We spent most of last week at the marina that we sailed into on Monday morning. It seemed to me that the challenges of actually dropping the anchor for the first time in the little cove for which we were ultimately bound, and learning the ins and outs of life “anchored out”, plus the challenges of having guests visiting all week, plus the challenges on the part of said guests of having also to adapt, for however short a time, to the ins and outs of life “anchored out”, including, not insignificantly, being ferried back and forth to Kalliope in a 10-foot dinghy by either of two very raw dinghy pilots, added up to far too many challenges, coming right on the heels of the challenge of sailing down here to begin with. I cried when Bob even broached the subject, so that’s how I knew for sure I had had it, for a while, with challenges.
We spent the two days before our guests arrived preparing for them, as well as preparing for “anchoring out”. One thing we needed to do was practice using the dinghy, which is the major form of transportation for all boats anchored out – it’s what gets you back and forth to other boats, as well as to land, where you tie it up and walk to go get groceries, do laundry, and buy new walking shoes. So on a to-do list for Wednesday, under something like “clean everything”, I wrote “go for a dinghy ride.” Easy enough thing to write. This is how you do it: First, the dinghy must be lowered down to the water from the davit—or davits, I’m not sure which-- (that being the stainless steel tubular-type structure on Kalliope’s stern onto which, during sailing, the dinghy is firmly, almost irrevocably attached, by a mysterious but precise tangle of ropes and pulleys). This took forever. It took a much longer time, however, to lower (via another tangle of ropes and pulleys) the 10,000 pound motor and get it safely attached to the transom of the dinghy. Since I was the one standing in the dinghy at the time, with the motor being lowered onto what I perceived to be the top of my skull, there was a mutiny to be quelled, and different arrangements for motor-lowering had to be made.
When the engine was finally in place on the dinghy, there was a key to be found. My understanding, at first, was that this key was absolutely necessary to the operation of the outboard motor, but we never found it, and it turned out that vice grips could, just this once, be substituted. It took another long while to get the engine started --the hose for the gas supply was damaged, and we had to find a replacement. Nice though that we had one, and that we could find it, thanks to all our time spent going through cubbies and rearranging and cataloging every last thing on this boat.
All in all, hopping into the dinghy for the first time and taking a little tour around the anchorage took about three hours. But it- was- fun! Partly because of the long frustrating process leading up to it, surely, but more because A) it was a warm sunny day, with land within an easy swim should we have to abandon ship, or if (more likely) ship should abandon us, and B) we were finally in a boat that was easy to maneuver (more about this later), fairly indestructible, and more importantly, practically incapable of destruction, itself. It bounces right off docks, boats, bridges even, like a big overgrown, out-of control beach ball.
Bob drove first. Out in the anchorage, we spotted a sailboat with people moving about on deck and before they could duck out of sight, we headed toward them—we wanted to get their thoughts about a good spot to anchor. We made three huge circles in the water beside their boat, in a vain attempt to come close enough at a slow enough speed to actually grab hold of some part of it, and stop and chat. Each time, as we roared away, I would hold up my finger, smile charmingly and yell “We’ll be right back!” They finally sat down on their cabintop and waited, apparently enjoying the show. When we finally got close enough and slow enough to throw them the painter (boat talk for the rope at the front of the dinghy), we found out that they didn’t actually know much at all about the anchorage—they were there for only one night, and were leaving in the morning for the Bahamas, as was most everyone else. But we had a nice chat anyway. Eventually we roared away from them, leaving them to their own, probably much more sedate, dinghy ride to their friend’s boat for dinner.
Bob took us as far as the dinghy landing spot, where he and I switched positions, and I drove from there. I ran into the bridge immediately, twice, (it was a tricky spot for a beginner) then finally got out into the open water and began to get the hang of it. Now, I’m not complaining, because it turns out I love driving this dinghy, but the operation of it is completely anti-intuitive, if you ask me—you push the tiller to the left when you want to go right, right when you want to go left, roll the handle toward you when you want to go faster, and away from you when you want to go slower. All wrong. But I decided early on to try to keep my brain out of it, and just let my arm talk to the tiller, and that worked okay, in big sweeps, but the fine points of pulling up slowly to a specific spot still eluded me. I kind of crash-stopped at a second boat, also unfortunate enough to have people visible above-decks, and we had an amusing and informative conversation with the owners about many things, including good spots to anchor out in the cove. This conversation lasted a while though, and in the process I moved to a more comfortable spot in the dinghy. Now when it came time to leave, and I again took up a position at the tiller, I was unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me, now on the opposite side of, well, everything. When I wanted to head right, I was heading left, and when I wanted to head left I was (you guessed it!) heading right. This little problem might have been manageable, except for the fact that slow had now become fast. I made several huge crazy circles completely around this second boat, all four of us belly-laughing the whole time, before I figured out the problem.
So that was our first dinghy ride. And we are no longer, as the folks we visited called us, “Dinghy Virgins.” We had great visits with our guests, who enjoyed the boat, the food, the drink, the fellowship, and, as several of them admitted, the fact that they didn’t have to go on dinghy rides to get to it.
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