Slipping Anchor

As noted in an earlier article, the navy taught my father how to sail a sailboat. Thanks to that I have had many sailing adventures (British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Florida Keys, US Virgin Islands, etc.). But one of the best adventures happened in 1981. My dad was taking my mom and several other women on a trip to the south Pacific and decided that another male was needed to help sail the 49 foot yacht. That somebody was me. As reward for being a cabin boy/pilot mix after the sailing we went to New Zealand and Australia.

On the boat all of the rooms were taken so I slept on deck. One night we had anchored on a very narrow sand bar next to an island. When night fell and after my eyes adapted to the dark I could see the outline of the islands in just the starlight (the moon was new so it wasn't out that night at all). We all went to bed (ok to deck) and I went to sleep around 9 pm local time.

I awoke. Something didn't seem quite right. I looked at the mast and noted that the stars were moving. I sat up quickly and looked at the island. It was also moving. We had slipped anchor.

I went below and woke up my dad to tell him we were going out to sea. Fortunately we were able to see where we were by the starlight. In about a half-hour we navigated back to the sand bar and reset the anchor. This time I had to drive in thirty feet of water at 3 AM to make sure the anchor had set. Then we went back to bed and slept soundly for the rest of the night.