It's been a little blustery here in Antigua (and frankly, most parts of the Eastern Caribbean). This makes us very glad that we have a good anchor, solid chain, and a good knowledge of how to anchor. It just makes us nervous about those that don't know how to anchor...

Yesterday afternoon we came home to the boat to see a charter catamaran anchored kind of close to the front of our boat. Certainly not dangerously close, but enough to know that if she dragged, there wouldn't be a lot of wiggle room. The people hiring the boat were aboard, so we were a little more relaxed. However, that wasn't to last.

Within about 10 minutes of us getting home (long enough to get things put away and think about throwing some lunch together), Ken observed that they were much closer to our boat. So did they. While Ken enjoyed his lunch of leftover pizza on deck, he had the entertainment of watching them deal with the situation. He was entertained for an appreciable amount of time.

For some reason, the guys on deck had to pull the anchor chain up by hand. This is strange since most charters have a windlass for this. With the wind gusting, and the windage of the catamaran, it was not easy going, as the third guy at the helm was not having an easy time with getting the nose into the wind. No exaggeration, it took them over 30 minutes to pull up maybe 30m (100') of rode. The women assisted by trying to direct the helmsman where to go. It wasn't pretty. The guy at the helm was riding the throttles so hard he was churning up sand in the 5m (15') water.

Ken then watched them go at warp speed away from us and towards a shoaly area... and bang, they ran aground. Ouch. They worked the two diesels hard to finally manage to spin themselves around so that they could float freely again. They were ready to try anchoring again. It looked like they were settled in, and at a safe distance from any other boats. And they put some fenders out, too, just in case.

This morning Ken and I entertained Paul and Rosemary, a couple of English tourists we have become friends with here, with breakfast on the boat. We had a lot of fun. Paul's owned boats in England, and was delighted to be able to come aboard for a visit. We enjoyed a nice breakfast, and Paul had fun playing the guitar (the man is good!) Ken was recounting yesterday's adventures of the catamaran, when he looked up and saw the boat about 90m (300') downwind of where she was this morning. And this time the crew was not onboard.
The cat was moving backwards as we watched, and was certain to hit another boat. Pretend that it isn't our problem, since it wasn't going to hit us? Not likely. Ken, Paul and I hopped in the dinghy to go to the cat, Rosemary wisely stayed on our boat.

When we got on the dragging vessel, Ken went to the helm while Paul and I went forward. What to do? We really couldn't put out more anchor rode to try to improve the catenary (a rope/chain mix), as it would probably swing into one of the other boats. Okay, we need to move this pig.

Ken fired up the diesels (lesson here, never remove your keys from the diesel, because someone can save your backside if they can run your engine). The rode was not run through the windlass, which meant a brute strength haul. With the wind gusting, and the $^%*ing cat's windage, this was not going to be easy. Ken motored up as best as he could (the wind had fun making that difficult), while I pulled up any rode that I could, and Paul pulled in my slack, ready to belay the rode on the cleat at any time. Poor Paul, I would shout "belay, belay", and if it wasn't done quickly enough, we would lose some of the rode we had gained. I would get Ken to go into neutral so we could be nose to the wind, then motor up again to give me slack to pull up. No wonder the guys had such a tough time yesterday! However, we did it in less than 30 minutes, we think.

When the anchor finally came up, we decided that the smart thing would be to put the boat on a mooring ball. The anchors were ridiculously small (and identical) and screwing around with the rode by hand with the wind pushing the cat around like a kite seemed like a bad idea. By this time, Ken, who had never operated a twin engine boat, much less a catamaran, was getting the hang of the beast. We headed into the mooring field to pick up an empty ball.

The first attempt wasn't good, and I ended up having to sacrifice the boat hook (too short for that much freeboard, anyway). For the second attempt, since we didn't have the boathook, I jumped into our dinghy to grab the pennant from the mooring to hand it to Paul. This was much more successful. Finally the wandering kitty was tied up, and unless the mooring broke, she wasn't going anywhere. The clip on the bridle was too small for the pennant line, so we looped the pennant over a cleat, and secured the bridle to the ring on the ball (the clip was too small for that, too, so I looped it around and clipped it to its own line). Stupid, cheap charter company with substandard gear; crap anchors, a possibly malfunctioning windlass...

The boat secured, we headed back to our own well anchored boat.

In the late afternoon, they came back to where there boat had been, and enquired at our neighbours as to where their vessel might have gone. I followed a little later to explain about the missing boathook. I also found out that yes, the windlass was malfunctioning, and they had already told the charter company that the anchors were not adequate. This was after the company had fixed the steering cable that had been broken during the previous charter. We certainly can't blame the charterers for what happened, they worked with what they had.

So, tonight we will join them for a drink or two. The conversation might be a little difficult, since they are German. However, I thought it would be more sociable than accepting the $100 we were offered for a dinner out, and I will bring some rum for them to sample. We might as well help make their vacation memorable for more than a shoddy boat!