Weather Helmed

At 3:37AM (I know because we have a clock velcroed to the ceiling of the quarterberth) I awoke to an awful sound.  A dull, heavy, rolling thudthudthudthudthud echoing through the water.  “Matt!” I whispered.  “Did you hear that?” and then the dread of every cruiser – “I think our anchor might be dragging.”  Seconds later, I heard it again.  A slow thudthudthudthud. “Matt! What IS that?” I sat up, ready to jump over Matt and go check outside.  There it was again. “That is not cool.”   Matt, groggy from sleep started to slowly slide his body out of bed.

Then, “Hey,” Ray shouts from the v-berth, right under the windlass and just behind the chain locker where our anchor is ultimately secured to the boat.  “Matt! I think you’re letting out rode!”  Rode is fancy sailor lingo for the chain or rope that is attached to the anchor.

We all throw on clothes and scramble up on deck.  The cove could not be calmer, with light wind and ripply little waves.  We’re slightly confused and then we hear a new noise, a crude, but gentle thumping, and we see it – our dinghy, which was secured by a short line to the stern of the boat, was unabashedly hooking up with a mooring stick while the mooring ball jealously bumped against us.

We had intentionally anchored close to a mooring field.  A mooring field is basically a parking lot for boats.  There are pre-set anchored floaties that you can tie your boat to (using the mooring stick) instead of throwing down an anchor yourself.  Just like a parking lot, mooring fields help maximize the number of boats you can get into an area and prevent boats from taking too much swinging room. When we set our anchor the other day, we considered our tiny cove and Matt sensibly rationalized that if we dragged anchor or the wind shifted, etc., it was better to roll up on a mooring buoy than on the rocks.  So, when we saw our dinghy in its amorous embrace with a mooring stick, we were appropriately surprised, but not entirely shocked.

While our dinghy lovingly caressed the slender figure, its sulky mooring ball lingered close by clinging to our hull, the petulant wingman.  We yanked the dinghy alongside the boat like a naughty child and untangled ourselves from the mooring lines.  Matt pulled up some of our anchor rode to put distance between us and the temptress and we all went back to sleep…

Until ten minutes later when we hear an insistent banging against the hull.  Apparently the mooring ball was upset that our dinghy abandoned its friend without so much as a kiss goodnight.  Matt and I go up on deck to see the ball beating the boat, the mooring stick bobbing shyly in the background.  Matt hauls in some more rode, we stare down the mooring ball, and we return down below.

A half hour passes, and I hear a subtle, then not-so-subtle metal tapping.  I am debating whether it’s something outside or simply our pots and pans shifting around in the cabinets when the sound goes away.  I hear it again about 20 minutes later.  This time, I realize that it’s the mooring stick wondering if maybe our dinghy can come back out to play, perhaps they can watch the sunrise together?  I wake Matt up and we go up top again to see the unrelenting stick hiding behind our wind steering device.  Seagulls perched on nearby mooring balls laugh mercilessly as we stand in the early light figuring out what to do.

We decide to set a second anchor to prevent us from drifting back into the mooring field.  Winds are expected to shift mid-morning and there’s no need to disturb our nicely set primary anchor.  Matt revs up the dinghy and heads out to drop the second anchor, only to realize after he’s dropped it and let out all 300+ feet of the rode, that he’s short of the boat by about 20 feet. He looks back at me from the dinghy, smiling sheepishly, holding the last bit of line in his hand.  Reluctantly, he starts pulling up all that line and then resets the anchor.

Exhausted when he returns, he hands me the line and tells me to winch it in so our stern is turned into the wind, putting us bow-on to the mooring field.  Almost 40 minutes later, Matt is sprawled out in the cockpit asleep, I’ve seen a lovely sunrise and my arms are aching from winding in all that rode.  BUT –  we are free from the mooring lines and shouldn’t have to worry about any flirtatious sticks or our anchors if this coming storm turns out to be anything interesting.

Needless to say, we learned several lessons this morning and I feel fairly lucky that this is the most excitement we’ve seen so far  🙂

*not a picture of our mooring pair, but it looks just like it!!! borrowed the photo from another cruising couple SV-Sagittaire