Beached and driven off by the wind in Thompson Bay

We are here in Thompson Bay, settlement of Salt Pond in the middle of Long Island for about a week until the high winds drop down and the ocean waves settle back down. It is a nearly perfect anchorage, protected on 3 sides, relatively shallow depth, good holding and amenities on shore with a couple docks where you can tie up your dingy and not drag in up some rocky beach. There are only about 20 cruising boats here verses nearly 300 when we left Georgetown. The grocery store has a good selection at prices which seem to be slightly less than Georgetown.  The local fuel station dock took a terrible beating in the last hurricane and was recently nicely rebuilt, you can take your big boat right up to the dock to fuel.  The same owner also build a new dock closer to where most boats anchor and we all use it for the dingy.  Nearby is a small bar (Sou’Side) with internet.  There is also a place to rents cars, a marine supply store and the tourist office for Long Island is also located here.  The only negative is that the water lines with RO water coming up from the south end of the island do not make it quite this far ( due to some political reason we hear) and the water is trucked in, so it has to be purchased for $0.30/gallon.

My starboard engine sea water pump has been leaking for some time, gradually getting worse.  I tried to replace the seal while in Acklins but was afraid to press out the bearings and having trouble, needing that engine to get back so I removed it, was able to drive out the shaft while on the boat and took the shaft up to the auto repair shop across from Sou’Side where they worked with me getting it apart and then to press on new bearings and a seal as I had all the spare parts with me.  We spent more time looking for tools and  pieces of metal for the press but all went well albeit slowly.  When I asked how much I owed him, he said $20 saying I did most of the work. Installed and the leak is gone!

I had left Amy at another beach side bar, Tiny’s Hurricane Hole to do laundry.  Tiny’s is the quintessential beach bar, colorful,  small, overlooking the water, tiny cove for the dingy, palm thatched roof but with the design and quality of an American entrepreneur.  They also rent out small cottages ( $125/night) and have a couple washers and dryers for cruisers.

The other popular gathering place for cruisers is  the “cruiser’s beach” with a few cruiser built picnic tables and flotsam decorations.  Some cleaver thoughtful person had brought over some small solar lights to light up the path to the “bathroom” (see picture ). There is also a land path to Tiny’s here which passes and old well ( see picture).  We checked and the water is brackish but probably drinkable if needed.   In the corner of this little cove was a smooth sandy beach of a shallow gradient where I decided to beach the  boat and try and change the sail drive oil.  I checked it a low tide, picked out the spot and marked it with a pole on the beach.  We went in just after high tide Thursday morning with low tide at 1:30 pm that afternoon.  I knew it would be marginal for the tide drop and it turned out not to drop quite enough to access the drain plug on the sail drive.  I did manage to clean all the bottom, give everything a good inspection and we waited for high tide to float us back off that evening.  What I failed to notice was that while the tidal range was increasing each day with the new moon, the evening tide was 0.1meter LESS than the morning tides!  We spent the night sitting thru another cycle of tides.  I was up at 5 am this morning to check, saw we still needed another 6-8” to get off.  At 7 am, the wind had picked up ( I was also fearful that with the higher winds out of the NE, would drive water out of the bay and we might have to endure another day being beached), we felt a lurch and suddenly we were floating free with nothing to hold us from running into one of the other boats anchored downwind.  In a mad scramble, we grabbed some clothes, started the engines, buoyed the stern anchor rode we had set to pull us off and tried to get anchored again.  It took 3 tries but we finally are anchored just as the sun was coming up. We are a little too close to the boat behind us but we can move once we are fully awake and the winds give us a chance to do so.