We do live in a beautiful world full of amazing people and the Shag Islet Cruising Club’s Rendezvous 2017 is right up there. We on Annecam are part of a flotilla of 205 boats anchored here on Cape Gloucester to take part in this magnificent fundraising event. The organizers announced yesterday that over four hundred thousand dollars has been raised for prostate cancer research.
We are definitely in the trade wind zone and after almost a week of almost dead calm conditions the weather gods let us all know exactly where we are and as usual we witnessed that some anchors work better than others. The following story is what happened after we came back to Annecam after the Hands Across the Blue dinghy raft-up event held yesterday morning, all vessel names have been changed to protect the innocent.
The wind had jumped up to over 20 knots (36kph) and was now coming from the East not the gentle South Easterly direction of the last few days, this meant that all the boats were now pulling their anchor chains in a different direction, most new generation anchors re-set very quickly, some of the older plow type anchors don’t and the boats or we should say one boat the Black Pearl with no crew on board, not that far from us started dragging toward a yacht the French Connection. We could see that the couple on the French Connection had covered their bow with fenders for protection and they had no chance to lift their anchor as it was now right under the Black Pearl. We called the organizers who then hailed the fleet on the VHF radio trying to find the crew of the Black Pearl. As the situation was looking like the French Connection was about to be hit by a heavy steel boat the Black Pearl, Cam launched Macenna our trusty dinghy and offered to help, the skipper of the French Connection said that Cam had no chance of moving the heavy steel Black Pearl but Cam said that he could give them enough space to quickly retrieve their anchor and be able to re-anchor in a safer location to avoid any damage to the French Connection. It did take a lot of effort and a couple of shifts of the point that Cam was pushing from but it worked as smooth as silk and no boat was hurt in the process. We noticed the Black Pearl had sailed away early this morning, so there is little chance to tell the crew about the events that took place in their absence.
Last night we met a couple who arrived in their dinghy alongside us at the ‘What you were wearing when the ship went down’ party. They were formerly dressed, she in a long elegant black gown with gorgeous plastic kids jewelry and he in a suit with the cuffs of his pants rolled up. We made small talk about false eye lashes and other crazy stuff as we walked together along the beach to the function area. This morning we received a message on facebook from Janine, (black dress lady) that said that she would let Mark know that she had met us, we both thought who is Mark and after a bit of a background search revealed that her brother is Mark Holmes. It was four years ago we were in the Marina di Carla del Sole, Licata, Sicily with Mark and Samantha, wow what a small world we do live in!!
Today is the final day of the rendezvous, today is the day we become pirates, Aarrrrr me hearties bring it on, we will try to capture some of the crazy outfits on video to share with you all.
The photo is Bas and Roz, I mentioned Bas in our last blog, he was the one who asked us when our next video was coming. Cheers to you Bas and Roz, we told you we would put you in our blog.
“In life, just remember there is someone out there that is more than happy with less than what you have.”