One House Bay

I've been up every hour during the night to poke my head out the hatch and make sure the anchor is not dragging. At 04:00 Eileen wakes up and offers to stay in the cockpit for a while to keep an eye on things. Instead we agree that I will stay in the cockpit until 06:00, when she will take over and I'll go below for a few hours of sleep. 

It's a full moon, so there are not many stars out. But at least it is easy to see our distance off the beach. The bay is much less sheltered that I thought it would be, and I'm cursing myself, thinking what a stupid idea it was to spend the night here. I watch the sun come up over the distant islands, the sky slowing changing colour. It's beautiful and it almost makes up for the sleepless night. Almost. At 06:00 I go for some sleep as Eileen takes over.

When I wake up at 08:00, I hear a strange noise coming from outside. I climb the companionway steps to find Eileen enthralled by a big herd of goats on the beach! Of course, being a statistician, she has counted them! There are over 100 goats, she informs me. And the goat herder has been sleeping for the last hour, stretched off on the beach. The strange noise is the sound of the bells on the goats! Eileen tells me how she saw them appear at the top of the mountain, then descend all the way down the steep slope to the beach.

Soon we hear more ding-dong, jingle-jangle and spot more goats on the top of the mountain. A lot more. And more men, herding them down. 4 or 5 men are herding them down the mountain, throwing stones to keep any strays in line. There must be another 150 goats here. We go to wake Laura, she can't miss this. 

Now the beach is covered with goats and the noise is incredible! Like the bells of ten weddings at the same time. We eat our breakfast while watching the spectacle on the beach. I guess we won't be going ashore and swimming after all. Hmm, but we wouldn't have seen this if we had spent the night on a town quay...

OK, it was worth it after all!