Mile Hammock Bay

November 8th 2015 0830, in Mile Hammock Bay.  Much colder, grey skies. Wind 10 knots NNE.

After a very pleasant evening and a fine sunset, last night around 2200 a storm front arrived from the SW bringing steady twelve knot winds gusting to eighteen, rain and of course our famous cabin leak. That storm was an announcement of more to come and, sure enough around 0200, the second shift arrived with more rain and wind.

We were up late tending to our niggling, nagging, leak and making sure we were not dragging anchor. Our GPS has an alarm built in, to let us know when we are dragging. It has never failed to alert us, but somehow we don’t trust it. Why is that?

A few other boats had arrived late.  This morning, Neil reported to us that sometime during the night a ketch dragged anchor. The crew had to scramble around in the wind, rain and dark to get the boat moving, haul in the dragging anchor, find a better site and get the anchor set, all without hitting another boat or getting caught up in another boat's anchor line, especially, Neil stated emphatically, “his anchor line”. He said they had at least two goes at it before they got it down.

By this time we had gone to bed, so slept through all this excitement. Probably a good thing, however one can make a strong case that one of the two of us should have been on 'watch', because, no matter what, the first rule is to keep a proper watch at all times and to take any action necessary to avoid a collision. In the event that we were hit by a dragging boat in the middle of the night a smart insurance adjuster could point out that we had contributed to the collision by not maintaining a proper watch. Not good.

I wrote about anchoring last year. O must strictly follow a correct protocol to ensure that the anchor is set. If it ain't set you ain't safe.

Even close attention to that detail does not guarantee that you will not drag. Lots of variables, wind speed, fetch, current, holding ground, anchor type, scope. But getting the thing properly set is paramount. And in a small harbor, with lots of boats of various sizes, varying anchor rode lengths out, swinging around in response to currents and wind, one dragging boat can do more damage than Justin Bieber out on a night on the town.

At 1000, the latest NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather forecast is not encouraging. High winds and rain for today, tonight, all day Monday and Monday night, rain heavy at times. Our plan is to stay here, visit with Neil and Tom, watch boats come and go and wait it out.

What could go wrong?