the med moor fiasco

as explained in a previous post we are not too crazy about the med moor maneuver where we need to throw the anchor and back up the boat to a wall and tie with lines to the shore. Aside from the challenges our boat has with the manual windlass and the difficulty backing up caused by the long keel, there is also the issue of the other boats. of course there are too many and once you are in a marina that you think is fully packed, in comes another boat and squeezes his way in using the engine to push the other boats to the side while making some room for himself where there was really none. We had this experience in ios. There was a place next to us enough for a kayak, according to our calculations… but of course not according to a 42 footer power boat that literally squeezed his way in pushing our boat to the side smashing us on our starboard side and making us collide with the boat on our port side. Here we were on a total sandwich with all the fenders touching the boat and therefore scraping the paint off. As if this was not painful enough, at least for esteban, the wind picked up while we were on the beach and the boats next to us left. As they did, they picked up their anchors which managed to tangle with ours, and in doing so they picked up our anchor too. Without the anchor securing our bow and the strong wind blowing from the nose, the boat completely backed up and smashed against the concrete wall. It tangled and probably damaged our wind vane auto pilot and took away the paint and damaged all the fiber glass in the transom, not to mention completely cutting the electricity cables that we had attached to the shore power.
Sure enough when we came back from the beach we saw our beloved puerto seguro smashing against the wall. Two other boats felt so bad that they put some fenders to protect it from getting more damaged, but the truth is that it was too late. The boat was moving wildly in the space left by the other boats because we did not have any anchor holding us in place. Upset as we have never been, we untied and had to do the entire re-anchoring maneuver in order to secure the anchor again. All this while in the middle of the wind gusts and with two huge ferries coming in the port and maneuvering at the same time. Because the difficulty in handling our boat in reverse was now worsened by the strong wind, esteban was at the helm and I was at the dreadful, manual, useless windlass which I now not only dislike but absolutely hate. Somehow I managed to tangle one of my fingers with the chain and hurt it. at least I was lucky not to have broken it. in addition a line that was tossed to us from shore got tangled in the propeller and it jammed the gears and also cut the screws from the cutless bearing in the shaft leaving us with no engine to maneuver. But somehow we finally moved into our original position again, secured the anchor and boat, and started inspecting the damages.



By this time my finger had started to swollen and I was in serious pain so I took some ibuprofen to relieve it somehow. I am allergic to aspirin and have known this all my life, but I did not know I would have the same reaction to the ibuprofen. in fact I think I have taken it before without any harm… but this day was the day I learned that I am also allergic to whatever is in ibuprofen. Within minutes my eyesight was diminished and my eyes and face were completely swollen. Luckily there was a hospital in the island and esteban and the coast guard took me there. I was treated immediately with iv medicine and watched closely by the very young doctor who was very nice to us. Luckily we reacted fast and the swollenness did not affect my breathing. After a few hours of personalized supervision I was finally disconnected from the needles and was able to go back to the boat. Today, 24 hours after the incident there was a boat coming in who decided to drop anchor and then decided to lift it up again and go elsewhere. Before lifting his anchor he started dragging his while doing the same with ours. When he finally picked it up he had already messed up our chain and finished it by also pulling our anchor out of place. We saw him and yelled at him but it was to late. He had picked our anchor up and simply dropped it again and left, and once again our boat quickly backed towards the wall smashing all over the place. We could not believe we were living the same story all over again. Luckily this time we were on board and prevented any further damage. This time esteban put the diving gear and went to reset the anchor manually. I must say we were very surprised by everyone’s attitude. They pick anchors just like that, see the damage they are causing and do not even bother to come and help or even to say sorry. we get the impression that the people who charter boats, and those are the majority we have seen, simply do not care or do not have the experience. after the events of the past 24 hours I am still swollen but feeling much better; the boat is damaged and we may have to pull it out of the water to fix the cutless bearing. of course there are no facilities to do so here in ios, so we have to sail like this to italy and hope the shaft will holds. Needless to say, after this experience we will never med moor again. It will be strictly anchoring for us from now on.