0242 hours: A shallow, but insistent beep, beep, beeping awakens the sleeping crew. Bleary eyes address the bedside chart display announcing an anchor drag alarm. Jupiter has drifted outside the geofence set when we anchored hours before. Can this be true?
All Hands On Deck!
The Night Manager is quietly composed and full of bad news: It is dark and will stay dark so for another 2 hours. The tide is extremely high—20 feet. The wind is rising along with the tide—20 knots. The outside temperature is 43º. It’s raining. The chart shows rocky trouble astern in our previously-appealing anchorage, even at the height of the tide.
All hands on deck! Dressed or undressed. Shoes or no shoes. Switches on. Engines start.
An extraordinarily high tide disturbs Jupiter’s anchor where it rests in the stony seabed.
Stand By for Inaction
Red lighting in the pilot house fails to prevent “night blindness” as the Garmin displays serve up a glaring amount of angry data. Yes, our anchor has dragged, but currently we seem to be holding position just yards from the pernicious rocky outcropping behind the boat. The tide is now falling which should relieve strain on the anchor chain. The wind is fluky, but gusts are trending downward with the receding tide.
The engines are purring like the Cats we love, and the batteries are charging. The house is warm, but the crew, now wide awake with nerves humming, is annoyed that it is so dang dark. Otherwise, we’d just up-anchor and move. Discussions of actions and options subsequently settle on wait-and-watch-and-see.
Sit Tight for Daylight
So what are we waiting for? Nautical twilight comes to mind. During the time the rising sun is between 12º and 6º below the horizon we might see a shadowy mountain or mass of trees, but not the parenthetical rock piles flanking the anchorage we selected for appeal rather than utility.
Dawn’s nautical twilight gives way to civil twilight, when the sun, still unseen, acclivitates to between 6º and 0º below the horizon. The crew prepares to move the boat as soon as we can see how hard it is raining. Haul the anchor, and off we go to a wide-open, no-hazards, perfectly-protected seabed of sticky, flat mud where we bury the large anchor, back down on 250 feet of ½” high-test chain and take naps.
Roughly 75% of nights aboard Jupiter are spent at anchor, and very rarely does the Night Manager signal trouble. When he does, we respond.
The solution best suited to an anchor drag is to retrieve the anchor and move to a better location, but moving a boat at night is risky business that might create a cascade of calamitous consequences.
Rocky Horror Pesto Show
Crossing international boundaries with plants is forbidden, however the crew found thriving thai basil and chive plants at a food market in Sidney. These Canadian-born herbs cannot cross into Alaska, so their finale lies across the open border a few days hence. Having sourced some unctuous sablefish in Victoria, and running low on fresh veg, chef is pondering ways to eat well after many days at sea. A pesto would enhance the fish and serve as antiscorbutic.
Place cherry tomatoes and halved garlic cloves into a skillet until the bottom is completely covered with a single layer. Add strips of lemon peel and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and pepper flakes, then pour over lots of good olive oil until almost covered. Roast in a very hot oven until tomatoes are blistered and bursting. Cool.
In a blender pulse a couple of handfuls of sprouted walnuts until coarse ground. Pour tomatoey olive oil and lots of roasted garlic over the walnuts, leaving confit tomatoes in the pan. Stuff in bunches of fresh basil and chives. Pulse until combined into a thick bright green paste. Scrape into a bowl. Add grated parmesan, stir to combine and season to taste, adding more oil if needed and a few of the roasted tomatoes if desired.
Pan sauté sablefish until just tender and top with pesto. Save remaining tomatoes for another use such as topping a steak or a steaming bowl of pasta al pesto.
Chef’s Note: Sprouted walnuts are more nutritious and buttery, and less tannic and bitter tasting than your average walnut. Perfect for snacking and pesto!
Harrowing experience. Glad the Night Manager and your expertise saved the day, or night.
It certainly had the entire crew on high alert! Thank goodness for the Night Manager who did his job exactly as intended.
For a minute, I thought I was reading a very scary chapter from the Night Manager by John le Carré. What a wild and sleepless night. You both made all the right decisions. Phew. xo
How we wish it was only a story in a book… It is quite difficult to settle on doing nothing when adrenalin and cortisol are in play, it is pitch dark, and the wind is whipping.
Well that was an enthralling chapter. I could appreciate the tension of the night.
Glad all was well in the end.
The Tension of the Night would have been a good heading!
That’s an uncomfortable feeling indeed! I once tied a bow and stern anchor in a narrow channel off the Columbia River in order not to swing ashore with the night tide. When I awoke at some point, I had no idea where I was, but I was afloat and not moving, which was good. Come daylight, I realized that with a larger than predicted tide, fog, and captain’s error, I had set the stern anchor too shallow. The bow anchor held and I’d swung around and downstream… It could have been worse.
I always appreciate the vocabulary lessons in your posts… another cruiser recently surprised me with “disjuncts.” See if you can squeeze that into a future post!
Well now that is an unexpected bonus to double anchoring! Redundancy. Well done.
I love reading about your adventures, even the scary ones. But aren’t we lucky to have the night manager technology.? We had a similar experience anchored in a narrow cove with Westerly, and it was likewise, all hands on deck, mostly partially dressed and barefoot! While moonless and cloudy that night we were able to move and reset, but it sure is hard to get back to sleep!
Keep on keeping us posted!
Yes! Keeps us on our toes for sure. Well done you for making a successful night adjustment. Hard to imagine how this was managed before Night Manager times. Some rather different outcomes, I suspect. Hope you’re getting out on the water!
Ahoy there,
A new reader with an adventurous nature, will occasionally be traveling with you vicariously through the tree lined rocky canyons, craggy bogs, and the sun and starlit mirrored surface of the salty element filled H2O brine for which you travel. That night you woke with butterflies in your stomach, I know that feeling!
“May the Northern Cross and the Swan help to guide your way!”
Readers with adventurous natures are always welcome aboard this vessel. Very happy to have you along for the ride. We will happily take any help we can get in guiding our way, as he who is not lost cannot be found!