The Why of Anchoring — Enjoying Life on the Hook

Ask 10 cruising sailors about anchoring and you’ll get 10 different diatribes on methodology and etiquette. How much scope should you use in a packed anchorage, or how far away should you be from the next boat? What size, shape, brand, or anchor should you use? There’s also the same litany of opinions about rope versus chain, and how much of each in what kinds of bottom conditions. It seems as if every sailor, armchair or otherwise, has an opinion about how you should anchor your boat.

But my thoughts on the matter always lean toward the why. Why should you go through the trouble of actually anchoring your boat when there are so many other options in this day and age? In the Bay Area alone, there are more than 200 marinas, docks, walls and yacht clubs from Coyote Creek to the Carquinez Strait; in the US, there are literally thousands of decadent places to park your boat for the night. So, the options for pulling in, tying up, plugging in, and kicking back are almost endless practically anywhere you want to travel by boat in this country. The sheer number of amenities for the modern sailor at any one of those places is mind-boggling.

So why? Why would you put yourself through the stress and trouble of dropping that expensive piece of ground tackle, counting out scope, setting the hook, hauling a day shape, and turning on that anchor light? Because it’s totally awesome, that’s why!

The way a sailboat lies at anchor is an incredible experience. It’s human technology at its best. The way she moves and flows with the tides and the winds can make a sailor feel like a part of the very elements and forces that move the universe. Yeah, sure, when those forces are cantankerous, it can get intense, but when you’re hook-down in the lee of a dark island on a moonless night in the middle of nowhere, the galaxies near and far can inspire you like nothing you’ve ever experienced. If you’re like us and use only wind and solar to charge your batteries, you can just shut off that wind generator to enjoy a silent night in the Milky Way.

The price is right, too. Over the last year, my partner, our cat and I have anchored our electric Baba 30 sailboat over 300 times while covering about 4,000 miles in some of the most awe-inspiring places cruising sailors could imagine. Most of that time, it was free.

In Hilo, Hawaii, on the Big Island, you used to be able to anchor for free in Radio Bay indefinitely, but the anchorage has been closed since 2020. It’s not clear what the future holds for Radio Bay, but cruisers can still anchor in Reeds Bay just west of the cruise ship terminal and north of the moorings — it’s deep, but doable! Granted, there are more marinas in the state of Arizona than there are in the entire Hawaiian archipelago, and marina waiting lists can be 15 years long, but that doesn’t stop dozens of cruising sailors from making that pilgrimage yearly and sticking strictly to marinas. We bounced from anchorage to anchorage and marina to marina as transients for almost a year before selling our boat there and moving to India in 2008.

Continue reading in the January issue of Latitude 38.