Bad Anchor Job

We decided one weekend to go to ‘the islands’. I know that normally that means to the Caribbean, but when you live in the Toronto area, it means the Toronto Islands. The islands are bits of land directly off shore from downtown Toronto. They are a beautiful place of trees, tranquility and the odd cormorant. (Actually, the place the crawling with them – they look great but sound awful.)

We sailed off to the area around the Aquatic Sailing Club, which is a spectacular place to anchor. When anchored in the west end of the bay, you can view treed islands and boat bobbing gently on their moorings out the one side of your boat and a spectacular view of downtown Toronto from the other side. Really a unique place.

We anchored late in the afternoon. After settling in we had a great BBQ and settled back to read and relax for the evening. There was little wind. After the sun went down, A. went to bed, but I stayed up to read out in the cockpit. The wind seemed to come up quite quickly and out of the south where it could really blow in off the lake. Still, it was warm and I thought little about the anchor and we had set it hard when we came in. The boats in the mooring field faded into the darkness, all I could hear was the creaking of lines and the wind whistling though the stays of the boats around us. We swung from our anchor line with the boat moving side to side a bit as the wind picked up. I idlely watched the boats to my left as we swung around.

“Whooah, I think that boat is closer than before! Naw, it just us. We’ve move into a different position.” I went back to my book. The next time I looked up – “Crap – that boat is definitely closer than before.” But still, I convinced my self that it was just because we had swung into a different position on the anchor line. But just to be safe I wandered up to the anchor line and gave it a good hard tug. “Yep, she’s dug in good and hard. Nothing to worry about. It’s just my imagination.” Back to the book.

“Nooooo – it can’t be!!!” The boat that I had been watching was now about 15 feet off our stern. No doubt about it – we were on the move – and fast! I called in a mild panic for A. to come up on deck and then quickly started the engine. A. came up all blurry eyed – she had been asleep of course. I went up to the bow and pulled the anchor up while A. motored the boat in a tight circle. Sure enough, there was a big glob of mud on one fluke of our danforth anchor, the rest was clean. Now what to do? Do we try to reset the anchor – well, there was no way that I was going to be able to sleep on the hook that night – not after this close call. Do we sail/motor home – that’s a good 2 to 3 hours away and it was already midnight. Not having done any night time sailing, that was real low on list of desires for that night. As we circled around debating what to do, A. suddenly said that she thought she could see an open mooring ball about 100 meters off. I couldn’t immediately see it, but she still insisted. So we motored towards it and sure enough there it was; an open mooring ball with lines already attached waiting for my boat hook. We hooked the line the first try and were tied up tight in a mater of minutes. Suddenly the night seemed much less ominous and well peaceful again. The wind that seemed to have been howling just minuets before was now just a gentle breeze. After the adrenaline wore off, we hit the sack and both had a great nights sleep. (We have since anchored in that bay and had much stronger winds without problems – so our fear of anchoring out has diminished.)

Next up: My first marine rescue: Me.