Anchor Anxiety

Cruising the Bahamas this time of year means sitting through a few nasty fronts, which can lead to stressful anchoring decisions. We have been anchored in a very well-protected spot off of Stocking Island near George Town, Exuma for a few weeks now--so protected that our boat tends to spin in little wind eddies but never really feels the full brunt of the wind. It's a deep spot...28' so we set our hook with 145' of chain (28' of depth plus 5' of freeboard is 33'...5:1 scope would be 165', but we kept it "short" due to the protection we had). Sweet for a big blow, right? Well...

As other boats moved into the area ahead of this weekend's blow we had one monohull sailboat settle in about a boat length from our port side when we were both pointed/stretched out in the east wind. (Note--one's tolerance for "close" neighbors has to go up in some popular anchorages in Bahamas!) They were just to the north of us and we routinely shifted in the wind eddy so we were on their bow at about a boat length. While we wouldn't have dropped where they did, they were behind us for the forecast winds and we let it go. Well...the blow started and we continued our little spin, sometimes near that boat, sometimes near another. While the winds were blowing near 30 knots we were seeing less than 10 knots on our boat, but occasionally a gust would make it to us and stretch the chain out. While the wind was forecast to be ENE, we were seeing ESE wrapping around the point we were anchored at. The result? At 0400 our bow was pointed ESE, as was the nearby monohull, and as we both stretched out on our chains we got VERY close to them. At one point, their bow was less than 6' from our dinghy in the davits. After we verified that we had not drug, we had to assume that they had way less scope out than we did. We made the decision to shorten scope to 125' and monitor from deck until sunrise. 

The view from the cockpit after we shortened scope.

In the morning, we were still "talking distance" to the other boat. We waived at them, hailed them on deck, hailed them on the radio...no joy...and finally got in our dinghy to go chat. We found out they had anchored in 28' as well, but only had 50' of chain out. That was a surprise! Kind of wonder if the boats behind them knew that! We let them know about the events of the night (they didn't know we'd gotten so close to them) and it quickly became clear that they thought we had drug towards them. When we explained that no, we had not drug (verified via our instruments), but that we had more scope out than they did and that caused the closeness when we shifted, they didn't really seem to agree or understand (English wasn't their first language, but we were communicating well). They didn't want to drop more chain because they were, admittedly, pretty close to some other boats, too, but eventually dropped maybe 10 more feet. 

After watching the boats move about for another hour we decided to just clear out all together. We pulled our 125' of chain and had to work a little to get the well-set anchor out! We moved to a less protected space near friends that has gobs of room between boats. We were in such a protected area, but we just weren't comfortable with our motion compared to that nearest boat anymore. 

WHAT WE DID WRONG: We should have discussed scope length right when they anchored so that we all had an idea of the geometry problem. And even though it's generally up to the newest arrival to ask the scope question of the boats around them, we should have thrown that custom out and pushed the issue with the new arrival. 

WHAT WE DID RIGHT: We set the anchor well initially, then backed down on it again before the blow just to be sure we were set. We kept our radio on. We had lights on the bow and stern in addition to our anchor lights. We made adjustments when we saw they were necessary and then stayed on deck to ensure the boats stayed safe. And when we just couldn't come to agreement with our neighbor, we moved. 

Bottom line--we cruisers may not always agree, but it's up to each Skipper to make the decisions that are right for their own boat. The other boat probably has their own tale of their perspective, that a boat drug onto them, but it is what it is and we have to act on our perspective.