Anchoring
23 July 2005 | Point Judith, RI
Jeanne/FOG!
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
We woke up to total white out. By noontime we gave up hope that the fog would clear in time for us to get out that day. Ho hum. What do we do next?
Peter dragged out the gas barbecue that came with the boat, and set it up on the rail. It looks as if it has never been cleaned since it was put on the boat 2 years ago. I attacked the greasy and food-crusted grill and protective plate over the gas element with a knife and lots of detergent. The worst of the food and gunk is off but the entire setup is grotty enough that I would like to get some oven cleaner to do a proper job of cleaning it all before I let food touch it. And I'd like to bring it to shore to do the work rather get the boat dirty.
I don't know what it is, but we seem to be a magnet for other boats. During one of our 1980s trips to St. Vincent & The Grenadines in the Caribbean, we were the only boat anchored in Saline Bay, which has a long stretch of sandy beach about � mile or more long. The weather was so nice and our solitude was so complete that I was reluctant to continue our trek down the island chain until the afternoon that a Beneteau 37 came into the anchorage. With all that lovely open space in which to anchor, they headed straight for us and dropped the anchor less than 100 feet away.
I guess we haven't lost our appeal to other boats. About 3 pm Peter announced that we had to move. "Why?" "Because there are two boats who just anchored on top of us and I don't think they know what they're doing." "Oh."
I came up into the saloon and looked out to see what had him in such a snit. Well, yeah, there were two boats right on top of us, and by then Peter had started the engines. When he's ready to move he moves before I have a chance to think of doing anything other than getting to the fly bridge. Alas, no camera to take pictures of this entire process.
I'm glad that it was very calm because we were so close to the two sailboats that I didn't want any forward momentum once the anchor broke loose. (Or should I say they were so close to us? After all, we were here first!). By the time we got the anchor chain straight down we were about two dinghy lengths off their sterns. Both skippers were in their boats' cockpits, our anchor windlass makes a lot of noise, they couldn't help but watch us (close up!) as we retrieved our anchor and moved away from them to set our anchor further (far!) away from them.
What's the fuss, you ask? After all, the chances of any wind whatsoever is pretty slim. True, perhaps, but Peter watched the first boat sail in to anchor. Good, thought he, this fellow knows what he's doing. And then the fellow threw anchor, chain, and rode off the bow in one fell swoop (depth is about 20-25 feet in that spot). Well, maybe he's not so swift after all; no backing down or digging the anchor in. The second boat came up, rafted off the first boat, and then the skipper dinghied that boat's anchor out - again, just dropping it over. The weight of the anchors alone will probably hold the boats steady, but if the tidal current turns them around the two anchor rodes are going to be hopelessly tangled. If anything happens then, such as a local thunderstorm, they're going walkabout together.
This is a huge anchorage (the area behind the breakwater alone is more than 14 million square feet) [yeah, I'm a bit of a numbers junky] with a capacity for probably 100 boats, and there were only five boats in the entire place. Rather than room for only hundreds of feet between boats, there was room for thousands of feet between boats. I guess they figured we had the best spot and they wanted to share it with us.
As the day wore on the fog starting lifting and we could see the entire anchorage. There were a total of seven boats anchored around us until late in the afternoon when four more sailboats and one power boat came into the anchorage for the evening. There was still room for each boat to leave plenty of space between each other, so you can imagine my dismay when another sailboat seemed to find our anchoring spot just perfect for them, too!
Not so close that we wanted to move again, and although the fellow's anchoring technique was a bit .eccentric. they posed no real problem for us and so we stayed, knowing we were leaving first thing in the morning.
..eccentric anchoring technique. We go on and on about anchoring. It should be one of the most important skills that a cruiser has, yet somehow everybody seems to feel that it's so simple it's instinctive. Thinking back to our first year of cruising, and our anchoring mistakes, and watching others anchor over the years, I've come to the conclusion that just about everybody should pay more attention to their anchoring.
Here's a picture of the skipper of that second boat as he set his anchor. He did not drop the anchor and cleat it. He stood on the bow and held the anchor rode as his wife backed down.
First consideration. Holding the anchor rode might be fairly easy to do in such calm conditions, but given even a little chop it would have been difficult to keep one's balance. Taking a nosedive over the bow pulpit would have been painful. Better to cleat the rode, which gives you more control, and also acts as a steadying line. Too rough and a quick second turn around the cleat and anchor and skipper are pretty secure.
Second consideration. I would guess that this was about a 42-foot boat. Any pressure strong enough to properly set the anchor would have dragged the skipper overboard!
We've never had a bow pulpit, so I had to ask somebody about what I saw as the anchor rode rubbing against the bobstay. I still don't quite understand the explanation, but apparently the anchor rode somehow got threaded through the bobstay? Regardless, it does look as if it wouldn't take more than one night of boisterous weather for the bobstay to chafe right through the rode. Most cruisers spend a lot of time and energy designing good anti-chafe gear for their ground tackle. Oh, well, they'll learn soon enough.
Wednesday, July 20, dawned beautifully clear and calm. After two cups of coffee we weighed anchor and were off for the Warren River, just a few miles around the corner, to a temporary mooring our friend had located for us to use for our stay in the area.
Peter was prepared for the swift current as we picked up the mooring pennant, because he and his friends kept their boats down here in his fishing/pre-sailing days. But this is a new boat for both of us as we fumble our way through the best way to do things. The mooring line is so dirty that Peter doesn't want any part of it on the boat, and anyway, we need a bridle to center the mooring on the boat. It took two tries to get it right, and then we realized that we were on the wrong mooring and we had to do it all over again!
We are settled here for a while, anyway, and now we're headed out to find more "stuff" to make this boat a home.