July 4, 2008.

First off, Happy Fourth of July all.

After breakfast we decided to take a quick walk to the strip mall near the dinghy dock. We weren’t sure what would be open since it was the holiday. As luck would have the 2 biggies on our list were both open for business. That’s right, West Marine and a liquor store. After spending $20 at one place and $100 at the other, I’m not saying which was which, we headed home.

After returning to the boat Christy did a little internet research while I finished up a book I’ve been reading. Then we had a little Fourth of July barbeque for two on the boat.

As soon as we finished eating we had a nasty squall come through the anchorage. It literally went from dead calm to 25 knots in 20 seconds. The gusty winds also brought a deluge, this picture was taken in broad daylight. It poured while the wind howled. The winds died several times only to build once again.

There are 6 boats in the anchorage and the furthest one from us started to drag. The shoreline of the anchorage in Back Creek is mostly marinas. We watched as this unattended sailboat dragged ever so slowly and came to rest across the pilings at the end of a row of slips. The wind blew steady from the north for about 15 minutes and the boat seemed to be pinned to the pilings quite nicely. Of all of the places that boat could have dragged, this seemed like the spot that was least likely to cause any damage.

Christy and I discussed whether or not I should go see if I could pull this boat to safety and secure it. It was raining buckets but the problem was that it wouldn’t be prudent to go off trying to help someone else when I wasn’t really sure that the front had passed and that our own boat was safe.

Once the wind died down it also clocked around. Now the sailboat was being pushed back off the pilings but had become tangled with a boat tied to the dock. It was still raining pretty good but we had to do something. I launched the dinghy as Christy spotted one of the other guys in the anchorage watching the situation, she pointed him out to me so I headed over and asked if he’d help me secure the sailboat.



He hopped in the dink with me and I took him over to board the sailboat. First, while he fended and untangled, I towed the boat clear of the dock. Our first plan was to side tie the boat to a clear spot on the dock. The still deployed anchor kept us from getting the boat close enough to secure it properly so we went to plan “B”. We decided to launch and hand set his second anchor. When I got to the bow I almost laughed, his second anchor looked like a toy. It was a 25 pound Lewmar Claw and there was no second anchor rode for us to attach it to. Secretly I was relieved because using that anchor would have been like trying to keep a car from rolling down a hill by sticking gum under the wheel.

There was a more suitable Danforth anchor hanging from the stern pulpit so we figured there had to be a rode for it. We searched through the cockpit lazerrettes and eureka we found an anchor line. We dumped it into the dinghy and while I brought it around to the bow the other guy brought the stern anchor to the bow as well. I fed the line up into the hawse hole while the other guy drew it in and then he passed the big Danforth down to me. I shackled the anchor to the rode and took the anchor out as far as the line would allow. Once in position I dropped it over the side and the other guy started to haul in on it until he was sure he had a good anchor set.

Confident that the boat was secure and away from the dock the other guy got back in my dink and we headed back to our boats. It’s funny that even in a driving rain all I had to do was ask one guy for a little help in securing a wayward boat and he jumped right into the fray, we never even introduced ourselves. I love this community of boaters and I’d kill to be a fly on the wall when the people get back and find their boat 100 yards from where it started. Since it’s getting dark they probably won’t even notice that they have a second anchor out until morning.

Back at the boat I raised the dinghy again and stripped out of my wet clothes. The wind was gone and the rain slowly died off. Then it was dark and the fireworks started. We had seen them loading the barge with tonight’s display but had no idea where it would be towed to for the presentation. Turned out it was straight behind our boat, close enough to terrify Molly, but not so close as to actually kill her.






Once again, Happy Fourth everybody……..