Saturday July 19th Saturday:
I can’t remember now exactly what time the alarm went off, it was definetly before 6 am. Maybe even before 5am. Either way, it was early. But at least we didn’t have to haul up the anchor, washdown and stow the anchor chain and anchor bouy. We were tied to mooring ball, so all we had to do was untie a mooring line and take off.
Ghost and WindDancer were up and motoring towards Malibu rapids as we came up on deck and started getting things ready to go. They went around the north side of MacDonald Island, we went around the South side. Through the rapids with ease and out into Queens Reach. Unfortunatly, there was absolutly no wind. So we had to motor most of the way. As we got to Nelson Island the winds picked up a little and we put the sails up for the last 10 miles of the trip. Ghost and WindDancer motored on and soon turned the corner around the island and out of site.
Our destination for today was a small cove on Hardy Island called Musket Cove. The entrance was nice and deep and well marked, as long as you were actually in the main channel and did’nt get suckered in to taking what appears to be a shortcut. Ghost was anchored and running there Stern line to shore as we entered the bay. WindDancer was doing the same.
Stern tieing is an anchoring technique used alot up here in BC. The main reason it is used so much is that alot of the anchorages up here are small little coves with very steep shores. If some one was to anchor regularly you could only get 2-3 boats in a small cove. If everyone stern ties, you could get 15 or more boats in the same cove. The reason is since your boat is tied to shore you cannot swing on your anchor. You stay in the same position no matter what the wind or tide is doing.
This would be our first time stern tieing. And to be honest, I had sorta been worrying about it. Palarran is a full keeled boat, which means that she does not like to back up. Not without a fight, so I had imagined all sorts of crazy ass scenerios unfolding as I tried to keep the boat in one spot as Tawn took the stern line to shore. None of which happened.
I’ll try to explain the operation as best as I can.
Once we entered Musket cove we drifted for abit, getting everything ready to go. Get the anchor setup, get the engine on the dinghy, get the sternline untied and ready to hand overboard to Tawn. Once all that is set, we motored around the Anchorage looking for a good spot to anchor. We found one in the Northwest corner of the cove. I motored the boat up as close as I dared to the shore, depth sounder showed 18 feet, I spun the boat around and headed about 100 feet out from shore and Tawn dropped the anchor in 35 feet of water. As soon as Tawn tells me there is enough anchor chain out and the anchor is on the bottom, I put the engine in reverse and start backing up, towards the shore. Tawn is letting out more chain as we do this. When about 90 feet of chain is out, Tawn stopped letting out the chain and we let the anchor dig in. This is the normal technique and we do it all the time.
Now comes the new bit. Running the stern line to shore and back. Once the anchor is set, Tawn jumps in the dinghy and I hand here one end of the stern line. The other end is wrapped around a big spool I built and mounted on the back of the boat. As Tawn is headed to shore, I’m paying out more and more line (we have 600ft total on the spool). Once she gets to shore, she climbs up and finds a tree and runs the rope around it. As she is doing this, I am on the boat, keeping it in place or making sure we dont drift into other boats or rocks on shore. She then pulls as much line as she thinks she needs to get back to the boat, where she hands me the line and I tie it off to the boat. We pull the line tight and that is about it. We are now anchored in a little corner of the bay and tied off to shore.
I of course took a few pictures of the final result. This first picture was taken right off the back of the boat. You can see the blue line running to shore, around the tree and back to the boat.
This next picture shows just how close to shore we were anchored and the blue line running to shore and back. But it showes that you can really tuck your boat into some very small spots and tie you self in and out of some nasty weather.
Once settled in we did a little dinghy exploring. Scotty lost an oar and we found a bunch of oysters.
