Not all fun and games
Our destination yesterday, Disappearing Island, was a short 20-minute motor from where we were anchored. It is named as such because at high tide the exposed sandbar disappears under a bit of water. Apparently during the summer weekends, there can be as many as 250+ boats anchored and rafted up along its shore. This being the off season, and not ideal weather, there were a few less spectators for the drama that was about to ensue.
To begin, the charts show the approach to the island as having only 2 feet of water. Our friends are from this area and knew this not to be true but we still waited for some other friends to lead us through the “channel” in their small power boat. The conditions were as follows: 15 knots of wind and a 3 knot ebb current pushing us first towards and then by the island. The plan was for Knot Tide Down to first set their bow anchor, back in towards the island and then secure a stern anchor onto the shore. After following the lead boat and Knot Tide Down towards the island, we realized there was no way we could hold our position long enough for them to set their anchor so we wisely backtracked to deeper water to wait. Let’s just say that it didn’t go exactly as planned and although there were no great human injuries, Knot Tide Down suffered a little bit of damage. This is the power of the wind and the water!
Plan B had them retreat back to where we were waiting and we both ended up setting our anchors there. We feel bad that our friends had a bit of damage to their boat but are glad that we weren’t right there with ZTC to add even more complexity to the problem.
Speaking of fun though, many of our evenings lately have been spent with other cruising friends playing a variety of games. Two that we highly recommend are Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples. The first one works well with 4 people and the latter one is even better with a bit larger group. Those are just a couple of Christmas shopping tips brought to you by your friends at Zero To Cruising. 🙂
Boaters tip: Get rid of the silly boxes that these games come in. They are full of wasted space. We typically store game cards and such in ziplock baggies.
Two great boat games especially if a blender is involved!
Exactly Kirk!
Another reason to get rid of all cardboard packaging on anything coming into the boat is that cardboard makes a lovely home for cockroaches and cockroach eggs. We take all the cardboard packaging (cereal boxes, ziploc boxes) off and toss them in the garbage once we leave the grocery store. Though we see cockroaches everywhere on land down here, so far no infestations!
Laura
Definitely. We typically remove all packaging once we get back on the boat but perhaps should be more diligent and do it BEFORE we get to the boat.
yup A2A is fun, Quiddler is a fun word game and doesn’t take up much room.
I haven’t heard of that one but will look it up.
I agree on the issue of keeping cardboard OFF the boat! Often there are eggs in the cardboard, leading to cockroaches and other undesirables on the boat. YUK!
Definitely don’t want that! No hitchhikers allowed!!!
Sorry about your friends and you’re right, sometimes being on the water isn’t always fun, but then it’s never boring either.
We play a lot of Scrabble on the boat and sometimes take a few days to finish one game (that is if we don’t get ‘waked’ and our pieces go flying!). I’d heard about Apples to Apples but completely forgot about it, and since the Knotty Cat has ensured that our Christmas will be pretty lean this year, I thank you for providing me with an affordable gift idea for Hans!
You’re welcome, Laura.
I LOVE that game! And yes, getting rid of game boxes is a must – smart tip!
Next time we meet up we’ll have to play.
Mexican Train Dominoes!
We have played that before and yes, it is fun. We purchased some dominoes as opposed to a “mexican train” set. I just need to figure out the rules to that game and make some little markers.
One of the fun things with Mex-train dominoes (the PC-name is “Public-train”, btw – I din’t subscribe to it though), is the creation of “house rules”. So you learn the basics and then adopt little changes that you like…
Fair Winds,
Mike