Now then, I love sailing, that magical moment when the engine is silenced to be replaced by the sound of water on the hull and the wind in the rig....bliss. But mooring on the Orwell or Stour can be heavenly at all times of the year. The sound of curlews, geese, blue ensigns fluttering in the summers evening breeze(oops!) and maybe the odd seal swimming around the boat. Add a bottle of wine and some quiet background music on the radio, perhaps a good book.....hmmmm I like anchoring too !!!
If you anchor in a strong wind, with a relatively high freeboard boat and combination chain/rope rode without using a kellet, you can sail all night and not go anywhere.
I can remember being moored at a strong mooring in a full gale in a protected cove. The boat sailed all over a small distance, but went nowhere.
My point, although semantic, is that both sailing and anchoring have their place. We like to anchor for the night if possible due to the many lobster traps whose float lines can trap unwary boats. It's all part of the same continuum - enjoying sailing and the water.
You sound like my kind of sailor, Wherry. It is magic when that engine is silenced just as you say but when the day's sailing is done and you have found a protected spot in which to lower the hook and the boat eases back with the tide and the forecast offers no nasties, oh boy thats magic too. Roll on 26 April when we relaunch. Postings like yours make me very impatient!
"...there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats....or with boats....In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much rather not."
