10/30 Tuesday

We had been told the day before that we might have to dock in Clifton Harbor on Union Island for the repairs to the head. At the morning flotilla meeting, which was held on the Cat as usual, we were told that the plan was to go to Chatham Bay on Union, and that the mechanic would fix our head there. Chatham Bay was an easy 4 mile broad reach and we anchored in this very pretty looking bay.

Soon after, the mechanics from Sunsail arrived and we thought it best to make some room for them. Our guidebook had a snorkeling symbol at Rapid Point at the north end of the bay, so we set out to check it out. I dropped the dinghy anchor in a sandy spot and as we got ready I got the sense that we were not staying in place. Wondering how we could be dragging the dinghy anchor, I jumped overboard and snorkeled to the end of the rode, which was trailing loose in the water as the dinghy was being carried away by wind and current. I grabbed the line, and with my wife and son still in the dinghy I started towing it back in direction where I thought we had put the anchor down. I didn't hold out a lot of hope of finding the anchor, but eventually spotted it and saw that the shackle pin had not been tight and had unscrewed, but was still partially in the shackle. I reassembled it and we had a very nice snorkel in this area, venturing around the rocks of the headland.

When we returned to our boat, the mechanics had already finished their job and left. The repair looked good and we had no more problems with it.

As we relaxed on the boat and watched the turtles that surfaced all around us, Kenzo from the lead boat came by to inform us that there had been a change of plans and that they intended moving the boats to Clifton harbor. Some of the flotilla party wanted to shop and apparently the Cat was low on water. If found this surprising, since we had only used one quarter of one of our two tanks at this point and the Cat no doubt had much larger water tankage.
In any case, we were very happy where we were and shopping is usually way down on our list, so we decided to stay and rejoin the flotilla in Petit St. Vincent the next day. Went ashore for ice (not easy beaching the dinghy in the swell), had dinner aboard, played a board game and went to bed. The night was punctuated by some strong gusts of wind, but otherwise clear and a bit cooler.

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