A Fun Day in the Anchorage

Yesterday we took a fine bike ride all the way up to the ancient fortress of Grad Sotol. We finished the day with a late afternoon dinner then I updated the computers and Doug loaded 40 gallons of water aboard. Then we loaded our bikes in the dingy and headed back to the boat for a morning departure from Cavtat. Our last stop was for a glass or two ( or was it three or four?) of wine with Gaille and Ian on Princess Orceni, then back to Plankton and to bed. I turned off the wind generator so I wouldn't have to listen to it and did not set the anchor alarm since we were firmly attached to the bottom in mud.

About 7 AM we hear voices nearby, probably fisherman,and a small motor. No! What's that accent and why are they still beside us? We come out of our berth and on deck to see a huge carbon fiber catamaran off our bow and a big dinghy pushing it away from Plankton. But they can't get away from Plankton and instead of being 200 feet from our anchor, we are 125 feet, now 75 feet, and the wind is blowing 25 knots! What? They have caught our chain as they drug across the bay. After going back-and-forth, Doug is very hot under the collar fearing our bow will disengage from the boat, they get their anchor up with ours attached! Doug cuts the line to our chain and slips our orange anchor ball out with it. We move off and anchor in deeper water with our smaller 40 pound Danforth on a nylon line. That's a good anchor. She holds good.

We sit back for our first cup of coffee. The cat reanchors and the captain and his wife come over with a nice bottle of wine. Its 8 AM and we are thinking about popping the cork! Anyway, nice people. More boats break loose. It's a CF in the anchorage. Boats everywhere. Not everybody was up yet. Doug is anxious to retrieve our anchor and chain, in what?, 25 to 30 knot winds. Okay, whatever. That took a while! Princess O was just behind us so I kept a good watch ( as did Captain Ian!). After a few snags, my good man got the chain on the winch and we sat back as the show continued. Only three boats out of 20 have not broken loose, well , one may be dragging his chain... Geez, it's only 9:30 AM.

Update at 9:54 am. The French boat drug his chain 500 feet before he decided to do anything about it. As he was approaching our anchor Doug was on the bow screaming obscenities (sometimes it's better to be downwind). Princess Orseni just told us last night they had not yet drug . Whoops! Well they have tried to set a few times now. Looks like Plankton is in the clear. All the boats in front of us have moved to reanchor. Hope the wind direction doesn't change. Anyways they all brought up giant hairballs of grass in their anchors. We are in good mud. Doug stays busy with his rangefinder. He is a hawk.

I sit back with my coffee. Time to get back to that peaceful life on the boat!