Ugh! Yet Another “First”

Here’s a partial view last night from our anchorage.

How’s this for garish??? 

We were tired last night (read below to see why) and planned to go to bed early. Mother Nature had other plans for us.  At 8:45 pm a squall blew through that lasted 30 minutes, with light-up-the-sky lightning, even brighter than those from Trump Tower, with torrential rain, and heavy wind.

Bob went up to the flybridge to check our position, then announced our anchor was dragging and immediately fired up the engines.  He donned raingear and a life vest while Cathryn went to the helm, turned on the VHF radio and called the other trawler that was now only 50 feet to our port, and the captain of that boat was visibly scurrying around his flybridge as well.  We communicated our knowledge that we were dragging and promised not to hit him, to which he responded with appreciation. He added, nicely, that “The skipper who says he’s never dragged is a liar.”   That’s the corollary to the one about skippers who claim they’ve never touched bottom.

Below is what our chartplotter screen looked like.  How do you like that Figure 8, Alyse?  On the left, the circles around the boat’s position are where we started off, and the lines below and to the right are where we dragged toward the shallow marsh and the other boat anchored nearby

Bob pulled the anchor in the dark and driving rain, we returned to our previous position in the cove and dropped it again.  Needless to say, this was followed by 30 minutes sitting at the flybridge staring at our chartplotter to ensure we weren’t moving, as the squall subsided and all became calm again. Whew!   We slept soundly until 4:15 a.m but are a bit anxious about today’s trip further up the Jersey shore.  So off we go at first light!