As some of you know, most of the time we’ve been in Boot Key Harbor we were on a safe, easy mooring ball. A few weeks ago we moved to the anchorage, where it’s free. But it’s not as secure as being on one of those mooring balls! There is a price to pay either way.
There was a big storm forecasted to blow through here tonight. Everyone was saying (including the official weather reports) that it would be here in the late afternoon or evening. K and I were planning on getting our anchor reset by the end of the afternoon to prepare for the shift of strong winds coming our way. Around noon we noticed big, ominous clouds coming in from the west. They quickly got darker and darker, and we decided to reset the anchor before it hit. Wow, did we act with divine timing!! The storm front hit unbelievably fast, with a solid wall of 30-50 knot winds. It literally went from completely calm to 40 knot winds in about 2 minutes! Not even 1 minute after we got the anchor down, we were hanging on for dear life as the wind gusted with a force we have never seen before. We watched anxiously as boats all around us (who had not reset their anchors) started dragging around the anchorage. Some had hair raising narrow misses with other boats, a few ran aground on the sandbar to our south. Here is a little video of the storm:

The major storm has blown through now, and everyone in the anchorage is starting to get out and help the stranded neighbors who ran aground.

We were originally planning on leaving today, but problems that came up with our wind generator have kept us here a few more days…guess it’s a good thing we stayed put! I hate to even imagine how stressful it would have been to be out and about sailing in this storm!! Now our hopeful departure date is sometime this weekend.