A while back
we were cruising with a buddy-boat manned by a couple inexperienced in the kind
of mooring you have to do in some places up the road in British Columbia.
Smugglers' Cove is one of those places. It's tucked away into the folds of the "extraordinarily
humpy, bumpy, lumpy hills of the Sechelt Peninsula," as my wife, June,
puts it.
We hadn't
planned to stop at Smugglers' Cove but as we passed by we decided to look in. "It's exactly the kind of magic place
you hope to come upon," said June. "It takes you by surprise, a
small, enclosed and unseen inner harbor where you drop anchor and take a line
ashore and feel all snug and romantic, a whole series of little coves and bays
and pools."
Yes, a line
ashore. We have experience of this. We
have brought along a special stern line, an extra long line, and we take it
around a madrona tree and back to the boat. That way, cunningly, we experienced
cruisers can cast off in the morning without going ashore.
Next door, our
friends struggle to take a single line ashore and tie it to tree. They'll have to make another trip in the
morning to cast it off. June and I, the experienced
cruisers, smile knowingly.
But, come
morning, it's low tide. Rocks, lots of
rocks, have appeared between us and the shore. Our mooring line is high and dry, tangled and twisted around
itself and snagged by jagged rocks . Can't
shake it free. Neither end will move.
Our friends
don't notice. They go ashore, untie
their line, reel it in, and they're ready to go.
So we do
what we have to. We cut our nice long
stern line. Yes, we cut it. We wait until they're not looking, and we slice right
through it surreptitiously. We snake both ends in like greased lightning and
stow them in a big tangle in the lazarette.
Now we have
two stern lines, each one too short. But
the main thing is that our buddies, who rely on us for cruising expertise, haven't
noticed, and we get busily under way looking as sailorly as all get-out.
"Do you
remember how to do a long splice?" June asks as we motor out. I scratch my head. "Better get started
before we need the stern line again. Oh — and do it down below where they won't
see you."
Today's Thought
The Athenians do not mind a man being
clever, so long as he does not impart his cleverness to others.
— Plato, Euthyphro
Tailpiece
Happiness is
that temporary feeling of pleasantness you have when you are so agreeably
occupied that you forget how miserable you really are.
(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
2 comments:
Great piece John. Don't worry, I'm sure the your secret is safe with the millions of us on the Internet and your buddy boat will never find put. ; ) We use a similar shore tie technique in Lake Huron's North Channel, but we add a piece of hose over the line for chaffe protection.
Gotta love those stern ties -- especially with a wind blowing and boats on either side :(
Up here in Canada, we call them "Arbutus" trees, after their formal binomial name: Arbutus menziesii
Hmmm, there are specially installed mooring rings in Smugglers Cove -- you're not supposed to use the Arbutus trees!
Some of our "best" times have been trying to get stern tied... we've been pretty lucky at Smugglers, however (likely because there is relatively little wind in there).
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