For our first foray out of Placencia this year, we headed to one of our favourite anchorages, but it wasn’t quite as idyllic this time.

After a “wind on the nose” motoring trip, we reached North Long Cocoa Cay where we anchored in 10 feet of water and put out 60 feet of chain. After backing on it till we thought it had set, Jim dove on the anchor and although it was not well buried, it was upright and part way in, and the wind was forecast to be less than 10 knots.

Aha! I bet you know what’s coming!!

We were anchored a comfortable distance from the only other boat that was there – until another boat arrived just at sunset and dropped directly in line between the two of us. Yes – there was still space between the boats, but I just hate it when that happens in an anchorage with lots of room because “shit happens” and when boats are lined up closely, there is less time and space to react.

During the afternoon, we swam across to the coral heads without having to drop the dinghy - one of the pluses of this anchorage – and saw a number of colourful fish, although the coral didn’t seem to be as brilliantly coloured as I remember. Out of the corner of my mask, I spotted the tail of what I hoped was a nurse shark moving away from me and we both startled a couple of rays as we swam over them. We enjoyed BBQ’d pork chops and roasted veggies for dinner and called it an early night. When I looked out at midnight and when Jim looked out at 2 am we had all turned so that we were side by side with sterns to the cay, but all was well.

But the wind continued to pick up in velocity and changed direction 180 degrees. There was no longer any protection offered by cay or reef, and since the late arriving boat was now directly behind us, Jim decided to keep a lookout in the cockpit. He woke me at 5:30 with those dreaded words, “We’re dragging”. He turned on the engine and raced to the foredeck. I hustled up the companionway and put the boat in forward gear, easing the tension on the chain and keeping us away from our neighbour. As dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, we circled around a few times in choppy seas and re-anchored several hundred feet farther out in the bay. But this time, as we pitched up and down, the right side of the bowsprit including the anchor roller broke clean off and splashed into the water. The anchor was down but not well set, and we were worried about our ability to pull it up again over the broken bowsprit.

So, with me operating the electric windlass and Jim trying to keep the chain over a solid bit of bowsprit, we managed to pull it up and store it on deck. This time we decided to just get the heck out of there. As we motored away to get into the more sheltered water off nearby Rendezvous Cay, Jim got our second anchor ready to use. It has just a few feet of chain, with the rest of the length being nylon rode. That’s what we dropped and it held us steady while we made a pot of coffee and assessed the situation. Fortunately I had marked our last spot with a waypoint on the chart, and the water depth was just about 15 feet so we figured we would be able to find the anchor roller again. (It would be an expensive item to order and have shipped to Belize or Guatemala.) We took turns having naps, enjoyed the relatively calmer waters in the lee of Rendezvous Cay, and then in the afternoon, pulled anchor once again and went back to North Long Cocoa.

We positioned ourselves very close to the X on the chart and, this time, Jim saw that shark tail swishing as it passed under the boat! We decided to give it a little time to go elsewhere before anyone got in the water. Eventually Jim donned his fins and snorkel and dropped carefully into the water beside the boat – no sharks in sight so he went exploring. To our surprise, he found the roller on his first pass. He tied a line to it, pulled it on board, and then swam over the anchor. Once again, it was “mostly” set, and didn’t get any better with repeated repositioning and backing. But by then the wind had died down nicely and was not expected to change direction, the third boat had departed and there was lots of room around us, so we decided to stay another night. We swam, listened to Sirius Satellite radio, read our books and went to bed early. This time, we had an easy night of it.

We headed back to Placencia on Thursday and managed to have a wonderful sail most of the way. In the epilogue to our “incident”, I was chatting with the very nice folks on the “other boat” at a party that night. When I realized they didn’t know who it was who dragged close to them, I thought about keeping my mouth shut, but decided to disclose that it was Madcap. In the subsequent discussion, we discovered that she had been concerned that they were too close to us; he had been in his cockpit in those early morning hours watching the way the boats were sitting too, and we all had a rueful chuckle about the way “shit happens”, along with the relief that nobody hit anybody and everything is fixable.

Since we now have residual “anchor anxiety”, we have moved to a new-to-us location in Placencia; we will consult with a few people and decide what to do about fixing the bowsprit; and we will enjoy the Art and Music festival on the weekend.

Guess what has moved to the top of our wish list?