Musings On Anchoring

Le Marin, Martinique. The largest stand of deciduous aluminum we've seen so far.

Over the years, we've gotten used to being vigilant of having enough water under the keel as we approach a new anchorage. In the Caribbean, we are learning that anchorages can also be too deep.

Symbiosis carries 200' of 3/8" chain to go with our Spade anchor. But we've been encountering anchorages that are 30 to 40 feet at the shallowest accessible points. That means a 7-to-1 scope is not even possible in some cases.

Fifty more feet of chain would make a difference, but when we purchased the rode last year, the extra weight in the bow and the added expense of additional chain didn't seem worth it. Now, we wish we had more.

A few weeks ago, we anchored on the edge of a mooring field in Guadeloupe. When we dropped the hook, we had plenty of room with the prevailing easterlies. A squall came through about two hours later and all was well. But when the wind abated, the boats went all whopperjawed (as my father used to say) and we ended up uncomfortably close to a French catamaran. The owner and I kept eyeing each other. We'd have moved if there had been a place to go, but where? Anything closer to shore was chock-a-block already and anything farther offshore dropped off precipitously. The wind soon shifted and there was no issue, after all.

Before a squall moved in, we witnessed a 50' pilothouse cutter that began dragging with no one aboard. We watched for a while hoping to see the owner dinghy out to rescue his wayward vessel. As the boat drifted farther and farther out, I got a knot in my stomach and called a "securite" on the VHF hoping the owner, who was obviously ashore, might have a handheld with him/her. Nothing. I called several times. I thought about trying to get out there and do something -- but that's a dicey proposition. Some people would not react kindly, even if it was obvious we were trying to save their boat. For the record, I'd rather have my boat than my pride, but that's just me.

Now we are in Le Marin, where we have seen the largest concentration of sailboats anywhere, and that includes George Town, Bahamas! We've heard there are 700 charter boats (mostly catamarans) alone, let alone all the privately owned boats. The lagoon is full of shoals and packed with moorings that are all taken up by the locals, leaving room to anchor only on the margins. Based on our initial attempts to lay down our Spade, we were not encouraged. The Spade almost always catches on the first try, but twice we didn't get a good set. Finally, as we were powering back to set the anchor the second time, it caught. Since then (a few days ago), we've had no issues.

(Adding this in circa Aug. 2016. Here's a great video discussing some of the issues associated with deeper-water anchoring)

ActiveCaptain reviewers generally rate the holding here as "excellent" to "good," but I think there's a bit of anchoring inflation going on.