Not just Australians, but Western Australians.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 30 Aug 2009 18:41
Saturday 29th August

Another lazy day anchored back to the beach, but being a Saturday we were
very well entertained by the boats out for the weekend who came in and tried
their hand at anchoring and, in one or two cases, taking ropes ashore as
well.

Today's winner by a good head was a quite late arrival, a small Turkish
owned yacht the crew of which were pretty much making it up as they went
along. They started well as the backed up towards the beach, but seemed to
omit the dropping of the anchor, so they stopped and dropped it far too
late. Not sure what to do next, the skipper dived over the side to inspect
it as it lay on the sea bed, however he could not see it as it is actually
quite deep at that point. He swam around this spot for a little while and
failed to notice (as did the other two on board) that the boat was drifting
off into the anchorage. Clearly the anchor had not actually reached the sea
bed at all and by the time he noticed what was happening the boat was
getting away from him. He set off in pursuit and the crew on board watched
him, rather than the large French yacht that they were heading for. In the
end there was no contact and he made it on board and started the engine as
they drifted past another yacht.

Undeterred, they came back to the same spot and tried again. They pretty
much repeated the whole thing with the sole exception this time that they
let out plenty of chain, but not content with this, they then put a rope
round a small buoy nearby. They then raised and lowered the anchor two or
three times, but just simply up and down again. No attempt to lay it along
the sea bed or anything vaguely useful. Next they rowed a line ashore to tie
themselves back, but after a while they changed their minds and brought it
back on board. Their final solution seemed to be to leave the anchor and
chain in a pile on the sea bed and tie to the buoy that they had picked up
to the back of their boat.

The poor Frenchman next to us was so upset as his boat was the one that they
would hit in the night when the wind went back into the north as it surely
would that he went over in his dinghy and tried to explain all this to them
and offered to help them do it properly, but they waved him away saying that
it was now all OK!

In the meantime I had gone for a swim and met the crew of 'Halcyon Days' a
yacht flying the Australian flag. This turned out to be a boat load of
Western Australians (it is an important distinction) who kindly invited us
on board for a drink. They were in great form and I was able to break the
latest Ashes news to them, several times probably. Sadly they are heading
north at the moment but they are due to end up in Marmaris in the same
boatyard as us on October, but probably before us. They are also hoping to
do the East Med Rally next spring and so with luck we will meet up again
with at least Bob and Rosemary who are the owners.