There is an old saying that says, ” Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning” The photo above was shot in Lake Sylvia at sunset last night.  I guess we should have been delighted.  However, during the night a squall came through with very strong winds.  Our anchor alarms went off and we checked but it didn’t seem that we had moved.  We always set the anchor alarm with very little movement allowed, so there are sometimes false alarms.  Today, we discovered that we had moved.

This morning, we noticed that a small sailboat had dragged anchor and was resting on a nearby dock.  Apparently the home owner called the water police because soon they came.  There was no one on the sailboat, even though their dinghy was there, so we aren’t sure how the boat owners could have gotten ashore.  After a long discussion with the home owner, the police towed the sailboat back into the lake and dropped the anchor.  We aren’t real happy about this since the boat is now quite close to us.  They only have rope for their rode, and a very small anchor, plus we heard the police say they hadn’t put out enough rode. 

Storms are predicted every day this week so we hope the boat owners return soon.  We heard the home owner tell the police that the boats anchored here should never be left unattended.  Of course, there is no law against leaving your boat, but smart sailors would not leave a boat anchored in here overnight with no one on it.  Anchoring rights are a big deal in Florida.  Until two years ago, you could only anchor in a spot for three days and then you had to move on.  A man in Marco Island decided to challenge the law and he won.  Thereafter, boaters can anchor in one spot for as long as they want.  Of course, the down side is that there are many derelict boats in Florida waters. Unfortunately, when boaters are careless about anchoring it could give nearby homeowners the fuel they need to change the law back to something more restrictive again.

After the excitement of watching the police tow the boat back, (doesn’t take much to get us excited), we noticed that we were closer to a boat near us than we were yesterday. Perhaps that wasn’t a false alarm last night. Therefore we raised the anchor and dropped it a little farther from the other boats.  When we took it up it was completely covered with mud, so hard to believe it could have dragged.  We have anchored here many times and always found the holding to be very good. 

Even though perhaps we should have taken “warning” instead of being “delighted” with the red sky last night, the weather today is beautiful.  Thunderstorms are predicted for later in the afternoon, however.

If we don’t leave Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow, we’ll probably stay until next Tuesday, since we don’t want to be out on the water, especially in the ICW, on Memorial Day Weekend.

We did go to the Raw Bar dinghy dock yesterday and ran some errands.  I am happy to say that Mark has finally, kicking and screaming, purchased a smartphone.  That is only because his 4+ year old flip phone got wet when he went into the water to remove a mooring ball line from our propeller in Marathon.  He has spent most of today trying to figure out how to use it and grumbling about how he doesn’t like it.  I expect him to say, “Bah, Humbug!” at any moment.