Anchor issues
I feel like we are back in Cape Town. The wind has been blowing and is expected to blow all day today.
Yesterday we all piled into the dinghy and rode in to the marina office.
This has to be the most organized marina ever. I suppose they’d have to be to handle the hundreds of boats here. Even their dinghy parking is organized. There are designated areas for hard dinghy’s and others for soft.
There is a gentleman with the crappy job of having to drive around and pump out peoples black water tanks. When he passed me today, he waved with a huge smile on his face, so it must not be too bad.
Just outside of the marina there is a skate park, where the creatures took their boards to.
Jude came away with a sprained ankle, and has been icing and elevating it since yesterday. This morning her skin is gorgeous shades of blue, purple and pink.
We walked down the main road to check the ‘neighborhood’ out, and found a little farmers market. Being back here in the US has reminded us of how expensive cost of living is. We bought about 1/5 the amount of produce for the same price as we did in Central America.
On our way back to Tanda Malaika, we dinghy-ed around the marina looking at boats and fuel docks, buildings etc. When ever all 7 of us are in our dinghy, we get big smiles and friendly waves from sailors around us. We mostly see couples or single riders in them, and I’m sure we look like a clown car.
When we reached Tanda Malaika we realized that the wind had changed direction and swung her around in the opposite direction that we had been in, and that combined with the drastically low tide which dropped unusually low, we were grounded.
We could clearly see the grass and anemones under us in the shallow water. Catamarans are built to be able to be grounded safely, in fact some people purposefully ground themselves so that while the tide is low they can do work under their boats. We noticed a not so fortunate soul who is not in a cat, that was leaning far to the side and had to be towed off. Luckily the ground is soft and not rocky. When the tide came up late in the night, we pulled up anchor and moved Tanda Malaika to a deeper spot, and set our anchor alarm (drag queen) on my phone. The alarm was supposed to sound if we dragged more that 100ft, and when I woke up at 6am I noticed that we had dragged and were once again grounded in a different spot. I had ‘do not disturb’ on, on my phone and I think the alarm didn’t sound so as not to disturb me! Somehow we managed to drag without hitting any other boats or the rocky shoreline. Daddy and Jan must have been watching over us.
So here we are, once again waiting for the tide to rise so that we can try anchor out in deeper water again. The wind is blowing 25 mph and it’s raining, but I have no doubt that the Tanda Malaika crew will succeed this time! Danny and I have looked at different anchors, and have decided that the Delta anchor that came with the boat is not the ideal one, and will be purchasing one more suitable for our size boat. Life is good, and we are loving the adventures.
Adventures of a Tribe 