Needle in a Haystack

Sail #14:  14/07/12 - 16.7 nm, 4 kts / h, 3:56 elapsed time

We've been talking about fixing up the moorings at Saddle Island for 2 years now, but the club members finally got serious this year and made a heroic effort to first of all find the moorings and secondly, attach new moorings lines to it.  Turns out finding moorings after several years of not being used was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Several of us on calm days trolled the water off Saddle in our tenders looking for the moorings and one member spent hours in the water with scuba gear, without success.

Mike Hoyt, always being inventive, decided to drag my grapnel anchor back and forth across the bottom off the back of Exploits.  Ok, so this didn't seem like such a crazy idea at the time.   However, as one can expect, and anchor is intended to secure a boat and prevent it from drifting, which is exactly what happened when it caught a rock.  I was worried Mike was going to be hauled off the stern hanging onto a anchor rode.  Explain that to the Coast Guard!

We made a couple of exciting, yet unsuccessful passes and so we decided to all it quits.

It wasn't a great sailboat day, but it was great to have Mike and Heather aboard Exploits.  They are both extremely knowledgeable sailors and we always manage to pick up a tip or two every time we're out with them.  We also enjoyed hosting them back at the cottage for the evening.