Departing H3 in the dinghy in rain, we were soon planing at speed to get in as quickly as possible!
Weather forecast same old shit - different day! So again we decided to make the most of it with a trip to Oban for a late lunch. We stayed until the place was empty and returned to the boat in the rain which would not let up. The afternoon was spent with us re-learning how to play Poker. Once we got bored with that we watched a DVD. We were going to fish but with the relentless high winds it just would have been a pain for me managing the boat with the anchor winch running in 3M cycles both up and down. I have the gear on boat required to repair it but really would be nice to be moored up to do the work so we will tackle this in Dunedin. It will mean removing the winch, flipping it over and rewiring a new counter sensor device as well as fitting a new remote control up front. We have the helm control working only and have to reset the control every 3M of travel. Just another challenge to deal with!
I want to reset the anchor as we have been anchored in high winds for 3 nights now and if I am going to have any problems I want to discover them before we leave in the dark at 6:00am Sunday morning. Maybe I will do that tomorrow as the wind is expected to die down to a paltry 25knots. We laugh at 25knots now that is nothing at all!
Us sitting comfortably in the theatre
Star of the movie Lola was really excited to see us!!
We had a light dinner and were tucked up in bed by 9:00pm after planning our day tomorrow, our late day here. We had a quiet night listening to the 25knots winds and were in flattish conditions. We had a slow start in the morning and looked out to see rain, full cloud cover and wind on water. Getting depressing now, but we had a plan yesterday and we will execute regardless. It was quite bitter outside but we got our warm clothes, jackets, beanies and shower proof jackets over top. We needed to be in town to see the showing of the local movie Stewart Island ‘A dogs Tail’ at 11:00am. We were all sorted and ready to go at 10:20am but it was hammering down so we waited until we could wait no more. at least it had dropped off a little, so it was in the dinghy and off as quickly as possible to the beach in Halfmoon Bay. We rolled up the beach jumped out in my Porsche dress shoes (my track shoes got soaked through yesterday). We made it to the theatre in good time and watched the star of the show Lola, sit by a chrome counter bell. Just before 11:00 the dogs owner moved her hand to signal to Lola that she should ring the bell and that is exactly Lola did! It certainly got everyone’s attention and soon we were ushered into the back of the tiny office. We were wondering what to expect...... but we went through the door into a boutique theatre we might see in any city, Seats were wide and comfortable with a table each side of every pair of comfy seats. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie which was a very light hearted way telling the history both past and recent through the eyes of Lola, a local dog. We humans were referred to as ‘dry noses’ throughout the movie but there I was sniffling due to the cold trip in by dinghy, thinking I must be one of the wet noses (dogs)!
Back to more familiar weather - but this time in a sun shower at Observation Rock
Deep[ Bay - Paterson Inlet
Oban looking south west
I started the engines and had Jo help at the helm while I disconnected the night rope, which took the load from the winch and transferred it to one of the two the bollards, making for quiet nights in high winds and also to provide the ‘spring’ required to stay securely anchored in high winds. It had done its job really well over 3 terrible nights without us disappearing out to sea during the night and keeping the noise from the chain to an absolute minimum. As I pulled up the chain I saw the bow pulling down due to the strain, the winch was labouring hard so I slipped one engine into drive and nudged forward over the anchor, leaving the anchor control alone. I felt the anchor let go, so then I was free to lift the anchor fully home. The anchor was clearly well locked in due to continuous high loads applied by the sustained extreme wind conditions we had endured. I moved the boat back where I was happy to drop anchor and reset the boat for our last night, confident that tomorrow would be a straight forward departure pre-dawn.
10 minutes later there were 0.75M waves rolling through in a squall.