It is always prudent to set an alarm that warns you that you are not in the radius of the place you thought you had anchored. We knew that it was predicted to be extremely windy overnight and it was audible. We had all hands on deck in a driving rain with gusts up to 44knots.
Bill, our captain, started the engine as Kathleen and Doug went out to the bow to bring up the anchor. It was pitch dark so with all the deck lights on and some flashlights they were able to bring the anchor up until it was snagged on a line that was taut and apparently attached to some old piece of ground tackle (mooring or marker). It was holding us from moving. The anchor was also filled with a large amount of kelp which undoubtedly kept the anchor from resetting itself as it might have otherwise done. Once the line and kelp were finally removed, we had to move back in the harbor away from other anchored boats. Luckily most of the boats still had an AIS(automatic identification system) signal that allowed us to see them on the chart so that we could use our chart to determine our distance from them. Re-anchoring took about 2 hours to finally get settled. It was after 3 am when we finally all got back inside. We found out this morning that we had been watched by several other boats in the mooring field who had established an anchor watch; another way to be sure you aren’t dragging.
After a very late breakfast, we pulled up the anchor and moved in closer to the beach which was easy in daylight. We then took the dinghy in to the beach to visit the local artisan display and of course, we all did our best to help the local economy. We hiked up a small hill to get a better view of the harbor as well as to see the Atlantic Ocean on the other side of this narrow stretch of island.
We returned to the boat to shower and get ready for our shore party this afternoon. We headed into the party equipped with plates, silverware, glasses, and beverages. The food provided was a huge delicious assortment of salads, cold stone crab, lobster, huge scallops, langostines, oysters, lamb, beef, pulled pork and a range of very sweet desserts served as a long buffet.
Once dinner ended the entertainment began. The Vatersay boys were a group of bagpipers, a drummer and a guitar player who got the crowd dancing. The band’s age was 12-15. They were great! They stopped at 8:15 allowing us to get back to our boats. We came back ready for an early night after last night’s excitement.
Tomorrow we begin to make our way back towards Oban.
The Adventures of Anne 