We didn't want to leave in strong northerlies, but knew the bay was unprotected. Suspecting that our anchor would not hold on the grassy bottom we stayed on the boat and sure enough the wind and waves pounded in, pushing us off our anchor and towards shore in the early evening. Thankfully with only 4 yachts left we could now anchor in a better place. So, safely anchored further out from the shore we slept until the boat next to us slipped anchor and with much yelling and shouting woke us up. By morning, having not moved or slipped anchor, we decided to relocate in the mangrove hole around the corner, protected and safe. Two of the yachts had already tied up to the mangroves. One was left in the bay and unbelievably they had no depths on their chart, no pilot guide and didn't know if they could get into the mangrove hole. The had slipped anchor 3 times in the night, broken their windlass and were in real peril. The sent their tender to pick Murray up then he organised and sorted them out. The skipper didn't know how to helm to pick up an anchor, so Murray (with one crew and a local) organised it so that the anchor could be pulled up in these difficult conditions. Despite Murray calling out the skipper ten drifted into another yacht who had to put a fender between them. She came to see us on another day and was leaking fuel into the sea; even when we pointed it out she just blamed the crew.
All the female sailors I know want female skippers to be really competent because there is so much prejudice and sexism in the marine world. It is very disappointing to come across a female skipper who is, frankly, no good.
To put the weather in perspective, it caused 15ft waves on the Puerto Rican north coast causing some places to be evacuated.