Photo: Lined up on parade...

A raggedy English sailboat pulling into someone's privately owned berth here in Anacortes Marina caused something of a stir would you believe. There's no transient moorage in this marina I was told in no uncertain terms by various salubrious boat owners who were clearly of the more monied type. I explained our arrangement to the first guy who came along to ask, you know, just to check us out, that the berth owner's boat had been hauled out of the water for a month and that we'd done a mutual deal to use his spot. I said the same to the second guy who asked and then to the third who just happened by. But then, I heard that the first guy checked in the office anyway, just in case I was pulling a winger. The fourth guy who asked was a little more friendly but I could see in his eye he was uneasy... 'we've never had such thing as an English sailboat in here before,' he said. All of this happened within the first couple of hours of tying up.

Later in the evening a fifth guy knocked loudly on Sänna's hull, demanding to know why we were tied up here, right here in his friend's slip? I responded impatiently this time, telling him that I'd been fortunate, that I'd won the berth in a game of cards, indeed I was now the proud owner. The English are always extremely good at poker, I said. He was horrified. He didn't know his friend Jake was a gambler he said. Then, to make this fellow feel a little more sympathetic to his friend, I explained that I'd dealt a sneaky hand, a bad one from beneath the deck, that I'd be forever grateful if he didn't tell because we had nowhere else to go with our boat. He disappeared abruptly, very abruptly in fact. I already knew I was stupid - I had a sudden bad feeling. Come the next morning, quite early, I received a voice message on my phone asking that I present myself at the marina office first thing Monday morning. Of course, on Monday things didn't go well...

Later on Monday I received a call from Jake himself. He was laughing loudly, explaining to me his wife had already received two calls from her friends... 'did you know Jake lost your boat slip to an Englishman at poker....'

Never play poker with an Englishman is wot I say.
________________________________________________________________________________
Please visit our SV Sänna website for more details of our circumnavigation voyage from the UK. Also at www.facebook.com/SV.Sanna. Like our Facebook page if you'd like to receive more news about our sail adventure. You can contact us here.