You Have A Brain!

     Just wanted to mention a few observations from the past weeks:

  When you stop for the day at a anchorage, don't just drop the anchor and your rode in one spot.  Drop the anchor, layout how much rode you will be using as you backdown from the anchor spot and then "set" the hook.  This will eliminate most cases of dragging the hook.

     Speaking of dropping the hook in an anchorage for the night, don't squeeze in next to me and another boat when there is open water all around us.

     If you are a delivery captain on a tight schedule or you have a power boat, please do not sacrifice the rest of us to Neptune with your large wakes that will rearrange our galley.

     If you have a sailboat, I don't care how many sails you have out if you are running under power from an internal combustion engine or another source you can no longer clam sailboat status - your are a motor vessel.

     Just because you have a boat does not mean you have a brain!

Better Than Reality Television

     Adjacent to our marina is "county landing" which has always been a source of my amusement.  After working on the boat all day I would reward myself  in the evening by sitting in the pilothouse and watching the antics of the locals.  I have seen trailered boats launched and retrieved in every manner possible.  On that subject alone you would expect to see a ambulance there weekly.  Just the other day a fight broke out between a waterman and a driver for the local crab processing house.  I guess the extreme heat that the area has been experiencing is getting the best of everybody
     Tonight the entertainment spilled over into our marina.  Apparently, a makeshift crabbing boat capsized out on Langford Creek.  One of the crabbers from the capsized vessel was still able to use his cell phone and call for help.  He must have called the two local young men that I witnessed rushing down to county landing on their scooters.  They jumped onto a crab boat and raced off to rescue the two crabbers.  They returned to county landing but not before their rescue boat lost power and drifted  back to the docks of county landing.  Later, another waterman came to the docks, loaded up his wife/girlfriend, the two survivors, the two young rescuers and headed out onto the creek in his crab boat.  About an hour later they returned with the capsized vessel in tow.  They were also accompanied by the local waterway Police, the Natural Resources Police and the Coast Guard.  And to keep it very interesting for us, the flotilla of boats came right up to our backporch (cockpit) and onto the haul-out slips of our marina.  They managed to position the capsized boat in one of the haul-out slips and secured it for the night. - at least that's what I thought.  But that wasn't good enough.  The two young rescuers decided they were going to rescue the capsized vessel here and now as seen in the picture.  You know, if I aimed an video camera at county landing, I would have the next hit reality television show!