This was a dragging of a different kind entirely! On Saturday, June 7, the R/V Nautilus was moving moorings from the south end of the mooring field where they were in the way of the bridge construction. The Nautilus was literally dragging the heavy mooring blocks along the river bottom to their new locations opposite Puerto Amistad. Up on deck for some chore I noticed that the Nautilus was slowly making its way towards Sarana's bow. At this point I didn't understand what it was doing or that there was any danger, and I watched for awhile and wondered why it was moving so slowly. All of a sudden I heard Jan on Claire de Lune shouting at the Nautilus and waving them away from Sarana's anchor. But it was too late, the Nautilus had already caught Sarana's anchor chain.
Jan put a call out to PA and dinghies came racing out to lend a hand, followed soon after by Carlos in the PA tender. Carlos dove on the mooring and untangled the mess in no time at all, and Sarana was just fine. Here are some pictures of the sequence:
http://picasaweb.google.com/svnakia/SnaggingSarana
This is the first time we're using Picasa for our blog pictures. Please let us know if you have any problems viewing the link to our web album. If it works well for people, we hope to post more pictures using this method.
Linda