Saturday, July 24, 2010

At Block Island – It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…

After I wrote last night’s blog, another line of thunderstorms approached from the northwest, a whole string of them. I got up to see what was going on around 1:00 am and there was chaos in the anchorage. Two boats behind me started to drag their anchors. One was especially in trouble since they had put out two anchors off the bow and when they swung with the wind, the two rodes crossed over each other, hard to untangle. The small power boat that had been rafted with the sailboat got entangled in all the extra rodes and eventually got free. He then proceeded to tour the anchorage looking for a spot to anchor. He seemed to like the spot about 30 feet off my starboard side but after playing flashlight tag with him, he proceeded elsewhere after crossing my bow about 20 feet out – all this in high winds and pouring rains with lightening to highlight the storm effects. I had similar fun with two other boats where I seemed to have the perfect anchorage spot and everyone else wanted me to share it. After about and hour and a half of such fun, things quieted down.

During the day we met our neighbors when their small powerboat drifted into us. They were from the New York Yacht Club but their anchoring skills left much to be desired. Their dinghy consisted of a small dinghy type sailboat but when the wind died this afternoon they had no way to get back to their boat so I went after them. They were clamming and I learned that a license cost $20/day (complete with photo ID)! After returning to their boat, they did move further away.

This morning I decided to move to a less crowded spot after some of the boats left and we’re better situated tonight. I can see the storms coming on NOAA radar, there’re due about 1:00 am like last night, should be more fun, I can hardly wait.

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