CURRENT LOCATION: Tied to a mooring ball near Cayo Pirata, in Ensenada Honda, Culebra, Puerto Rico

18 18.400' N, 065 17.842' W

The winds here are almost always from some component of east. Northeast, southeast, or due east, the tradewinds are rarely interrupted in their consistency of direction. At least that has been the case up until the last two days.

Upon our return from Culebrita, we found the boats in the harbor pointing to the southwest. Yesterday, winds diminished and we swung even further west by midday. By the time we were finishing dinner and cleaning up the dishes, the sky was cloudy and the winds nearly nonexistent.

Suddenly, the winds picked up from the north. We felt the shift from within the belly of Prudence, and I poked my head up to see what was happening in the harbor. What I saw was not good.

A small sailboat was dragging anchor and bearing down upon another neighboring boat. Most unfortunately, neither boat was occupied. I quickly untied the painter of our dinghy from the stern cleat and fired up the Evinrude. Sheryl asked if I wanted a fender, but there was no time to untie one from our stern rail storage area. I was off.

I managed to get between the boats just as they were about to swing beam-to-beam into one another (like a pair of steel balls on one of those desk toys you can by at Spencer's). Fortunately, the smaller boat was easy to fend off of the larger boat without risk of my becoming a very flat piece of meat in a boat sandwich. Meanwhile, David from Doodleman had noticed the situation, stopped by Prudence where Sheryl handed over a fender, and quickly arrived at my side. It is a good thing I had found that fender on the beach in Culebrita, because it was the perfect cushion to place between the boats while we sorted out what to do next.

It appeared that the anchor of the small boat had finally reset, only it was not in the most desirable position (parked next to the big boat), especially if there were to be any continuing wind shifts. David knew who the owner of the smaller boat was and indicated that he could try contacting him by cell phone. Note that the owners of the larger boat are currently on a delivery trip aboard another vessel, and were therefore unavailable.

I stayed with the precariously parallel parked pair of boats until David returned with two more fenders and news that Sue was trying to reach the small boat owner. In the interim, we thought it might be best to try and put a little more distance between the two boats. However, we were hesitant to shorten the scope of the rode (for fear the anchor might pull free again) and neither of our dinghies has enough horsepower to tow this little boat. David suggested that Irise's tender had more then enough power to move this little sailboat. This time, while David stayed, I zipped over to request Paul's assistance.

Paul and I returned with a little more horsepower, and Sheryl shouted over to us that the owner of the small boat had been contacted and was on his way. We used Paul's dinghy to tow the small sailboat forward and shorten scope.



At this point, the owner of the small sailboat came along and completed the job of hauling up the anchor. We helped him to reset his anchor, a good distance from other boats, just as darkness was falling. Needless to say, he was quite appreciative. Of course, what goes around comes around, and we simply hope that if ever our own boats are in any danger while we are away, someone will leap to their rescue on our behalf.

There you have it, dear Reader. A bit of excitement here in Paradise, without things getting too exciting. Fortunately, no boats were harmed in the making of this blog entry.