Anchoring too close

By Gary Revell My friend Dave, co-owner of our Maxi 1000, decided our summer cruise would be to the Isles of Scilly. We picked up a friend from Fowey en route and went on to have a great time exploring and navigating around the islands.

Our next overnight stop was anchoring at Tresco, where we rowed ashore in the tender. It was a strong offshore wind and so we devised a plan that, upon our return to the tender, we would move it to the edge of the bay to get a better angle to get back to our boat.

We found a very agreeable pub and a very drinkable cider. We returned to the tender later that evening in jolly mood, totally forgot about the plan and set off with Dave rowing.

We whizzed back towards the boat and in fact shot passed it within arm’s length. Despite a massive effort from Dave and (probably unhelpful) encouragement from the rest of us, we could not get back to the boat — or to Tresco. To add to our dilemma, it started raining hard and visibility was poor.

Luck was with us, however, and we managed to land on a small uninhabited island, where we spent a very cold, wet night under the tender. By Craig Hardy It was a pitch black night with a 15-knot breeze blowing down Nara Inlet in the Whitsunday Islands, Australia. The anchorage was crowded.

It was late and I was just going to bed when I saw the red and green sidelights of a yacht coming up close astern to drop their anchor and then drop back in the breeze. I thought nothing more of it at the time.

An early rise the next morning was planned, so after a quick breakfast, I raised the anchor and we headed out to sea.

As we headed out, the yacht anchored astern of us followed us out of the anchorage, close astern. A second look revealed that noone was on deck. Odd.