While we were staying overnight at the Bridge Tender Marina in Wrightsville Beach NC, boating friends Ray and Diane invited us to raft up to their boat Radian Journey, share dinner, and be “on the hook” with their boat overnight at an anchorage only 5 miles north on the ICW. Of course, we accepted the invitation!
We followed Radian Journey into the anchorage, a winding waterway off the ICW past sea grass islands to a group of homes. A peaceful spot, but with some wind. Our friends’ instructions were: “treat our boat like a dock, put out your fenders, and throw us your lines to tie up.”
Radian Journey went in first, set its anchor, attached its anchor bridle, and invited us in. I had to adjust to the fact that the “dock” was moving while we landed, but Captain and First Mate got us tied up, with experienced help from Ray and Diane.
We headed over to our friends’ boat for some refreshments, but before long Ray’s anchor alarm app notified him that his anchor was dragging. So we untied quickly, Ray and Diane re-reset their anchor, and we repeated the tying-up process. All went well, and we enjoyed a tasty dinner aboard Radian Journey.
Unfortunately, shortly after dinner Ray noticed that the combined weight of our boats – with the wind – was again dragging his anchor (and both boats) toward the nearby docks.
So we agreed on Plan B: we both would anchor in the same anchorage, but separately. Rhonda, I, and our friend the depth sounder found another suitable area. We dropped anchor, set it, and attached our new anchor bridle. We used a 7-to-1 scope and it felt very solid. We set our anchor alarm to notify us if the boat moved outside a circle we defined.
After the anchor was set and the engines were shut down, we remembered how peaceful anchoring can be. It was so quiet we could almost hear the sun set!
I got up a couple of times in the night to be sure our anchor was holding. We had swung around the anchor as the tidal current and wind changed overnight, but the anchor did not move. And the night stars were beautiful.
We will do this more often!
Glad to hear you had another “on the hook” night with no problems.