Candali - East Bay

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 28 May 2009 14:20
38:58.1N 26:56.4E

Wednesday 27th May
Last night turned out to be one of the windiest we have spent at anchor. The
wind rose in the late afternoon (from the south - the 'open' end of the bay
of course) but by the early evening it had come round to the more usual
north, but instead of dying away, it continued to rise until we had 25 knots
of wind coming straight down the 'bay'. The catch was that this is not
actually a proper bay, but the gap between two islands, with a very shallow
sand bar across the gap. This should stop waves and swell from the north,
but in this strength of wind the swell sweeps straight across the bar and
made for quite a lot of chop. By bedtime the wind had not eased at all, but
was varying slightly in direction with each strong gust so we 'sailed'
around our anchor a lot more than usual.

Decided that an anchor watch was a bit OTT but did put on the anchor alarm
just for peace of mind.

The morning dawned fairly quietly with just a fair breeze, still from the
north. Plan was to sail round to Candali which was only 15 miles or so and
spend some time exploring the town and a couple of the nearby bays.

Almost as soon as we got under way around 8am, the wind increased again, but
from the north east and before long we were headed straight into 25 -30
knots of wind with quite a swell running. Soon reached Candarli where the
only real option is to anchor in the bay to the east of the town and take a
dinghy ashore. However when we arrived we found that the wind was whistling
across this anchorage and the three boats still here from the night before
were all swinging quite a lot at their anchors. We decided that the best
option was still to stop here, but probably not bother pressing on to visit
the other bays later. Dropped the anchor which held immediately (cannot
recommend the Rocna anchor strongly enough...it is just wonderful) and chose
to sit out the next few hours before launching the dinghy and going ashore
after lunch.

Wind never eased at all, but we launched the dinghy anyway and I took Sarah
ashore and left her to do some investigating and provisioning, whilst I
bought some fuel for the outboard and returned to Serafina.

Wind kept up all day and by the evening was backing and veering at random
which had us all swinging around our anchors quite a bit. Recovered the
dinghy back on board and settled down for another breezy night.