Saturday 28 Cyclone Wilma

Cyclone Wilma has passed to the north and east of us and while we were not subject to the worst of her might we did catch the edge of her tongue. We were hunkered down in Islington Bay, Rangitoto with about another 15 boats. The rain fell continuously from mid morning yesterday until 4am this morning. The highest forecast for the period was 40 knots, gusting 60 knots. The highest we saw through the rain was just over 30 kts so not too bad. The worst was being woken at 4am by shouts heard through the whistling wind. A quick check through the window revealed lights moving towards us – someone's anchor had given up it's grip of the sand. By the time we'd scrambled into waterproofs our new near neighbours were close enough to shout to us. Close enough to shout they'd picked up our anchor chain with their anchor. Quelle dommage! Either our anchor reset quickly or they hadn't moved it because after they'd freed themselves we hadn't moved.

4am storm wear

Here's the irony. As this drama was unfolding the rain stopped and the wind dropped and we slipped into dead calm. Wilma had spun off into the southern Pacific. We sat at anchor for one more day to let the residual winds sort themselves out and to let the sea lie down.