Marinas

We are currently in a marina on the east side of Auckland. It’s up scale. We are surrounded by large powerboats. We feel small in comparison.

Generally speaking, we don’t spend much time in marinas. We spent several days at the Bay of Islands Marina when we first arrived in New Zealand. Before that, we’d spent a couple of nights at the town pier in American Samoa. Previous to that, the last time we’d been in a marina was in Mexico. That was nearly four months prior.

We don’t need marinas. We have good anchoring gear. It is usually cooler and quieter on anchor than in a marina. Also, anchored out in a small bay usually means less mosquitoes. Marinas are fine but we prefer to be at anchor. We use marinas when we need to get work done. That’s the case now.

We came to this marina to do a small job on our mast. Like so often happens, that job led to another job, which led to another job. You get the idea. A planned stay of two days will end up being two weeks by the time we are done. We’re not used to being in marinas.

At night, when on anchor I can lie in bed and look up through the hatch above our bed and see the stars above. Also, I am reassured when I see our anchor light shining from the top of the mast. [^1] I feel safe and assured that other boats will see us and not crash into us. When I wake up in the night, I am in the habit of looking up to check that our anchor light is still on.

The first night we were in this marina, I awoke during the night, looked up and saw that the anchor light wasn’t on. I panicked thinking that another boat might hit us. I jumped out of bed, fumbled my way to the salon, turned on a light over the nav station, found the switch for the anchor light and flipped it on. I looked out the starboard side of the boat to make sure we weren’t about to be run down.

I was confused by what I saw. We were very close to another boat. I thought the light must somehow be reflecting off the window distorting my view. I turned and looked out the port side. The strange reflection was happening in that window too. It showed a boat very close to us on that side too. I had opened the main hatch and was two steps up the companionway stairs when I remembered that we were in a marina and not at anchor.

It’s excusable to have this happen on our first night in a marina after many months swinging at anchor. Perhaps, it’s even understandable. After all, our home moves. We stay in one place thanks to a big piece of steel and some chain lying on the bottom. One does need to be aware of what’s going on. The thing is, it wasn’t the only time this week that it happened.

I woke up on our fourth or fifth night at the dock, looked up through the hatch above our bed and realized that our anchor light wasn’t on. Again, I panicked. This time I remembered we were at the dock before I actually got out of bed but still, it’s a little embarrassing. Thankfully, it happened at night. It was dark so no one saw me. No one was there to witness my duress. Sharlene was asleep. No one will ever know.

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[^1]: All boats are required to have a white light that shines 360° when anchored at night. Our anchor light, like most sailboats, is at the top of our mast so we are easily seen from a long way off.