Traumatic Adventure –
Day 1
The adventure begins:
We are recovering from a couple of pretty traumatic
days. Read this, if you think that
all cruising is like it reads on our Blog. There are downsides.
For example:
Day before yesterday – we pulled into Islamorada in the
Florida Keys, off the ICW on the Florida Bay side.
Our buddy-boat ran hard aground coming in, on sand, in a
place where the charts showed at least 7 feet of water (they draw five). TowBoat US pulled them off; the Florida
Police were not happy, inspected their boat and the sea bottom, and would have
had them pay for any repairs to the sea floor. Fortunately, all the coral is on the ocean side, and a sandy
bottom didn't need any repairs.
Well, that's how the afternoon started.
Following them, we got out of there and set our wonderful
(soon-to-be-ex) Rocna 33# anchor – with 50 feet of chain and 50 feet of line,
expecting strong winds that evening. Went below to take it easy.
SUDDENLY, our boat felt like it was hit with 10-foot waves –
it was getting pulled and bounced and I thought a freighter had run into
it! We ran up on deck to see that
a big motor yacht had caught our rode while motoring by us too closely! We yelled and they stopped. Now we had 2 boats tied together (rode
wrapped around their prop), and no anchor set on either.
We quickly dug out our spare anchor (28# Bruce clone), 20
feet chain, 150 feet line – and I took the dinghy out and set this. We now had 2 boats (one very big)
hanging on one anchor. And we were
hundreds of feet away from our initial anchor point.
The guy in the other boat [more about what I think of them,
later] dove under his boat and confirmed that our line was cut, and our anchor
and chain were gone – forever, since we don't know exactly where we were when
they cut us.
They called Towboat US, who eventually cut us free from
their prop.
Our main emergency spare anchor (28# CQR-German clone) and
rode (50 feet chain, 200 feet line) was buried deep under the V–berth. Ilona
tore everything apart to get them, and I set a second anchor (needed for the
evening's expected high winds – and because I didn't know how well the Bruce
would hold after what it had just gone through.)
Our boat's insides, by now, are a complete mess! Everything is thrown everywhere.
Well, Ilona called the nearest West Marine (Key Largo, about
25 miles away?), and got them to get us another Rocna anchor, chain, and
line. Whitney, a woman who works
there, volunteered to drive the stuff up from Key Largo to the nearest
restaurant, about a mile or two from us by dinghy.
The other boat called West Marine with THEIR credit card –
this cost them over $1100 for the replacement anchor and rode. I cheered when I saw how much it had
cost them, and would have been happier if it was even more.
By now, we have been working for several hours, and are
beyond exhausted. We still had to
go ashore to meet Whitney and the equipment. We gobbled down a couple of burgers at the Lorelei
Restaurant, Tiki Bar, and completely jammed outdoor restaurant (amplified
obnoxious music, of course). And we waited for a couple of hours for Whitney
and the stuff. Couldn't even have
any drinks, since we still had to load over 100 lbs of stuff into the dinghy
and motor it back for a couple of
miles in the dark, to our mother ship.
THANK YOU to marinebeam.com who had sold us a LED bulb for our masthead
anchor light – so we could find our boat in the dark in the anchorage (25
boats?), since we had the brightest light.
Back on board by 9 or 10 pm. More exhausted. Got some sleep. I was worried about the winds coming
in, and how I was going to get the Bruce up the next morning (it sure must have
been pulled in deep by having two boats on it). The CQR, fortunately, by now
was rigged on our windlass.
Diving for the lost Rocna anchor was out of the question –
it was too rough, didn't know exactly where it was, we were too tired, and
stronger winds coming in overnight.
More in the next Blog entry – it ain't over yet!
