Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

[esobofh]

Folks - I'm running a 14ft aluminum boat and I'm looking to take it camping up the Indian Arm, in Vancouver. The shore is typically jagged, barnacle covered rocks with a look that says "I want to pulverize your boat".

Now, I want to camp on shore in an area without any mooring bouys or facilities like a dock, etc. Here's a shot;

We've done this twice, the first time opting to pull the boats up on shore at high tide - this works, and is the least worrysome - but is a ridiculous amount of work to get the boat back in the water, lest we wait for high tide again to float the boat out.

The second time we rigged up a kind of clothes-line apparatus across a nearby bay to bring the boats in and out of shore. This worked, but was also alot of work to setup, and I fear someone will run into our "clothes line".

I'm hoping that someone out there has some suggestions or tricks on how to do this. I essentially need to anchor my boat out from shore, with the ability to retrieve it at will. Has anyone tried the "elastic" anchor buddy? would that be appropriate on the west coast?

 

[blifsey]

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

I've been using the anchor buddy for last 8 or 9 years camping on lakes. It has worked great for me but lakes don't have high/low tides to deal with. I'm not sure how that would impact/change its usage.

The procedures have evolved over the years to this:
Equipment: spare anchor (so I can leave rigged in place and still have an anchor on boat), anchor buddy bungee rode, long length (100' or so) of 1/2" line I call the "shoreline", 2 ski buoys with 3' smaller line and several heavy duty carabiners (sp).

I connect the anchor buddy to anchor with standard shackle. On other end of anchor buddy, I attached the shoreline. I tie an inline butterfly loop in the shoreline about 2' from where anchor buddy and shoreline connect. This loop is attached to rear cleat like standard dockline. I idle toward shore and about 30' from shore drop the anchor. I run shoreline along side of boat and using another butterfly loop and carabiner , I attach it to the bow eye of boat. When I'm close enough to shore, I climb over bow with the shoreline and attach it to some anchor point on shore. Where we camp are lots of trees so I usually attached around a tree truck. I adjust he shoreline until the boat is in sufficiently deep water. To retrieve boat, I pull on the shoreline which stretches the anchor buddy. To take boat out, I just remove the shoreline from stern cleat and bow eye leaving it all in place. I attach the 2 ski buoys to my butterfly loops so when I take boat out they mark where I need to connect boat and also warn other boaters of underwater anchor buddy and shoreline.

Also, I'm usually in protected coves so don't mind leaving boat stern out as there is minimal risk of waves/wakes coming over transom. When I've been concerned about leaving boat stern out, I just reverse how boat is connect to loops. I just make sure stern is still sitting in deep enough water not to hit bottom when waves/wakes bounce it.

 

[blifsey]

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

Here's a picture from last camping trip but the anchor buddy is attached on opposite side of boat so you can't see it The pallet and boards you see at water's edge are so we can walk to boat after pulling it closer to shore without tracking red Georgia mud all in it. The lake bottom had a very shallow decent and I could not get boat any closer to shore before it grounded. You can see the shoreline coming from bow of boat. The Tidewater actually has a front cleat so I used it instead of carabiner clipped to bow eye. You can also see the shoreline starting to run along starboard side of boat to the rear cleat.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

One method against a straight shoreline is to anchor bow out and have the boat just close enough to shore to get on/off, with the anchor line at 90 degrees to the shore. Then take another line (call it the shore line) attach to the stern corner, and walk down the shore until you are at a 45 degree or better, and tie it off tight to the shore. Now the boat can't blow against the shore.

However, you have to account for tides, maybe current against the stern. Getting on/off across the stern is hard; the alternativ eis to anchor stern out, a bad idea except in calm conditions. And those rocks scare me; I love my mud bottoms and marsh banks! Also the above method is better if the outboard line is tied to a fixed object like a pole, as anchors seldom really stay put exactly. But if there is a cove and point to work off of, the above method can be even safer.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

I would drop anchor away from shore, tie to the bow, and let the wind push me to shore tying at a point where the transom is no more than a foot or two away from the high tide mark. Bring a pair of waders and maybe a second rope that you tie to a stern cleat and then to a tree. You can leave that one loose but it will allow you to pull the boat back to you if the wind or tide has it in a less-than-accessible spot.

 

[esobofh]

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

Wouldn't that mean the boat would be bashing around on the rocks at anything other than high tide? The tide here is 3M (15ft)

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

caveman's approach is fine if nothing changes, but this is for overnight and with a tide. That's why I walk the stern line down the bank to end up on an angle; as eso said, it will be on the rocks when the tide drops.

With a 15' tide I don't know what you can do.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Re: Mooring/Anchoring over night - camping on a rocky shore

Errrr, yeah. Forget that I said anything!