Dockwise Menace
Sunday, December 10th, 2006![Dockwise ship](/images/misc10/ship1.jpg)
We had a bit of excitement last night when a Dockwise yacht transport cargo ship entered the bay and anchored right next to us during the night. In the dark with this towering thing lit up bright as day it looked pretty close but when we poked our head up the next morning, the Time Machine felt seriously menaced. We watched it for a while and finally decided that it was at the end of its swing and wouldn’t get any closer so we took off to get chores done for the day. The ship is pretty interesting; they transport yachts (as one might guess by the name) and to load or unload them, the ship sinks itself midway so that the boats can float on or off. Throughout the day they unloaded a dozen or more big fancy sportfishers, which charged across the bay throwing up huge wakes in their haste to get tied up safely at the nearest marina docks. By the time we got back to our boat after running our butts off all day, it was around sunset and we were disconcerted to find that the ship had either moved or dragged anchor a few hundred yards until it was lined up parallel with us and only 100 feet away. Now it was clear that if it swung towards us on the anchor, it would cream not only our boat but possibly take out the docks at Samoa. Yeeg! We had been planning on taking off at first light (we still had to get gas and some more veggies) but it took us over an hour to reanchor in the dark to a spot where we felt safer. We were irritated and tired by the time we got settled and here we are, next morning, drinking coffee and still in Golfito. The ship finally left and here comes another dock transport not thirty minutes later. Now that they’ve anchored, it looks again like it’ll be somewhat nerve-wracking when they swing our way. I’m going to freak out when we see all the tankers around the canal!
![Dockwise ship anchored at Golfito, Costa Rica](/images/misc10/ship2.jpg)
[Time Machine stands his ground against the big mean Dockwise bully! Actually, this photo was taken when we left the boat in the morning, when we felt we were still well enough away from the ship’s anchor radius.]