Much like making up stories about people while in crowded places with interesting goings on, we like to wonder about our fellow boaters a lot. The working title of my book would be “What’s Going On Down There? and Other Questions About Anchorage Neighbors”. When a new boat comes into any place we’re already sitting, Andy first wracks his brain for his comprehensive rolodex of boats he knows. (It’s incredible, really. He often can’t remember what his last meal was, but he’s never forgotten a boat build, its designer, and usually its name and where we saw it last, if at all. My data is in and out like the tides; his is there to stay.) Once he’s identified it (whether out loud or not), we start making assessments, which then lead to either known facts, or amusing-to-us stories.
If there is netting on the lifelines, it’s usually a couple and not a single-hander, and that means they either have kids or pets. (Further sussing would dictate a kid boat if there are water toys of any kind, or clothing drying on the lines. For some reason, couples don’t expand their laundry drying out into the world like we families do.)
It’s mostly retirees we see, yet the younger ‘we’ve sold it all and bought a boat’ couple/family scene has made its increase in the last few years too. This leads to ALL sorts of stories, as you can imagine.
We speculate and create stories about jobs, personalities, habits and hobbies, and sometimes it can get weird. Trimarans, for instance, are only owned by murderers. They’re creepy and make me feel icky and like I never want to get closer than 100 yards and thus, obvious link. Andy isn’t exactly on board with that one, but the girls get it, anyway.
I’m also always wondering how and what people are eating, as it’s one of my favorite things to plan, cook and do, and knowing the confined parameters of my own galley and my interest to expand options as much as possible, I love hearing about others’ onboard meals. (This requires actual discussion, mind you, which then puts this info into the ‘facts’ pile, a slightly less-exciting, but still important category.) We’ve gotten favorite recipes from beach parties with shared nibbles, so it’s the only real detective work I enjoy doing. Otherwise we can just assume that that Tartan 37 we saw last night (single-hander, no pets) was making ceviche with a conch he dove for recently. That would explain the banging, and also since we’re saying he’s an artist (boat wasn’t too tidy and put together, couldn’t have been an engineer), he’ll use the shell to carve trinkets that he can sell later.
The one set of boats we never have to wonder about are charter boats. Dorian took care of most of the charter companies’ fleets, so for a few years there anchorages were free from the bulked up catamarans, but this year they seem to be back in force. Charters seem to fall into one of very few categories: The Family Affair, which is sometimes multigenerational so that the grandparents can also enjoy the stress of learning a new boat in six days, The Couples’ Retreat, where two to four couples share their vacation experience, or The Bro Week, where college buddies adventure on the briny sea. We’ve seen them all, and we try to steer clear, because it’s never quite apparent if they had the skill to have a boat signed over, or just the checkbook. At least the boats are newer these days though- four or five years ago we saw a Bro Week lose their propeller as they tried to leave their mooring in Warderick Wells. As in, one of the propellers left the shaft and fell to the bottom. So in addition to worrying about nautical awareness, we also always wonder how the boats are maintained. Either way, ‘steering clear’ is the course of action.
Violet has spent so much of her time below on passages, and even for hours after we drop anchor, we assume that if anyone is assessing US in any way, they just see a middle-aged couple, doing their thing. When she DOES pop up to jump in the dinghy, we hope that people are guessing that that’s when we let her out of her cage to go ashore, or something exciting like that. My guess though is that they’d just be correctly thinking that she’s a pre-teen with a ‘tude, and her sour face in the dinghy is less the acclimation to the bright sun and more her displeasure at being asked to see the world in real time.
As the anchorage wakes up, a number of boats have hoisted anchor and set off. Where are they going, I wonder, and to do what?
