20 things to do at anchor:1. Accidentally anchor in front of P.Diddy's house in Miami and get woken up by his obscenely loud party at 5am. 2. Receive fresh lobster and a bottle of wine from a Bahamian local as a welcome gift! 3. Get yelled at by a nearby landowner in Florida to "go back to Canada". 4. Worry constantly about your anchor coming loose during the night & your sailboat drifting into something/someone. 5. Wake up in the morning & poke your head out the window. Panic momentarily, then realize you're still in the same spot (phew), you've just rotated around your anchor (which is normal). 6. Sleep with all your hatches open so that you're basically outside. Feel the breeze on your face, enjoy the rocking of the boat, and swat a few mosquitos while your at it... and then flood your house a little when a quick rain squall rolls through in the night (which it will in the Bahamas). 7. Fail to communicate properly while dropping the anchor, throw the boat in reverse before the anchor is cleated off and send your crew straight into the water. 8. Get so used to sleeping in a bed that rocks slightly (or sometimes a lot), then have trouble sleeping on land again. 9. Forget to turn your anchor light on when you go ashore for drinks... get slightly tipsy, then try to find your boat again in the dark. (Haha... good luck). 10. Listen to the waves crash against the boat during a storm. Irrationally fear that they are going to break through the hull even though you know you've got very strong, thick fibreglass between them and you. 11. Have a nice elderly couple sneakily anchor next to you mid day while you're naked on deck in the middle of nowhere... be uncomfortable while they talk to you without acknowledging your nakedness. 12. Be far away from cities and people. Fall asleep on deck under the brightest stars listening to the purest silence... be the only person for miles and appreciate it - because it's rare! 13. Worry some more about your anchor dragging in the night... 14. Anchor amongst your fellow sailors, make new friends, visit your neighbours' boats, and stay up late into the night drinking rum under the stars! 15. Get "waked" in the middle of the night (passed quickly by a large boat which causes big waves that roll you over and/or make things fall of shelves). 16. Hear very disturbing "squealing" noises coming from the nearby beach, later find out that it was the vet visiting the pigs on the beach to "fix" them (they are very well taken care of). 17. Play the popular sailor game: "what is that noise?" - accept the fact that you will not always win... some noises aren't meant to be explained on a boat. 18. Anchor in shallow water and a strong current. Listen through the hull in the night & hear the stones/other debris skipping along the bottom. 19. Finally learn to trust your anchor and stop worrying. Drag for about 200' in one of the busiest anchorages of the Bahamas. Miraculously, don't hit any of the hundreds of boats anchored around you and promise never to become complacent again. 20. Finally, if you complete nothing else on this list: enjoy the constantly changing scenery. Sleep surrounded by marshes, mangroves, swamps, beautiful coral, uninhabited islands, white sand beaches, and crystal clear ocean. Embrace also the nights you spend in front of loud/industrial fishing ports, busy world class tourist beaches, and the houses/private islands of the rich and famous... Be present, be grateful. Why do you guys anchor so much anyways?Haha alright, let's get more serious. We find that a lot of the "landlubbers" we meet have a lot of curiosities about anchoring. At night on a sailboat, you have 4 possibilities: don't stop moving at all, anchor, grab a mooring ball, or find a dock. When offshore, you're stuck with #1 - sail through the night. We explore this in our post "An Introduction to Life at Sea". As for the other 3 options, it all depends on weather, location, desired comfort level, and budget. We almost always opt for anchoring, and here's why.
Why might we opt out of anchoring?
We hope you enjoyed this little insight into the world of attaching your tiny floating home to a hook and blindly hoping you stay put. Although we've been writing less and video-ing more, we quite enjoy sitting down to blog. So thanks for reading!
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