No-Name Lanes

One of the disadvantages of having a true bluewater boat is that the ports are smaller and higher up, limiting your vision while sitting on the settees. This evening we were hanging out in the salon with the ports open when we heard the distinctive chain rattle of a boat dropping his anchor at what sounded awfully close. "That sounds pretty close," I said and Tim agreed while hurrying up the companionway to find that indeed the boat was very close. Tim proceeded to make a few loud comments to the skipper about how maybe he was too close and it turns out that the skipper had no engine because he had run over someone's rode and had it wrapped around his prop. Having no steerage and having the wind climbing well into the high teens again, he was dropping his anchor in an attempt to stop the drift which, of course, caused it to head directly toward our boat as it swung. We grabbed the fenders we keep on deck just for that purpose, but this was a Hunter 45 and it was too fast and too heavy so Kintala has a new scratch down the port side that will need to be buffed out. Meanwhile, the Hunter continued down the lane and became hopelessly tangled up in the boat whose anchor he had snagged, leaving that boat with no option but letting the anchor go and moving to a new spot with their spare anchor, hoping to retrieve theirs in the morning. He is now to our stern and is crosswise to everyone else in the harbor because he has the other boat's anchor holding his stern into the wind, and his own anchor holding his bow downwind. He also happens to be pointed directly at our new friends in their Mainship trawler. This is a beautiful harbor, but it's very small and very tight.  It's going to be a long night waiting for the next ball down the alley.

No-Name Harbor this morning when it was empty