Motor, sail, motorsail

Timothy Harkness

Raised anchor with no wind at all, motored to a beautiful but fairly crowded bay with rocks, seagrass, very clear water, some also some uncharted rocks that were just under the surface, which we spotted. Then pulled anchor after some excitement with another catamaran that came very close to a neighbouring monohull. And then had a lovely run in the afternoon, the thermal winds, where we were heading into the wind 36 degrees into the apparent wind with the Genoa and the main, making really good ground, overhauled a lot of boats, including some monohulls, sailed better into the wind than the monohulls, tacked a couple of times, tacked using furling the Genoa to get around the staysail. That all went well, raised the sail well when we did, everything went smoothly. What seemed to work best was raising the, just easing the sheet when we needed to to get the sail all the way up. And then everything was smooth, taken the sail down, just remembering to pull the furling lines into the sail bag, dropped everything smoothly, filled everything smoothly, and then motored the last mile or so to the beach, and just spotted the sand, dropped the anchor like a dart onto the sand, and pulled it to ensure it's tight, and anchored next to a Bali 48, which has got a big birthday sign, and they are clearing out of here, so we're going to have this bay to ourselves. It could be a beautiful evening.