Here was the sunrise on Saturday, January 21

The wind picked up overnight and was screaming by the morning. The wind caused a lot of noise — the wind itself was loud, the anchor chain/bridle moved a lot, waves slapped against the boat instead of gently lapping the boat, the wind generator sounded like a motor, and there were just a lot of thumps and rattles when the boat moved a lot. In addition to the sound, it was also rocky and uncomfortable. None of us slept well and we were all up early. As soon as there was enough light outside, we put both flopper stoppers down. That helped dampen the roll, but we were still moving a lot.

In the later morning, Keith’s friend from Best Life, came over for a while (the same boy that had come over yesterday). After lunch, Eric and Keith went to one of the boats to play D&D. Eric had a total of 10 kids playing. 

Meanwhile, Christi went to the beach with some of the adults. Someone picked her up in a planing dinghy. The waves were so large that it was a wet ride even in the planing dinghy.

They arrived onshore close to low tide. They knew they’d be stuck on the beach for about two hours. The dinghies would be grounded at the lowest tide, and they’d have to wait for the water to come back in enough for the dinghies to float again. We were currently experiencing the King Tide, which meant the biggest tide swing of the calendar year. One of the cruisers mentioned that, because the moon is closer to the earth than normal, this tide swing is actually the biggest in 992 years. Today was also the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year. It’s interesting that the Gregorian/Chinese new year has started off with such a dramatic natural phenomenon. Compare the picture at nearly low tide with last night’s picture at nearly high tide.

While onshore, they played a Finnish lawn game called Klop Log Tossing Game, where there are a dozen numbered pins that you try to knock down with another pin. Here was the sunset.