No sleep because I was too sleepy!

[Shangster]

I remember one night I was anchoring in a small bay (along with several buddies)to get a few hours of precious sleep during some fairly heavy fishing (we hadn't slept for about 30 hours). This bay was notorious for having only a few areas with good holding ground but I had anchored there several times before without any problems. There was about a 20 knot breeze coming across the anchorage and I knew a guy would have to get nailed to some good bottom in order to get some sleep. Well, no way could I get my anchor to hold in any of my usual spots! And yet I noticed my buddies were having no problem because their cabin lights were winking out one by one during the first half hour after anchoring. I kept trying different spots and even tried new spots but I just couldn't find a spot that my anchor would'nt pull out of! I knew there was no kelp to foul the anchor in that area and when I looked down at the anchor it looked clean (although I couldn't see the anchor really well because it was dark and I didn't lift the anchor all the way on board so I could speed up the process of moving to try another spot) Anyway, after using about 2 hours of my 4 hour sleep window I was getting pretty choked. I got so choked eventually that I decided to bail right out of that anchorage (admitting defeat!) and head over to a spot several miles away that was "foolproof". Having to swallow the fact that I was the only guy that couldn't get comfortable wasn't easy but I figured I didn't have much choice by that time. So, imagine the look on my face when I finally DID pull the hook all the way on board and saw that the crossbar was missing!! I could have rigged up something for a crossbar in minutes if I had had the common sense to TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: No sleep because I was too sleepy!

Yeah Shangster, I can relate to situations that can be so simple to fix, but the overwhelming thought of having to do something extra when your tired and or fed up over a problem that has you baffeled. One weekend outing, my boat would almost get up on plane then it would die. Checked all the things that was easy to see, but everything looked normal. So I ditched the idea of working on it while on the water. Probably because just a few days earlier a man and his wife had problems with their fuel system and ended up being rescued due to a major fire from a gas leak. I got the boat back home and decided to do a fuel pressure check. It was bad, and this is after I had put a new fuel filter and fuel pump on. It turned out that a check valve was gummed up on the pickup tube in the gas tank. It took me 4 minuets to fix the problem. And then I thought about all the hours I spent at idle speed. RATS! But no matter, I had fun that weekend.