An Eventful Anchorage

An Eventful Anchorage

Eventful indeed! On entrance we have an engine failure, and it was almost impossible to get out at all! As we were circling the narrow anchorage with Time Warp, we were finishing a turn when the engine suddenly shut down with a series of urgent beeps from the engine panel. Immediately we dropped the main anchor and rowed the secondary out with the dinghy. When Dad got into the dinghy we know instantly what had happened: the long painter for the dinghy had been slack dangling over the rail, and it had been pulled into the propeller and yanked tight, stopping the engine within a few seconds. Dad cut the line with his rigging knife, and continued with the anchor. Then the man on the boat behind us got on scuba diving equipment and cut lose the line. Ever since we had a mean German guy in Sibari all winter, we have been ill-disposed towards Germans. On the back of the boat behind us there was a flag with three horizontal stripes of the colors black, yellow, and red. There goes the German stereotype of the family. When we tried to leave the anchorage today, we couldn't get the primary anchor out. Reason being, it was stuck under a rock. Again. The last time this happened was in the Azores, and we managed to bend the shank almost 90 degrees. This time, Dad dove on it and gave me directions to pull it out, then hurried back on board. Thankfully there was no damage to the anchor. We have learned our lesson about pulling on the anchor with the engine.
--Orion Date
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