Tuesday, 23 February Which direction is the wind coming from?

In the three days we've been in the Balboa anchorage the wind has been light and variable in direction with a strong swell that kept us a'rocking. Shortly after dark this evening the wind suddenly picked up to 20 knots blowing into the bay & whipping the sea into 5' waves that rolled across a fleet of closely anchored boats, many with a long scope to allow for the 5m tidal range.

The evening's entertainment began gently with one boat putting out a radio call for her skipper to return as they were dragging anchor onto the boat behind them. Ten minutes later the VHF buzz became a howl with cruisers calling out for people to return to their boat because it was either dragging or swinging onto the next boat and requests to step aboard crewless boats and take control. It's standard practice to leave the key in the ignition just in case someone has to start the engine and save your boat.

Three sets of our friends were eating ashore and all three were in peril. The first dragged their anchor and scraped along the side of the second boat. The third had a long scope out and swung back onto a moored sports fishing boat, scratching that and causing significant damage to their wind steering system on their stern, the steel stanchions and an outboard hung on the rails. It turned out to be the most expensive meal they've ever had. Fortunately for us we'd opted to eat on board tonight and we'd anchored on the outside of the pack giving us more room to swing. Unfortunately we had raised our dinghy out of the water for the night. We tried to lower it but were in danger of being swamped by the waves and possibly flipping over so we all we couldn't get off to help. What we could do was phone them and advise a fast return.

At the height of the mayhem Gordon the Aussie flew past us in his airborne dinghy shouting the classic understatement “Strewth! It's a bit of a rough old night”. For over two hours we sat in the cockpit monitoring the boats around us and watching more than a dozen boats trying to re-anchor on the fringes of the pack. Not easy in pitch black, the wind blowing a hooley and 5' waves. As they moved into position one or two poor crew clung to the bow ready to drop anchor as the bow bashed down and up in the waves. They must have got very wet.
Two hours after it all began the panic was over, winds had dropped and many had a nervous night's sleep. Including us