Tough life this cruising...

Tough life this cruising…

Woke up this morning to absolute peace , no nagging voices in the back of my head reminding me of the things that need to be done , no traffic, no hussling and buzzling neighbors ….just the gentle wind humming in the rigging, the lapping of wavelets against the dinghy on our side, the occasional deerfly that made it’s way out to our boat , hmmm…..
When we arrived here on Alans-Pensacola and cruised into this nicely protected anchorage we had to make some serious decisions regarding our anchoring. We had plenty of swinging -room and no tidal surges to worry about , so should we put out two anchors tonite or not ??? This is a rather personal question in my opinion , for the real issue here is actually how to deal with a squall - if we have to get one .Our candidates at hand are our trusted Bruce anchor , heavy and on over 100’ of chain ,handled nicely by our electric windlass. And then there is another substantial CQR anchor on 60’ of chain and plenty of line , handled - or should I say struggled with - by the two of us with little success , for A this thing weighs a ton and B the advantage of the swiveling shank of the CQR turned out to be more of a disadvantage in our last anchorage , for it turned the anchor on it’s side and never set right at all. And what do we do if we’re in a squall and we are dragging , how am I gonna make sure I’m not running over one or the other in the chaos of a sudden hit .Well, all things considered we put out our trusted trouper only and figured we can always run the motor in idle should he give up on us .And as I said in the beginning , it is a rather personal question , for in the end it’s you who has to deal with the consequences of this call.
We had a wonderful peaceful full moon night ,Steve ,who’s also on his way to Green Turtle Cay ,came over for Sundowners and we swapped stories and ate more conch-salad ..After 4 days of living of the fat of the land /sea I’m totally craving for a cheeseburger and - surprise - he has Bubba - burgers in the freezer , so we’re on for Cheeseburgers in paradise tonite .
Hmmm, tough life this cruising…..