Things that go bump in the night

I’m wholly dissatisfied with existing systems of mythology to explain things, so I decided to make up my own. The first fable in the new Twigsian universe will be about three siblings, a squirt gun, and a sailboat.

Luna was the guardian of the moon. She was a bit of a seat hog, and was continually encroaching on her sister Aqua (the guardian of the sea) who occupied the middle seat of the space wagon. Aqua was made of water (duh) and each time Luna pushed on her, some of her water would slosh over onto their little sister Marina (the guardian of mariners). Instead of getting upset, Aqua laughed, as her and Luna always had great fun tormenting poor Marina. So, Marina would get a little wet with sloshing water every time Luna moved around. Which she did a lot. Like ALL THE TIME.

As much fun as it was to get Marina a little wet when driving in the space mobile, Luna and Aqua longed for better ways to torment Marina. Especially when that smug little chicken played with her little toy boats in her bath tub. They devised a plan that makes even the most cruel heart shudder. The next time Luna pushed on Aqua, they took the water that sloshed over and put it in a super soaker. They then knocked all of poor Marina’s little boats over with powerful streams of water. Marina cried.

For those of you keeping track, I just explained lunar tides and currents to you. You’re welcome. Luna is the moon, her movements and gravity push the water of the ocean around, and it has nowhere to go but into the bays and harbors. This is the tide. When there is a huge opening, the water kinda sloshes over. When there is a small itty bitty opening (like the tip of a super soaker), the water rushes through with force. Marina’s bath tub is her alleged “safe harbor”, which was not even safe from her sisters’ wrath.

Why am I telling you this? We were on one of the toy boats today.

It was a long day. We cruised from Port Canaveral to Fort Pierce (aka “Port Fierce”) under exhausting conditions. By the time we got into the channel, we were all grumpy, and just wanted to drop anchor and chill. So we did. Then a nice man kindly informed us that we just anchored in another channel shared by both a local marina, and the coast guard. It would be prudent to move if we didn’t want a ticket. Sigh. We moved to the other side of the main channel. The side that was crazy crowded, and had no room for us. We found a less than ideal spot near a buoy marking the side of the deep water area. During anchoring Mary Anne (our starboard engine) started rattling. Ginger (the port engine) thought this was very funny. We decide to let the engines cool before investigating.

Over the next few hours, I give that buoy we anchored near the stink eye. I’m not yet sure how our new (to us) boat swings at anchor, and I don’t want to bump it. Finally, after a tide change (the direction of the current changes, making you swing), I’m satisfied that we won’t bump and we go to bed.

Bang.

Oh geez. It’s been like an hour. Did we really just hit? Whew, just a water jug falling over. My nerves are shot. Back to sleep.

BANG!!!

“what was that!”

“I think we hit bottom!”

Good news. We didn’t hit bottom.

Bad news. We drug anchor. That means exactly what it sounds like. Our anchor slipped in its holding, and our boat moved in a way it wasn’t supposed to. Apparently this is a thing that happens.

Worse news. When we drug, we slipped into the channel, and the current caused by Luna’s squirt gun wrapped us around the dreaded buoy. The loud bang was an extremely large red metal channel marker buoy crashing into our tender fiberglass tushy. As a bonus, given that both the buoy and us were bobbing along in a current, we would continually float apart and then re-BANG!

Ok, fire up the engines and back out. No biggie.

Wrong. Biggie. When we back out, the buoy follows us. At a much higher speed. Meredith mans the fenders (squishy tushy protectors).

We’re now stuck to a buoy, floating in the middle of a major channel. At midnight.

There are three distress calls that you can make over the VHF channel 16. This is the channel monitored by the coast guard and all close by boats. The most well known of the three is Mayday. Lesser known are Securite and Pan Pan (pronounced “pahn pahn”). Securite is meant to alert nearby vessels of navigational hazards, of which we were now one.

So, I make my first VHF “distress” call (Securite) to let everybody know that we’re stuck in the channel, and they should look out. Any help would be appreciated. Crickets. It is midnight after all. Sane people are asleep.

So, what do we do? We can’t move without risking the buoy putting a hole in our boat. We can’t go to sleep and hope it gets better in the morning.

Pan Pan is the next level of VHF call. It’s not the life and limb type of call of a Mayday. It’s meant to alert the coast guard (and others) of a lesser emergency that does not involved immediate threat to life or vessel. One example given in the text books is if you’re stuck in, or drifting into, a major channel.

Check.

Meredith and I confer, and concur that it’s time to call out Pan Pan . I’m really hesitant. It feels like a big deal. I don’t want to be the guy calling 911 because I’m out of fries. We err on caution and put out our Pan Pan.

“Pan Pan Pan. This is SV Twig. We are in the Fort pierce channel. We drug anchor and are now wrapped around buoy 16 and are stuck in the channel. Wait, I mean buoy 12”. I even mispronounced “Pan Pan”. Nice Greg.

But, we got the attention of the coast guard. They get our phone number and call us up (to get the convo off of the main channel). We exchange pleasantries and a description of the situation.

I have to use the words “five souls on board”. Shudder.

They use the words “salvage”. Double shudder.

Luckily, “salvage” is in reference to commercial salvage operations whose job is to get you out of tight spots (and not become actual salvage), and we have a membership with one called SeaTow. The Coast Guard determines that this is a job for SeaTow and patches us through.

SeaTow was kind enough to let us know that the only way they could help would be to send a diver down to untangle us. They were equally kind enough to inform us that there was no possible way they were going to send a diver down at midnight in the (apparently) notorious Port Fierce channel current.

Swell. It’s up to us to figure this one out.

We calmly discuss our options. lol. We scream at each other. Kindly.

It dawns on us that Luna and Aqua also enjoy a good game of tether ball. Remember that game where the ball wraps around and around a pole in the school yard? Your only counter move is to punch the ball in the opposite direction to unwind it and vanquish your foe.

We punch the ball by calling on Ginger (Port engine) for an assist. Our training kicks in, and we put her in reverse, causing our backend to pivot starboard, in reverse. That swings us around the infamous buoy 12 and gets us free. Hurray!

Now we just have to re-anchor in the dead of night. Neat.

We do so, and we ground (hit bottom) in four feet of water. The ladies (Ginger and Mary Anne) get us off. After about half a dozen attempts, we finally reanchor.

In the exact spot that we drug.

No sleep tonight. I sit up at the helm (stearing wheel) all night with Zulu (our dog) and a ton of coffee. I start seeing things. I constantly thing we’re dragging again. We’re not. We’re secure. At 6 am, I wake Meredith up for a shift. She watches till 10.

We were supposed to move on to the next harbor that day, but decided to take a day off and lick our wounds. After some homeschool, we take some R&R time and go see some manatees and chill at the beach. In the light of the day, I survey Twig for damage. The buoy didn’t break our hull, but did leave us with some nice new bright red tattoos as a reminder.

Dragging anchor is a right of passage for new cruisers. So is their first VHF distress call. We’re over achievers, and decided to do both in our first week.