OK, why is it that you can be anchored in a huge bay, cove, area of water and a boat will come in, ready to anchor, and drop his hook within a boat length of you and your anchor? Like moths lured into the flame, it seems that if there’s a boat already at anchor it will be “attacked” by all the other boats.

And, that’s what just happened. We’re peacefully at anchor–bow anchorw/125 ft of chain deep in a channel near shore about 60 feet in front of the boat and stern anchor w/ nylon rode about 140 feet behind the boat anchored in a mud bar. A few days ago a little group of three boats (under 30 feet each) rafted up about a boat length away from us. Close, but they were also off our bow by about a boat length, so it was all ok. And, for a raft-up they were very quiet.

This morning, a mid-40 foot boat came across our bow with intent to anchor between us and the little raft-up. Oh, my. David was below making coffee and I was on the foredeck varnishing the bulwarks and caprails. I called down to him “prepare to drag.” And, yep, the marauding boat caught our anchor chain and began to pull our bow sideways towards the little raft-up. I called to the fellow at the helm that he’d caught us. His boat was being swung around towards us (and our canoe tied between us and him). He called out to me “move the canoe! and do you have fenders?” Impending doom. However, lucky for us he got “unhooked” with his boat a good 15 feet away from us and he motored away saying “So Sorry!” and “I didn’t know your anchor was there.” Makes one wonder–if our anchor isn’t right in front of our boat–where is it?

Well, now I’ll tell you where it is. Somewhere not in front of the boat. We’ve got two bow anchors out–the one to the left is now to the right of the other and we rather suspect they’ll be tangled up shortly if the currents and tides don’t do us the favor of swinging us around. We’re pulling dangerously sideways on the stern Danforth (which doesn’t like sideways…) so we may have to re-anchor shortly. We’ll wait for the varnish to dry and possibly reanchor in a couple hours if things don’t resolve on their own.

Bad timing–varnishing going on (me) and the dingy being rebuilt (David) so we can’t even row out another anchor at the moment. With three in the water, all we have left are the 105 lb Delta and the 120 lb Fisherman. Can’t see setting either one of those with the canoe…

More later…

When we came to San Francisco, I contacted the San Francisco Yacht club to learn more about Mahdee’s history. We knew that she was owned by a family who were members there during the 1960’s and hoped to learn more about Mahdee’s adventures with this family–or at a minimum to learn more about her 1967 Transpac and any San Francisco races she’d participated in as part of the SFYC. So, it was wonderful today to get a call from Jim, the son of the gentleman who owned Mahdee in the 1960’s. He has many fond memories and pictures, too! We’ve made a loose arrangement to bring Mahdee to the SFYC (likely week after next) for a few days. We can meet with Jim and see a few pictures as well as let Jim see Mahdee as she is today. Jim also tells us that SFYC hosts a wooden schooner event sometime in August–so perhaps we’ll be able to participate in that event as well.

In the meanwhile, we’ll be heading back up to the San Francisco Delta, quiet anchorages, and hopefully a little more warm weather than we’ve had here in the Bay for the past week.