In terms of anchoring stories, this might interest you.
We were once warned not to go to Havar in
Croatia, because it got real packed, the holding was poor, and if we were to go then be sure to get there early.
We arrived after lunch, dropping anchor a fair distance out in the bay with a sea wall at our back, and had our tackle well set as the late sea breeze built whilst a steady steam of other cruisers and
charter yachts arrived.
By 5 pm the bay was packed full.
We had
boats anchored left right and centre, many only 10 metres from each other. Lots of the late arrivers failed to get an anchor set. It was actually quite entertaining until this happened.
One
charter boat after trying several times, had hauled up his anchor and was chugging off out of the bay. Trouble was he'd also hauled up a second anchor and not noticed he now had two on his bow.
So as he motored towards us, we were probably the first to notice he was unwittingly towing the second yacht along behind him. It obviously had no one on board.
I said nothing as he was about to cross our bow and the
wind was building.
But another boat alongside whistled / shouted / pointed making the towing
skipper realise what he was doing. Regretfully instead of thinking first, he ran forward and simply hauled that second anchor off his bow, tossing it
overboard, and continued on with me waving with my big finger at his back.
The empty unattended boat swung to a halt in the breeze, and then oh so gently began to slide back down onto us.........
We used fenders to hold it away, even had time to move our
rib to act as a big
fender, and it came to rest with its stern overlapped on our bow. A Dutch guy came over in his
dinghy to help, and we both climbed aboard to move it.
There was no key in the
cockpit engine controls but it was a
Yanmar and ours fitted, so I pulled ours from our controls and told the Dutch guy to get it started. I'd haul up the anchor hand over hand.
As I did that, I felt it catch on something, but simply gave it a huge heave and eventually had all the achor and chain up on the
deck. The Dutch guy steered and off we went to find a new clear spot to re-anchor the boat - which we did.
But what I did not realise was the thing I'd caught on when lifting his anchor was MY ANCHOR.
And just as we slid off away to look after this strangers boat, Sue began to realise we were on the move ourselves........and the concrete sea wall was maybe 5 boat lengths off our stern!
Sue's a good sailor, but not so good in situations like I'd created that she could start our
engine without our key...............and she could not find the spare either!
Swagman slowly began to move towards that wall in the strong breeze, and Sue was down below emptying our chart table and lockers just as I got back in the Dutch guys
dinghy.
I cannot repeat the names she called me as we pushed in our key, hauled up our own anchor and moved out to reset it again...........but those curses were
lost under the shouting of our neighbours, ignored by the Italian cruiser who swooped in to drop right in the spots we'd created by moving forward! And he refused to move.
We did eventually find another spot and then anchor again OK, but next time round when people say 'don't go there because of xxxxxxx' we'll listen!
Cheers
JOHN