Anchors (dragging) Away!!!
It’s funny how sometimes I feel like I’ve got some level of mastery over my life, or at least I feel like I’m in a groove; then there are other times where it’s lesson after lesson after lesson. The pace this week has been relentless. I mean really, several critical lessons a day seems a bit much. Can we calm down please? Can we chill for a bit please? No? Ok.
Harris Crew at the Customs Dock…storm clouds starting to accumulate but the water was still such a beautiful colour and the girls were thrilled with the tiny bright blue minnows everywhere :)
Matriarch at the Customs Dock…Greg brought her in perfectly; which is impressive if you knew how tired he was and how much that guy needs sleep to function. All of us, including Matriarch, breathed a (temporary) sigh of relief.
So after arriving yesterday afternoon in Bermuda after a passage that was 50% good and 50% scary (see previous 5 posts entitled “Bermuda Bound”) we anchored out among the many other boats choosing to spend some time on this tiny island in the middle of somewhere (Liam kept saying we are in the middle of nowhere and I kept telling him everywhere is somewhere). Anchoring a boat that is still more new-to-us than not is stressful, we very much care about providing enough swing space and not crowding others. So we dropped the hook in one location but after backing down on the anchor to set it we felt we were too close to the boat behind us so we picked up and moved down the chain to find a more spacious location. Or so we thought.
Now I know I posted on Instagram about the other times we’ve seen neighbours drag…so this may not come as much of a surprise. For the 3rd time in the last 2 weeks we saw another neighbour drag. This time it was a bit more personal.
With the massive cold front passing over us last night and today Greg and I were ready for anchor watch if we felt it necessary. We set the anchor alarm to sound if we are 50 meters beyond where we dropped (we had 30m of chain out) and we had the instruments on so we could check our track to make sure we were still in place. We woke up periodically to check the track - all looked good. Then the wind shifted from SE to N (as expected) and being the sailors we are now, we felt that shift and both woke up to check on things again. At this point the wind was really cranking (consistent 30 knots in a well protected harbour) so Greg and I decided to stay up for a bit on 30 minute shifts between 3:00am and 5:00am to keep a weathered eye. By 5:00 we felt that since everything looked good we could count on things to remain so and stopped the watch.
5:15am
Aden wakes up and looks out the port light (all 3 kids were sleeping with Greg and I and there is a story about that for another post)…then in her sleepy morning voice says “mom, there is a boat right beside us”. HUH???? I look out the port light and slap Greg on the leg to wake him up (sorry honey) because in the 15 minutes we were out our neighbour dragged about 3 boat lengths and now his stern was a few feet from our bow and swinging wildly.
Greg and I both athletically bound out of bed and run up to the bow to fend off the boat (mental picture here, Greg was just in his underwear and only later added a foul weather jacket and boots, but still no pants hehehehe). The older gentleman on the other boat was buck naked (and well tanned I must say) and doing his best on his end.
Heart stopping moment.
As Greg was fending off the other boat with his hands on the other boats solar panels, trying to keep them off our forestay, his head got about 12inches away from a wind generator that was cranking so fast it was nearly invisible. I shouted at him (it was really loud out there in the wind) and he moved out of the way but while also fending his hand got so so so close to it again. When we had a brief moment and he backed up and actual saw the wind gen the look on his face was the look of someone who realizes he just had a very very lucky break.
Once about 10 years ago when we were in the Virgin Islands with my family (I’ve written about this trip in my “how did we get here” post) we were in Magen’s Bay and had a nice chat with a woman who was sitting in a beach chair. We literally had just shared with each other how lucky we felt to be in such a beautiful place and how grateful we were for it when she stood up out of her beach chair, preparing to take a dip in the turquoise water, and a massive coconut dropped from a high palm tree and landed on the cross bar at the top of the chair back (where her head was about 5 seconds ago) and bent the metal rod down into a deep “V”. My dad was beside me at the time and all of us first registered shock, followed by shaky laughter, and then followed by a deeper realization of what almost just happened. That look on her face was the same look on Greg’s face this morning by the wind gen.
So back to this morning’s drama. With Greg’s head and hand still in tact we tried to troubleshoot with the older gentleman. He was unable to raise his anchor and reset because he was alone and couldn’t control his windlass from the cockpit (or maybe didn’t have one to be honest) so he asked us to let out more chain and drift back into the channel to make room for him. At first we did this primarily to create space between the two boats. I hailed Bermuda Radio and explained the situation in order to give them a heads up that we were in the channel. They were very kind and said it would be ok for now as long as we had our anchor light on and that we can see later in the day if we need to move again. But then after another shout-talk with the other gentleman (who didn’t have his VHF on) we realized he wasn’t going to be about to relocate at all so this was the strategy for at least the next 24hours. Hmmmm…not ideal. This presented three issues in my eyes:
we would be in the middle of the main channel during rough weather (aka someone might need to come in for safe harbour)
we would be much closer to a lee shore (a little island in the harbour)
if he continued to drag, his anchor might foul our anchor and then we would both drift back into that aforementioned lee shore.
So we decided to raise anchor now and reset elsewhere.
Fortunately it was dawn so we could scout out a better location; unfortunately we were still having massive gusts. Getting our champion-of-a-spade-anchor-who-has-not-ever-budged-once-now-in-2.5-gales up was very hard as the boat was swinging despite Greg’s best efforts to keep us lined up and slack. We had to just button mash and hope the windlass wouldn’t fail. In the back of my head I was already planning a contingency should that happen (less out more chain again and drift into the channel). But the windlass held out and we got it up.
We decided for a large open spot on the other side of the channel called “Powder Hole” on the south side of the harbour (I think it’s a hurricane hole). In between a few beautiful Chris White design catamarans and a massive monohull yacht that had such a tall mast that last night I thought it was a cell tower :P With the NE wind we now had we were a bit more exposed and there was more fetch for the chop to build, but we had lots of room and would be able to see far in advance if anyone dragged our way as they would have to cross the channel and come a long way. We dropped anchor and put out a 5:1 scope (we may add later today but so far so good).
I called Bermuda Radio again to confirm with them where we relocated to and to flag that they may need to keep an eye out for the other boat should he drag into that lee shore. Bermuda Radio were so awesome and kind (and maybe a little bored) we ended up having a little chat and then he praised us for how we handled everything…not going to lie, as new-to-this-offshore-cruising-life people it was nice to hear that we did something well hahahaha. Also I really like talking on the VHF - it’s hard to believe it used to really really intimidate me, like as recently as a few weeks ago. He even asked me how to spell Matriarch and after a pause for a few seconds (I couldn’t remember the word for “T”) I got out Mike-Alpha-Tango-Romeo-India-Alpha-Romeo-Charlie-Homer Simpson…..hahaha just seeing if you were still paying attention during this long blog post. Hotel, not Homer Simpson.
So now we are safely anchored. Expecting gusts over 40 knots throughout the day. Not able to get to land to wash clothes and linens that got soaked with seawater (again, will explain in another post) and, most importantly, not yet able to enjoy the fruits of our labour and see this beautiful place. But tomorrow will be calmer, we are warm, safe, dry (mostly), have lots of food and wine on board, wifi and the entire season of the Office, Seinfeld, South Park, Simpsons and many others thanks to my amazing brother-in-law so we are going to hunker down and be grateful that the coconut did not land on our heads.
Ready for another 10 life lessons tomorrow.
Much love,
M
