LandfallVoyages

“Tamiko,” Steve called, from out on deck, “Need you to come up and take a look at this. Tell me what you think–we’ve got a little sailboat getting…pretty damn close.”

Yesterday we decamped from the La Cruz marina and found a spot in the anchorage that’s fairly close to the breakwater, which is nice because our Island Time PC wifi antenna gets a decent signal from here. Also, I’m reasonably certain our “inflatable” might not hold out until the warranty replacement arrives. Normally, the only spot to be had is waaaay on the far side of the anchorage and if said dinghy devolves from its current semi-inflatable state to fully uninflatable, it would be a long wet trip to land in the kayaks.

I hopped up on deck, checking our position, relative to all the other boats, to see if it’s us dragging anchor or what. Copernicus–still the same, Elan–no change, big white metal sailboat off our stbd side–the same. Everybody checks out ok and so do our reference points on land. Good. It isn’t until I reach the bow that I spot the problem. Misty, a pretty little thing out of Port Angeles, WA, sitting less than a boat length off our bow and from where we’re standing, it looks like her stern might be thinking about getting friendlier with our bowsprit.

“Let out a little more chain?” Steve asks. “Good idea,” I say. “And I’m gonna sit here and watch the boat for a while. See if she’s dragging or not.” The wind is out of the SW and starting to pick up steam. This morning the wind was just kind of lazily humming through the rigging, but now it’s left off humming and seems to be working up to howl status. In another 10 minutes, we’ve got white-capped wind waves marching through the anchorage and poor Misty is getting rocked around pretty bad–one second she’s diving down until her bowsprit just kisses the water and is showing us her bottom paint, the next she’s trying to point up at the sky and dipping down so far in the stern that her rail-mounted outboard motor is getting half-drowned.

Funny thing about being at anchor…every boat is a little different. The weight of the boat, its silhouette, if it’s got a chain rode or mostly rope, even the material its hull is made of–all these things make each boat in the anchorage respond in a unique way to the same set of wind and swell. Mostly everyone follows the same general pattern, but sometimes, especially when there’s a big difference in size or construction, sometimes they react a LOT differently. It’s hard to tell if Misty dragged anchor or not. Could’ve dragged a little and then reset. Maybe she’s just got a lot of line out and the wind is pushing her kinda weird. One thing’s for certain, there’s nobody aboard. We planned to take the bus into Bucerías this afternoon to run errands, but now we’ve decided it’s better to leave me and Eli on the boat. That way if Misty gets loose, there’ll be someone around to deal with the wee, rouge beast.

“So,” says Steve, packing up the backpack, “What’s the plan if she drags down on us while I’m gone? I don’t want you getting smashed trying to fend her off.” “Well,” I say, “If it looks like she’s going to clip the bowsprit, I’ll just let out enough chain so she can squeak by and not hit us. If it looks like more of a beam to beam situation, I’ve got lines and fenders ready. We can take her in a side tie, at least until her owners come back.” He nods his head and then adds, “You should get on the radio, too, get some help if you can. And NO HEROICS!” He finishes up with his voice fully Caps-locked and his eyes all serious. Putting down the proverbial foot, as it were.

Fair enough. Having been in Search and Rescue basically marks you for life. Doesn’t matter how long it’s been since I was a firefighter or in the Coast Guard. My brain still insists I ought to be there, putting out all the fires, rescuing all the people, and saving all the boats. All the time. Being stuck in a wheelchair and seriously gimped up for years did nothing to change that gut-level reaction–this is my duty, my responsibility. Plus, you get totally addicted to the adrenaline rush. Apparently, it takes more than 6 months of not being able to wipe my own ass to kill off my inner adrenaline junkie.

We talk some other options over–putting her on one of our spare anchors, trying to re-anchor her on her own hook, but it’s kind of a sticky situation, legally. On the one hand, Maritime Law, and just plain common decency, requires that you render all assistance possible to vessels in distress, so long as you’re not putting your own ship and crew in mortal danger. And on the other, she’s a U.S. flagged vessel and our country’s justice system seems to have jumped the rails a lot of the time. For instance, the jury who awarded millions of dollars to that woman who couldn’t figure out that placing a cup of really hot coffee between her legs and then trying to open the (still really hot) cup might be a bad idea. It’s unfortunate she got burned and that, because of her age, it was difficult to recover from that kind of injury, but seriously…there was a freaking warning on the lid! Who do you sue when you pull that kind of bonehead maneuver at home? Yourself? It’s like the whole system has gone crazy.

What happens if we try to help a boat that’s dragging anchor or try to keep it from hitting us and then the boat that dragged subsequently sustains damage? Or despite our best efforts she winds up dragging into other people after all, and they take damage, too? I think it’s a better than even chance that we’d stand to lose everything. Still, I hate to see any boat end up wrecked on the beach. Especially one so charming as Misty. The reality is, you don’t know exactly how you’ll react until you’re in the middle of the emergency. And it’s likely nothing bad will happen, anyway. But it never hurts to be prepared, right?

I holler for Eli to stick his head out the foredeck hatch so I can brief him on The Plan. He listens attentively, nods his head in all the right places, and is in total agreement…right up until the end, when I remind him that if I call out, he’s got to get topside really quick. “Seriously, Mom? Really? Like I’m just going to lounge around down below when there’s a boat getting ready to hit us.” “Well, you know,” I say kind of sheepish now, ” We’ve all got to be on the same page and stuff…” He gives me one of those long-suffering teenage looks and says, “Uh hunh.”

+72 points for sarcasm, kid. Right now, I’ve got the anchor watch, Nala’s out on the bowsprit searching for the pod of dolphins who swam by a couple of minutes ago and Eli is down below, rolling his eyes at me and muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, “Mom…mumble..Captain Obvious…mumgle…ugh…old people…”

 Update: Toward sundown, the wind switched around to mostly W and we were happy to discover Misty was in a better position, likely not having dragged, just a lot of scope out in a kind of crowded anchorage. No harm, no foul