{gasp} . . Shade!

So we’re sitting at Isla Isabel on our fifth day at anchor. Isabel is a small island about 20 miles off the mainland, a peaceful kingdom of many races of birds and iguanas that has remained largely unmolested by man. It’s called the Galapagos of Mexico. We are anchored over a large sandy-bottomed area on the northeast side of the island, with the beach to our left, two high jagged rocks towering some distance in front of us, turquoise water below us, and the wide ocean open to the right. Everywhere around us is a majesty of calm, open space.

Except this morning out of nowhere there is also now a large shiny catamaran with its ass right in our grille. I could spit downwind and hit it. Guess I’d better put some pants on.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve poked our heads out of our cabin in the past four months to find another boat tucked up to us like a baby bird when there are acres of other places to be. It’s not that I don’t want to share our anchorages – on the contrary I quite enjoy the silent company – but what I’m talking about is different. It’s like the wisdom of the crowd has inverted, and the only undersea postage stamp they trust is the one that somebody else has already judged prudent.

I get it. I feel anchorage envy all the time, to the extent that I’m always bugging Harmony that we should swoop in on other boats’ spots when they leave. But these baby birds seemingly fail to comprehend that by snuggling up so close they have actually set the stage for a myriad of new disasters that are more likely, and for us more costly (for their boats are invariably bigger and shinier than ours), than if we were to actually drag our anchors separately. Maybe I’m just that old codger who wants people to stay off my lawn.

So here we were at Isabel and when we tried to leave that afternoon we discovered that our anchor was hooked under a rock. Normally this would be no big deal. We’ve dealt with this before, and the usual prescription is to just drive forward and slide it loose, only now we have big-ass catamaran guy floating right on top of our anchor and oblivious to the fact, as he idly watches me wrestle with our chain and the anchor trip line, that his boat is positioned smack dab right where we need to go.

I stand with our chain gripped tightly in my hands and look toward the catamaran as I consider our predicament. Seeing finally that this was a situation that called for some discussion, he shouted over.

“You snagged up there?”

“Yep.” I pointed my arm straight through his boat. “Unfortunately we just need to go that way a ways to unhook it.”

He stood shirtless on his swim steps and watched me standing there, not twenty feet from him, with my chain in my hands leading straight down taut. Finally, he decided a response: “Where are you guys from?”

Agh!

I thought about rationally explaining to him that proper anchoring involves
specific physics that necessitate a correct amount of scope for a given depth, which in turn dictates a certain etiquette when
selecting proximity to one’s neighbor. I thought about saying, “Listen buddy, you’re the cause of my problem right now! You need to get off your ass and move anchorages!” I fantasized about curing him of the . . Californianness that led him, like so many others in these wide waters, to think that they have to pack an anchorage like a parking garage.**

Instead, I made dismissive small-talk, straining against the chain and trip line some more, casually reiterating the nature of my present difficulty, letting him talk about where he’s been and where he thought I should go, and blowing out giant puffs of air every minute so that I would not explode.

Eventually I could see that this approach would get me nowhere, so I talked with Harmony and devised a new tactic. I let 300 feet of line drift out behind us and Harmony drove our boat literally around the catamaran and off at an angle, in hopes of illustrating my point. Pacific Northwest passive aggression never dies.

We made two separate attempts of gunning the engine at a one-o’clock and then a three-o’clock heading, drifting back to gather up all 300 feet of line until it pulled straight down once more. Harmony’s pirouetted Serenity deftly around the catamaran as the ocean current tried to swing us into a collision, yet nary a red flag popped up from our oblivious foe. We were getting nowhere and looking like idiots in the process, so I decided to swallow my frustration, work my voice into its most polite tenor, and do what must be done.

“Excuse me!”

While we were trying our various attempts to dislodge ourselves he had laid down on his deck to sun himself like a beached bearded sea lion. He lifted his hat from his face and looked up impassively.

“Hi! Listen, I really hate to bother you, but we really need to go forward right where you are in order to get this anchor free. Can I ask you please to move your anchorage farther away?”  The gauntlet had been thrown.

He stood up and thought about the problem for a second, then called back across, “Have you dived on it yet?”

Have I what?
(subtext: The f*** you say?)

“You should really dive down on it and see what you’re working with.”
(I don’t see anything wrong with the way that I have anchored, and I don’t think that I should have to move for you.)

“No, I can’t dive down that far. We’ve done this before and I’m pretty sure that if I could just go that way (pointing right at him again)  we could get free.”
(Pretty much what I just said.)

“But how do you know that it won’t just tangle you up or do more damage? It could be anything down there.”
(You can’t force me to move so long as I continue to doubt your knowledge as a boater.)

I paused to gather my thoughts, looking down at our chain stretching into the depths. Could he be right? Could I not know what I’m dealing with? Am I the one being unreasonable here?

To hell with that. I’ll be damned if this guy’s gonna make me take a swim. I raised my head.

“Well, that is my request.”
(How much of an asshole are you willing to be today sir? Checkmate.)

I turned back toward Harmony and waited. After a minute his engine fired up and he began to motor forward on his anchor. I wasted no time and as soon as he was out of our path, Harmony drove us straight at twelve noon and immediately I felt the satisfying pop and slackness as the anchor drifted free.  I hauled it up with a quickness fueled by furious vindication before the catamaran’s electric winch could finish pulling up its own anchor. I put on a big smile and enthusiastically called over, “Thanks so much for your help!”

As we turned the boat south he called after us.

“Nicely done! You two win the cool heads award!”

You have no idea dude.

 

The moral of the story? Survival of the politest. Get off my lawn.

 

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**Sorry Californians. It’s the Oregon thing. It’s damn-near hard-wired at this point.