We poke around the boat during the morning. The wind should calm a bit by noon making for an easy sail to Chatham Bay, about 4 hours away.
We leave about noon and put up sails in the lee of Bequia. We’re cautious as big winds have been happening all week but we will gradually let out more sail all day.
It’s a pleasant run down to Union Island, we take turns on watch and resting. I try snoozing on the salon couch. It’s not bad, a little warm even though I turn the fan on. I think we could open a hatch or two in a relatively easy sail like this.
We sail right down to the bottom of Chatham Bay before turning into the wind to drop the sails. Bezos’ boat is in the bay, along with 5 or 6 of us commoners. The beachfront looks devastated and in fact, it is. The fancy resort/restaurant at the south end of the beach looks like a ghost town now and there is only one restaurant operating under tarp, container and generator.
We see a spot we would like to anchor in but the French people behind us are waving and yelling. We turn around and it seems they’ve got 50m (!) of chain out so they don’t want us to anchor in front of them. That’s a lot of chain. I suspect they just said that so they could have the near shore anchorage to themselves. Anyway, we move over a 100m or so.
It’s always very blustery in Chatham Bay and today is no exception. We get settled though and get ready to go have dinner on the beach. As we’re climbing into the dinghy, the guy in front of us is waving at us and I’m wondering what anchor sin I’ve committed this time.
Nope, turns out they just wanted a ride into the beach. The two French Canadians from Quebec, Andre and Claire, have their dinghy up on the deck (they don’t have davits) and though the restauranteur was supposed to pick them up, he hasn’t shown.
No problem, we go in together and have a nice, expensive meal with them. Chatting back and forth in Frenglish is amiable and though they may be a little woke, they are very pleasant. The dinner costs us about $C100 but there was tons of food.
We give them a ride back in our semi-inflated dinghy, we all tend to get a bit wet, especially as it is very windy and splashy.
We all survive.