Friday 10 April 2020
We were easily underway from
anchorage at 0650 in the gray pre-dawn with the anchor chain and anchor itself
coming up clear and housing into the anchor chute without me having to hang a
mooring line over the bow to catch and swivel the hook around so it would
retrieve properly. We knew the day’s ride
was going to be rougher than yesterday because the wind had been blowing all
night causing some swell to make its way into the harbor rocking us as the tide
changed and swung us crosswise to the swell.
Exiting the harbor gave us the full story and we rolled (despite having
the fin stabilizers activated) and pitched for five hours all the way to the Fort
Myers Beach channel entrance. It was a most
uncomfortable ride, and food preparation for lunch was impossible. Our information from Salty Sam’s Marina was that
we were assigned to the tee-head of D Dock which would allow us to come in,
turn around to head into the strong flood tide current and wind, and just sidle
into the pier using the bow thruster to push that way and the engine idling
ahead and judicious rudder to keep us parallel to the pier and from being blown
downwind/current. We had used this
method before with great success. After
rigging all the fenders and lines for a starboard side landing, we arrived to
find a 36-foot boat trailing a 12-foot dinghy taking up enough of the tee-head
to make our landing problematic. I
informed the marina of the issue, and the dock master, who to this point had
not sent any dockhands to help because we had agreed it would not be necessary,
said we could use a side tie on the downwind and down current side of a long
pier, across from a larger vessel moored on the upwind/current side. So we pulled out in the stream and re-rigged
lines and fenders for a port side landing.
The new mooring featured a long
floating pier with a vacant “half” slip defined by a finger pier jutting into
the area, meaning our bow would probably stick some small distance into the half-slip
once we were securely moored. There was
a pirate-theme tour ship moored on a parallel, downwind/current pier leaving a
gap of maybe 70 feet for our use. I knew
about halfway into my first approach that I was too far downwind/current and
drifting toward the pirate ship to make it work and hurriedly went into reverse
and repositioned for a second attempt.
If you ram a parked pirate ship, do they swarm aboard yelling “Arrgh?” Anyway, back in the real world, my second
attempt had the bow well in toward the waiting dockhands, with us sheltered
from the wind by the vessel across the pier, and away from the pirate ship. However, neither the current nor the stern were
playing along with this scenario with the stern quickly settling on a course
toward the pirates giving us such a great angle with the pier that use of a
spring line, had we been able to get it into the hands of the helpers on the
pier, would have been impossible.
Backing clear this time was a non-starter because that was going to
scrape our 55 tons of steel down the side of the pirate ship (did I see cutlasses
waving in the air over there?). I was
beginning to see us wedged in this “slip” but thought there was enough room to
pivot around if I could avoid the end of the half-slip’s finger pier now nearing
our starboard beam. With Mary on the
headset aft (I have zero astern visibility from the pilothouse due to the wide
boat deck) advising me whether or not we were going swing into anything, I
clutched the engine to neutral and gunned the throttle while holding the
hydraulic bow thruster control in order to push the bow to port (the engine has
a power take off to the hydraulic pump).
The current, pushing us away from the pier, kept the big clipper bow
swinging over the heads of the dockhands and prevented the bow contacting the
pier as I frantically used the thruster to prevent us from hitting the finger
pier to starboard. Whenever I needed to
use the engine to move us ahead or astern, I had to remember to throttle the
engine back to idle before moving the clutch lever because nothing but very bad
things would have happened had I forgotten.
However, I never let go of that thruster knob until we had pivoted about
135 degrees and I began to see light at the end of the tunnel – I am sure the
pirates were sad to see our escape. I
informed the marina we were done with that little exercise and convinced them
to get that damned dinghy moved before sidling into the tee-head and getting
secured without our big airbag fenders ever touching the pier like I actually
knew what I was doing. Where’s my rum
and coke?! With the wild weather in the
forecast, we may be here longer than the two days we had planned. Mary told the owner we have decided to live here.
