First of all, we would like to wish everyone out there, family, friends, fellow cruisers, and whoever might be reading the blog by now....


A very Merry Christmas ! Joyeux Noël! God Jul!


We already got a Christmas present of sorts. Last night we had a gale in the anchorage. First a steady 30-35 knots of wind all night long with stronger gusts,then during 2,5 hours and together with a magnificent thunder storm, we experienced winds of (my moderate guess) 50-55 knots, probably more in the strongest gusts.

Thunder and lightning galore it was a true spectacle. I have never seen anything liike it in the northern waters I am used to, and it was awesome and a bit scary at the same time. When the thunder storm was at it's most ferrocious part, it suddenly calmed down completely, and a few minutes later came back but veered 180 degrees! Like a 'mini-hurricane' i f might use such an expression.

Those of our friends here who are not on moorings are riding on two anchors. I've considered it too but would feel at unease with doing so.

Lying to two anchors obviously makes the boat swing around less, and thus takes less room in the anchorage. This is a huge advantage here, especially in the summer when it's reported over 55 sailing boats. Add to this multihulls, centre-boarders and power boats, and believe me, it's difficult to imagine what it would look like here.

Simply put, we would not want to be around here during high season.

What I hold against the practice of dual anchors is the followiing:

First of all- after turning at least four times a day (tides) for a few weeks, the chains and/or rodes from those anchors would be tangled beyond imagination for someone who hasn't seen it. This is the part that makes me feel at unease with the idea....

IF, God forbid, the anchors would not hold in a severe blow, it would as I see it be very tricky (at least) to retrieve those anchors to be able to manouver. Of course one could cut or release the chains with a bouy or fender attached to reetrive them after the blow. That means that you would need a third and ideally heavier and stronger anchor to deploy after this.... Why not deploy your heavy and strong anchor from the start then and as a result not have to deal with the hassle of tangled chains?

My plan B, IF we would drag anchor (riding to a single bow anchor) is to simply re-anchor, and if that wouldn't work out, sort of 'heave to' with the help of the anchor and the engine for those hours until the (worst part of) blow has passed. Bear in mind that i 'ts VERY unusual woith storm force winds for more than 12-20 hours.

Obviously this is a personal choice, but for what it's worth, I feel better with only one (but a heavy) anchor. This blow is definitely the strongest I have ever experienced at anchor and since we stayed put, it strengthens my opinion of course.

The good old CQR 35 pounds with 9 mm chain has now kept the boat safely anchored during more than 350 nights on different types of bottoms and in tidal waters, swells up to 2 meters and wind strength up til full gale force since I bought the boat in december 2006, so I will definitely stick to it until proven wrong.

There is a lot said, and a lot to be said, about anchoring and anchors, and maybe I will share my 2 cents worth in another blog entry.

For now I just want to enjoy the x-mas holidays despite teh fact the forecast tells us of more strong winds (not gale force though) and rain 'en masse'.