{"id":6945,"date":"2020-01-11T06:59:13","date_gmt":"2020-01-11T06:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=6945"},"modified":"2020-01-11T07:19:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T07:19:16","slug":"the-motherer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=6945","title":{"rendered":"The MOTHER#%*#ER"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Life is never dull on a cruising boat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

After our haul-out we make our way out of the river and anchor back in Sorong harbour. In the past we\u2019ve anchored near the marina or on the NE side of Doom Island, but we\u2019ve been told that the harbourmaster has recently had a blitz and moved yachts along from these areas and out to the designated anchoring zones. Unfortunately these zones are deep (30+ metres) and also crowded with the local live-aboard Phinisis, some of which have definitely passed their glory days.  After much motoring around we find a spot up the back of the pack in a relatively shallow 22 metres with plenty of room around us and settle in for the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afternoon and evening thunderstorms and squalls are the norm this close to the equator, but our experience is that they don\u2019t last too long or blow too hard.  So when the skies darken and the wind picks up to 20 knots we\u2019re not too concerned – our anchor\u2019s well dug in and we have plenty of chain out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m in the process of cooking a fish curry when we notice a neighbouring yacht dragging past us – they\u2019re aware of the problem and have it under control, re-anchoring more securely a bit further away. A few moments later we see a local Phinisi ahead of us is also dragging – this is more of a problem as he\u2019s a lot bigger, but again he seems to have it sorted and is pulling up his rode and anchor.  Except the longer we watch the more we realise in horror that he doesn\u2019t seem to have it sorted at all – nothing\u2019s happening and he\u2019s getting closer and closer, broadside on to our bow.  At this point Bruce is up on the bow yelling. Very loudly. It seems there\u2019s only two people on board – God knows what the skipper\u2019s doing, but the foredeck guy is just standing there saying \u201cSorry, sorry\u201d right up until they drift onto our bow, smashing our navigation lights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot more yelling (and plenty of expletives from Bruce) – this is one of the smaller phinisis but even so they\u2019re big heavy wooden boats with long, menacing bowsprits which could easily bring our rig down.  By now I\u2019ve abandoned the fish curry and am out on deck too, gesticulating wildly and trying to get them to understand that they need to reverse – REVERSE! GO BACK! GO BACK!  Eventually they clear our bow but now they\u2019re drifting down our starboard side, with their bowsprit about to take out our rigging shroud. I don\u2019t know how he does it but Bruce finds some superhuman strength to push them off and they miss us by inches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miraculously there\u2019s no other damage to Toucan except the plastic cover on the nav lights. We watch with consternation for the next hour as they make several unsuccessful attempts to re-anchor, each time dragging, all too close for comfort.  Finally we\u2019ve had enough, \u201clet\u2019s get out of here!\u201d is the word so we pick up our anchor and move well away from the rogue phinisi, forever now known as \u201cthe mother#%*#ER\u201d.  It takes a while for the adrenaline to subside, and funnily enough neither of us have much appetite for dinner after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
stay well away from this guy, he’s downright dangerous<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life is never dull on a cruising boat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-1O1","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6945"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6950,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6945\/revisions\/6950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}