Andy:
“We all went to bed about 9:30 or 10:00 last night. About 11:00
o’clock or 11:20 it started to rain and the wind blew pretty hard.
I didn’t get back to sleep when I heard someone yell, “Your anchor is going.”
I jumped up out of the bed and tried to get Dad to get up. My mom
was also trying to get him up. He had earplugs in. He got up
and was right behind me. I looked out and saw that we were only a
little over a boat length away from the boat behind us. Uncle Darl
was right behind Dad and he started the motor and got us away from the
guy that was yelling to tell us our anchor was slipping. Dad and
I ran to the front of the boat and started pulling up the anchor.
When it finally got out of the water, it was caked in sand and grass.
I got it all off the anchor and we moved beside the boat we were
backing into. We finally got settled and Dad decided to keep watching
to see if the anchor would hold. I heard him tell Uncle Darl to come
out here for a minute. Then I heard him say that we are only 20 feet
from that guy. I jumped back out of bed and ran up top to see
that we were about 10 feet or less from the boat that we almost hit earlier.
They had the motor going before I got up there so we were able to escape
collision once again. Dad got the other anchor in the dinghy and
rowed out and dropped it. We didn’t move sideways hardly any the
rest of the night.”
Mickey:
Of course, I was wide awake now! Why;, there were all sorts of
what-ifs and why’s and wherefores and what-did-we-do-wrong and how-do-we-make-sure-it-doesn’t-happen-again
things to think about and work out in my mind before I would be able to
rest. So while everybody else settled back in, I agreed to keep watch
a while. I stayed awake until 3:00 checking and re-checking ropes,
retying the dinghy and checking and re-checking swinging distances to the
nearest boats.
I was finally convinced we were safe as long as the wind didn’t change to the North. When the storm finally cleared about 2:00, the wind died completely which made me worry that it was signaling a major change in direction. On Lake Maumelle a dead calm usually indicates such a change in wind direction.
But about 3:00 the trade winds picked up again from the East/Southeast as they have been all week. All three boats started tugging politely and safely at their anchors, and I relaxed a bit.
I fetched my pillow and a blanket from below and settled down in the cockpit for the rest of the night. I could raise my head just a little and check the location of the mastlight of the catamaran nearby to make sure we were not dragging anchor.
Andy writes:
“My birthday!!!!!! We all slept late this morning after our excitement
last night. We had pancakes for breakfast. We went across the
Sound to Pussers where I bought a hat for Mike, and I bought me a shirt.
Then we went to the diveshop and I bought one shirt for me and Aunt Pat
bought me a shirt for my birthday. We had hamburgers for dinner and
a chocolate swirl birthday cake. I had to make a wish so I did.
It was that I will get an attractive girlfriend soon.”
Mickey:
We had quite an episode breaking out the Danforth anchor - the one
I had set with the dinghy about 1:00 last night. I set it so far
from the Bruce anchor that we couldn’t get over either one to break it
out. So we winched as close to it as we could, then we put another
rope around the anchor line and let it sink. Then I rant it to the
winch at the back of the boat and broke the anchor lose.
When we finally broke the second anchor free and headed across the bay, Pat said, “Listen, I’ll pay the $15 for a mooring ball tonight!”
We motored over to Pussers where we found the best mooring ball available, one near the shore and well protected from nearly all directions. We quickly decided to just stay on that ball overnight.
We spent the day shopping at several little boutiques, then had drinks and a pizza at the beach bar. From 2 to 5 we mostly napped and sat around the boat. Personally, I was ready for a nap and a day of relaxation.
At five, Darl, Andy, Will and I went ashore while Sarah and Pat fixed hamburgers. Darl and I took cool showers at Pussers while Andy and Will swam in the pool.
When we came back, a three-masted windjammer was anchoring in our bay. So Andy and I went over in the dinghy for a closer look. But the wind was up a bit and salt water kept splashing on my freshly washed body, so we gave up and came back.
After our tasty hamburgers (fried on the stove rather than risking the difficult job of lighting the charcoal grill again in 15-20 mph winds), we had chocolate swirl birthday cake with 19 candles and a “Happy Birthday” banner stretched across the cabin of the boat celebrating Andy’s birthday. Then we settled down for a quiet evening of reading, writing, and running the motor to cool the refrigerator.
It’s been a Clive Cussler kind of trip. Sarah is reading Clive Cussler’s _Sahara. Andy is reading Clive Cussler’s _ Dragon_. Will is reading Clive Cussler’s _Shock Wave_. I have Clive Cussler’s _Treasure_ to read after I finish Peter Tangvald’s autobiography.
Sarah writes:
“Mickey is bathing in sunscreen so he can use it all up and prove me
wrong about how much we needed.
“Went ashore at Leverick Bay Pussers. Everyone had trouble feeling
dizzy and a little seasick when we got on land. Leverick Bay was
a small resort with a Pusser’s Restaurant & Hotel, Dive Shop, Gift
Shop, and Buck’s Market. Public restrooms and shower. Pool
where Will and Andy went swimming. Brightly painted cottages on hillside
- pink, blue, yellow, green, lavender. Hiked up the hill a little
ways to look out over the bay.”
Mickey:
I am amazed that I have no seasickness now. Today I lay on the
front bed and read and wrote while the boat bobbed at anchor and it didn’t
give me that queasy feeling at all, much less that I-think-I’m-gonna-die-soon
feeling. In fact, we all got “land sickness” when we went ashore.
While boat sitting during the last hours of the day in paradise, we began to talk about how nice it would be to share this experience with everybody. But then we confessed that not everybody would take to this kind of life. After a bit of brainstorming, we began to plan the next motherofallvacations vacation and one to which we could invite more of the family. A cruise. Well, Darl and Pat swear by them. They both think they are wonderful. Personally, of course, I’d much rather spend my time free and easy, captain of my own boat, going where and when I want to, but I had to confess that there was a definite attraction to having someone else worry about the anchor, the weather, the food,… in fact, they worry about everything. A cruise is a vacation without worry. And there is so much to do that everybody’s interest can be catered to. So we set some preliminary dates in July of 1998. Pat promised to research group rates and such and invite everybody.
We have begun making a list of the boat names we are seeing:
Of Course!, Flying Cloud, Vivi Vivi, Imagination, Little Mermaid, Mirage
V, At Last - Miami, FL, Faith, Princes, Pelican, Harmony, Green Norseman
- Colorado, Destiny - Bloomington, Maine, Hyperion II - Toronto, Two Step
- Saratoga, Wyoming, Changes in Latitude, Silk Road, Espirit, Ramblias
- San Francisco, In Recess - McLean, VA, Easy Go - Hackenack, MN, Galila,
Windrush III, Romance - Newport, RI, Incognita II
End - Day Seven - Motherofallvacations Vacation