Location: Great Sail Cay
We sailed though the night and day and made it to Great Sail Cay around 4pm. Perfect timing. I was exhausted but Dad and Jack seemed to be awakened by all the excitement. Dad especially had barely slept at all during the passage, I got sick so I had a good excuse to sleep more than anyone else but all in all it was a calm two days at sea, Dad and Jack had clearly over prepared. We didn't see a single sea creature on the way, I was very disappointed except when I looked up and saw the stars. Never was the sky so black or the stars so bright, instead of the usual thousands that one sees in the sky each night we were treated to a symphony of millions, each playing at their own brightness and in the water around the ship you could see the star dust. Except it wasn't stardust. Phytoplankton was lighting up the white water of our wake, creating a cloud of blue lights around us and a line of light trailing behind our stern. When I first saw them I thought I had been staring at the stars for too long. It was something magical. I felt like Max, sailing away from the troubles of the world on my way to where the wild things are. Great Sail Cay really was the land of the wild things. There was nothing on the island except trees, but we couldn't go ashore anyway until we visited a customs office on a populated island, until then we are officially quarantined. Two other boats were anchored in the harbor when we arrived. The place was quieter than quiet. We had some chicken sandwiches, napped, and hoped that the wind would lie down. Instead it picked up and changed directions. The strong north westerly breeze that the weather channel had promised came early and it was blowing. Dad and I had never anchored in such strong winds without at least having two anchors out but by the time we had gotten settled it was too windy to even launch the dingy to set a second one. Dad put the anchor watch on and kept the computer right next to him on his bunk, trying to ensure that he would hear or see if we we're dragging. I woke up at 3am out of the blue, I'm still not sure what made me wake up but as long as I was up I could at least check our position. The chart said we had moved around 500 yards from our original spot, when I switched on the depth sounder it read 0.8, there was eight inches of water between us and the sand. Dad and Jack woke up and we struggled for around an hour in the dark trying to find our way back to deeper water and our original spot. In the end we were fine, but it wasn't the great night sleep we were all hoping for. After the excitement we all hung out in the cockpit to ensure that our anchor would hold in its new spot. The two other boats in the harbor didn't seem to be sleeping so well either. One boat had it's running lights and engine on, seemingly ready to make a move at any minute. The other boat had moved much farther than us, it's anchor light was so far away I wondered if it wasn't an anchor light but a house that I hadn't noticed. After watching for too long I went back to bed at least feeling at I had pulled my weight for the night.
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