Dolphin Love

Bottlenose Dolphin swiming in anchorage

It was a dolphin love kind of a morning. It was the calm before the storm. Who would of guessed that within 24 hours a friend's boat would be in danger of floundering on a rocky reef?

Bright sunlight and light winds greeted the morning.  Boat dusting, deck and dinghy cleaning were the chores for the day.  Sipping hot green tea, we tuned on the regional weather on the Single Sideband Radio (SSB).  

According to the weather forecast the winds would begin to clock after lunch.  By late evening the front will arrive brining squalls with 45 knot winds from the north and west.

Without a cloud in the sky, it was hard to believe.  Experience has taught us that when the wind dies and the boat slowly begins to clock it is time to batten down the hatches.  In the interval we get to work.

Ed sits in the dinghy behind the boat adding water and removing  dirt and sand that always seems to multiply no matter how often it is cleaned.  As he rinses a chamois in the water, comapany appears in the crystal blue waters.

The pfft of a dolphin sounds as a mother and calf swim near the boat.  The youngster decides to check out the splashing Ed makes as he rinses the cloth. I grab the camera and press the record button as the young dolphin swims up to Ed's hand.  It does barrel rolls, swiming around and under the dinghy fot about three minutes.

I'm  excited that I captured it on video, until I play it back and realize I never turned it on. I have one still image of the young dolphin's flipper.  Oh poo!  Those moments are special. At least it is a memory to share with Ed.

Anchored in a cove, surrounded by land on three sides, we watch as boats stream in looking for a place to ride out ths particularly vicious predicted front.  We know our anchor is buried after siting in place for two weeks.  We hope the boats moving in hold fast during the bulk of  the storm. It is now predicted to arrive in the wee hours of the morning.

Final Lee arrives mid afternoon and anchors 200 feet off our port side.  The boat settles in. Ed dinghies over to say hello to the first time cruising couple that hail from Gregg Neck Boatyard. Imagne stays there when we are not cruising.

By now ominous dark clouds build in the northwestern sky.  Angry and dark, the clouds continue to expand and stack.  By nightfall, the front is still six hours away. We go bed early knowing that we will be awake and on watch when the raging winds begin to blow through the previous tranquil cove.

It's 2:00 a.m. when the first gusts smack the boat.  We sit in the darkened cockpit watching anchor lights of nearby boats rock back and forth.  Everyone sees to be holdng.  In a matter of minutes the gusts have clocked 90 degrees.  This is the time that the danger of draggig often occurs.

A strong front clocks a boat fast. The quick change in direction and high gusts of winds can pull an anchor in seconds.

Our neighboring boat,  Final Lee held during the initial gusts.  Then thinking the worst was over, the captain turned off the VHF radio and went to bed.  Shortly after the squalls came through.

Still in the cockpit Ed frantically hails Final Lee.  "Final Lee, Final Lee, you are dragging,"  Ed calls.  Other boats blow horns.  The noise is lost in the howling wind.  We watch helplessly as the wind driven boat moves closer to the rocky shoreline. As it passes by, the dragging boat narrowly misses taking out another boat's dinghy.

Suddenly the wayward boat stops less than fifty feet from shore.  It's shortly after low tide. A shallow sandbar stops the boat.  The thumping of Final Lee's keel bouncing of yet bottom brings the owners from below.

Tom, from a large power boat, Cocoon II,  hears Ed on the radio and swings by Imagine in his larger dinghy and 40 horsepower engine..  After several passess by the boat, Ed boards the14-foot dinghy admidst three foot wind driven swells.

For the next two hours,  the storm and wave drenched men use lines and auxillary anchors to attempt to pull Final Lee off  the bar and keep the stranded boat from getting blown onto te nearby rocks.

At one point, with water up to their calves and the center console dinghy in danger of floundering, the men had to leave tending Final Lee to find a place to turn on the manual bilge pump.

The gusts pounded Final Lee from the side until just before daylight.  By then the tide had risen enough to pull the stranded boat free of the bar and away from the jagged iron rock.

With Final Lee reanchored, Ed and Tom were ready for a well deserved nap.

Every year boats run up on reefs, become grounded, or sink in storms.  One can never be too careful.  Final Lee was lucky.  There was a sandbar before the rocks.  There was a rising tide. Finally, Tom owned a dinghy large enough, deep enough and with enough horsepower to assist in rescuing the runaway boat.

Our little 10.5 foot dinghy with its 9.9 horsepower

outboard would have sunk in the dangerous wind and waves.

In life and on the water we need to savor the dolphin love moments.  From those moments we can gather strength weather the storms lurking on the horizon.  We may emerge unscathed if we throw in some caution, vigilance and sometimes some God given luck.