We Were Very, Very Lucky

Sunday evening we were getting ready for bed (even had the covers turned down) but the wind had picked up and there were things outside on the boat that were making way too much noise: flags, fishing tackle stuff, towels flopping around. We went out to reposition everything and, in the process, noticed we seemed to be changing positions. Now, when the wind changes from around 1 or 2 mph up to 20+, you do swing around and a lot of times your position relative to the other boats around you does change – but we were changing places drastically and it became apparent that we were dragging anchor. Gerry hollered at Linda to start engines and he ran up to the flybridge while she ran forward to handle the anchor. There was only one boat behind us (Purrfection – the boat we had taken pictures of the night before with the beautiful sunset). Of course, we were headed right for them. Gerry was able to put the boat hard in reverse and we avoided a collision on our starboard side with their port side. However, all of a sudden we stopped – completely. Our bow was only a few feet from their stern. Linda let out all the anchor chain and we stopped about 50 feet behind them. It seemed we may have fouled our anchor with their ground tackle. We talked back and forth with them and they said they were very comfortable with us riding out the night behind them and we’d just figure it out in the morning. They were sure their anchor would hold both of us. Gerry was okay with that too, and actually slept okay during the night. Linda – not so much – and she was up most of the night checking to see how we were doing. It was a loooooong night!!

With the light of dawn, we got in the dinghy with the “look bucket” and set out to see the mess we were in. We followed their anchor chain all the way to the anchor – it was clear. We followed our anchor chain, but could not follow it all the way to the anchor, as it appeared our anchor was under their boat. We saw our anchor chain snubber on the bottom so Gerry decided to get out his snorkeling gear and see if he could follow the chain all the way to the anchor. What he found was that our anchor was hooked over their anchor chain where their snubber attached. With a minimum amount of hassle they were able to clear the connection and were on their way. Yup – we were lucky – no collision and no severely tangled ground tackle.

We reset the anchor with the help of Michael checking through his look bucket to make sure we had a great set. We then took a long nap.

This is a shot of Purrfection leaving our overnight "raft up"