Things that go bump in the night

Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 8 Dec 2011 19:49

Thursday 8th December 2011

 

We woke this morning after a rather eventful night that left us feeling somewhat stressed and not a little tired.  The wind had blown quite strongly during the night, and at the turn of the tide the trawler-style motor boat which was anchored using rope rather than chain bashed into our starboard bow.  We were actually awake because we had looked out ten minutes earlier to check we were turning with the tide ok, and just as we were settling back down to sleep there was a loud thump on the front of the boat.  When we went on deck the bow of the trawler was over our starboard bow, and we both had to push hard to hold it off.  The owner came up on deck and we asked him to put his engine on and reverse off us, at which point he said his engine was disabled and there was nothing he could do.  We were livid!  Eventually with much pushing we managed to get him off and then he drifted backwards, so we promptly lifted our anchor to get out of his way.  He was wandering all over a large area of the anchorage, all the time saying that his anchor was still in the same place, as if that made any difference!

 

We re-anchored after some time as the changing tide made it difficult to find a spot with the boats moving to new positions, but eventually put ourselves half in and half out of the channel, saying that if the Coastguard had anything to say about it they could wait till the morning!

 

A few hours later we inspected the damage in the daylight, and found two bent stanchions, a gouge in the teak toerail and cracked welding on a join in the pulpit.  Nothing that would stop us going to sea (we hoped the seals around the stanchion bases had not been compromised, but that would remain to be seen), but it would cost a bit to put right.  Michael and Anne had come over in their dinghy to inspect the damage from water level, so Steve and Michael went over to talk to the guy in the trawler.  He had some excuse about his non-working engine and some sob story about a sick mother, but from the state of his boat it was obvious we would get nothing out of him but an apology.  I suppose we should appreciate the fact that he did at least apologise.

 

So with nothing more to be done, we lifted the anchor mid-morning and set off as planned to travel south to Florida.