Many of my sailing stories are of events that happened to us at the Isthmus of Catalina Island off the California coast. This particular story, however, took place in the anchorage outside of Avalon.
One lazy afternoon, most people on the hook were relaxing in the sun, napping or reading. The owner of one small sailboat (about 18’) had evidently dropped anchor and taken off for the shore without waiting to see if his anchor had set. Later, I envisioned the anchor dangling straight down into the deep water without touching bottom.
Anchoring is an amusing topic for another post, so I won’t get into that at the moment.
This little boat was drifting between all the rest of the big “girls,” and each time she bumped against the hull of someone else’s boat, they would just give it a gentle shove to send it on its way. Pretty soon, a little breeze would blow it toward another boat, only to be sent off in yet another direction. I watched until I got bored with it all, and decided to nap.
This particular story probably comes under da Vinci’s “Sfumato” heading http://lothlorien-lucy.blogspot.com/2008/06/overview-of-davincian-principles.html because all of us pushing that little boat away were fairly ambiguous about what to do with her. She’d been a nuisance but no one knew who she belonged to or what to do with her, and I suspect that most of us really didn’t want to be bothered with it.
I’m not sure how much later I woke up, but in the meantime, evidently someone had called the Harbor Police to come take care of the little boat, and he was towing her down the coastline out of everyone’s way. At one point, he casually glanced back to make sure she was following adequately.
We watched as he quickly cut the motor of his own boat, took off his jacket, balled it up and flung it down. I think it’s probably a good thing none of us could hear what he was saying.
The object of his frustration was trailing behind him. It seemed that in the process of drifting from one boat to the next and being sent on its way, the little boat’s anchor had gathered up the rodes of several other anchors and was pulling them off their own secure anchorage. A trail of about six boats were being towed, one right after the other.
The guy got on his radio to call for assistance. I wanted to watch it all get untangled, but I never did get to find out what finally happened. Several of us were heading into shore for dinner, and the main topic of conversation was that little boat. We could just imagine the owner coming back out on the bum boat at the end of his day, scratching his head and wondering if his boat had sailed off without him - especially if he’d been drinking. What a shock that would have been!
We wondered if all the other boats received the same free trip down the coastline to be re-anchored. I wonder what those owners thought when they found their boat missing. If that had happened at the Isthmus, everyone would have known what was going on, but at Avalon there were too many boaters and very few people shared stories with others. If anyone was there and knows the end of this story, I’d love to hear it.
I was very happy my own rode wasn’t one that she picked up.
One lazy afternoon, most people on the hook were relaxing in the sun, napping or reading. The owner of one small sailboat (about 18’) had evidently dropped anchor and taken off for the shore without waiting to see if his anchor had set. Later, I envisioned the anchor dangling straight down into the deep water without touching bottom.
Anchoring is an amusing topic for another post, so I won’t get into that at the moment.
This little boat was drifting between all the rest of the big “girls,” and each time she bumped against the hull of someone else’s boat, they would just give it a gentle shove to send it on its way. Pretty soon, a little breeze would blow it toward another boat, only to be sent off in yet another direction. I watched until I got bored with it all, and decided to nap.
This particular story probably comes under da Vinci’s “Sfumato” heading http://lothlorien-lucy.blogspot.com/2008/06/overview-of-davincian-principles.html because all of us pushing that little boat away were fairly ambiguous about what to do with her. She’d been a nuisance but no one knew who she belonged to or what to do with her, and I suspect that most of us really didn’t want to be bothered with it.
I’m not sure how much later I woke up, but in the meantime, evidently someone had called the Harbor Police to come take care of the little boat, and he was towing her down the coastline out of everyone’s way. At one point, he casually glanced back to make sure she was following adequately.
We watched as he quickly cut the motor of his own boat, took off his jacket, balled it up and flung it down. I think it’s probably a good thing none of us could hear what he was saying.
The object of his frustration was trailing behind him. It seemed that in the process of drifting from one boat to the next and being sent on its way, the little boat’s anchor had gathered up the rodes of several other anchors and was pulling them off their own secure anchorage. A trail of about six boats were being towed, one right after the other.
The guy got on his radio to call for assistance. I wanted to watch it all get untangled, but I never did get to find out what finally happened. Several of us were heading into shore for dinner, and the main topic of conversation was that little boat. We could just imagine the owner coming back out on the bum boat at the end of his day, scratching his head and wondering if his boat had sailed off without him - especially if he’d been drinking. What a shock that would have been!
We wondered if all the other boats received the same free trip down the coastline to be re-anchored. I wonder what those owners thought when they found their boat missing. If that had happened at the Isthmus, everyone would have known what was going on, but at Avalon there were too many boaters and very few people shared stories with others. If anyone was there and knows the end of this story, I’d love to hear it.
I was very happy my own rode wasn’t one that she picked up.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment