The winds really picked up overnight; some of the gust seemed to pick the boat up and whip her around. I dropped the anchor in about 15 feet of water and put out about 90 feet of chain, plus I really backed down hard upon anchoring so I’m certain that Zanshin wasn’t going to walkabout during the night. I wasn’t so certain about some of my neighbors, though. A French Amel, complete with fenders hanging out everywhere, decided to anchor just upwind of me despite there being lots of room around and they are just one boat length ahead of me and are certainly over my chain and I didn’t think that they let out a lot of chain but fortunately they didn’t move overnight.
Another Amel that I’ve seen around just anchored somewhat downwind of me. I won’t mention the boat’s name (“B** A**”) but will refer to them anonymously as BA. They first came to my attention a week ago while I was coming in from St. Martin and slowly motoring the last 100 feet to drop anchor off Prickly Pear. I’d seen them motoring at flank speed from the direction of Leverick Bay, coming up right behind me. I walked forward to loosen the anchor and heard a loud shout from BA “Starboard!”. I looked back in wonder, since he was coming up behind me, albeit slightly to starboard. BA shouted that one word angrily again and this time I shook my head and shouted back “You are a passing vessel and I am stand-on” and proceeded to ignore them. They passed me on my starboard side and BA once again shouted across “What are you intentions”; which I found odd considering we were approaching 10-15 feet deep water and I’d just used the windlass to partially drop the anchor. I replied that I was anchoring and he, still irate, shouted “I’m going to anchor ahead of you” to which I merely shrugged considering that if they went ahead of me to anchor they would run aground. BA, still chugging away at high speed, reconsidered their choice while I stopped my boat and started anchoring and they went about 300 feet parallel to the shore to anchor. I should add that there were very few boats off Prickly Pear at the time and the anchorage area is 10-20 feet deep in very good holding sand but this gent seemed to think that I’d taken his prime location.
After anchoring and testing my holding and putting up the day shape I glanced across to see them lifting their anchor and attempting to anchor one more time. 10 minutes later I looked over and saw them lifting up their chain again and then they motored across the North Sound in the direction of Biras Creek. I can’t understand how one could fail to get holding twice in a row and then give up, presumably to pick up a mooring ball somewhere.
Back to the present – I went topsides this morning to see the same boat approach the anchorage. They once again dropped anchor in what couldn’t have been more than 10 feet of water and within 10 minutes the couple aboard BA had once again lifted their chain and motored at speed around the corner and my assumption is that they’ve picked up a mooring ball (again).
I should add that the international COLREGs specify that a vessel being passed is the stand-on (right-of-way) vessel and that passing is defined as coming from behind at an angle less than or equal to 22.5°. This is easy to tell at night, since the red and green lights specifying port and starboard and the white light aft are designed so that at 22.5° from aft the other vessel can only see white and no red or green. During the day this doesn’t work but I’m surprised that BA wanted to dispute right of way after seeing me throttle down, lock the wheel in position and walk forward when it was obvious that there was nobody else aboard. I guess it takes all types.
I dinghied across the Sound to Leverick shortly after 11:00 to visit with Kristin and Doug (and their guests) aboard their luxurious new Hylas built yacht called Dharma. Doug maintains this beautiful yacht to better than Bristol fashion and the attention to detail and craftsmanship woodwork highlight the difference between our boats. Mine might be roomier inside and have a larger cockpit area, but one cannot compare my production boat with Dharma at all. The 5 of us had planned to go to “Hog Heaven” for lunch but once we arrived there in Doug’s rental jeep we were disappointed to find that it was shut down and closed. Luckily, they couldn’t lock up the view and we were treated to a wonderful vista. The strong winds and shifting clouds made for a spectacular view but hunger soon got the better of us and we continued on the road to Nail Bay (closed) and from there to the Mine Shaft restaurant (closed). The BVI certainly take Good Friday seriously!
We toured around the old Copper Mine for a bit and then headed for the Top of the Baths restaurant but I was not sanguine about our chances of finding food and beverage there. We were in luck, though and the place was open and we’d soon ordered our meals – but as it was Good Friday they didn’t serve any alcoholic beverages until 18:00 so we had to make do with soft drinks and water with our food. I had the gazpacho and it was excellent, I’ll have to learn how to make that myself so that I can have it aboard.
After the meal we returned to Leverick Bay and sat on the boat – the bar aboard Dharma was open and doing booming business. After a long and interesting talk I decided to use a lull in the weather to dinghy back to my boat while they went to visit with Monika and Nick at Leverick. I remained on my side of the Sound rather than return for the Friday BBQ at Leverick.
The winds really picked up after dark, I turned on the instruments for a bit and saw 30 knots, but later on some of the gusts were much stronger. I’m probably not going to get a deep sleep tonight.
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