The last time I had moored a boat and gone ashore for the night I woke up in the morning to find it slipped and no where to be seen. The lake had risen during the night and the dingy had drifted beyond my short horizon. So, with this lesson from years past, I slept less soundly with an ear to the ground. The boat draws 2 feet so I had secured it with a bow line and an 8 pound mushroom anchor off the stern.  Sometime during the night and realizing changing conditions,  I could hear light breeze in the tree tops and a new sound: small wavelets lapping on the shoreline.  Time to make rounds. The boat in the surreal glow of the moon was riding easily with a gentle rocking motion but the previous calm was now a windward berth. I went back to camp, layed in the tent, trying to gauge changes in the wind realizing that if it really started to blow… we’d be in trouble.  Next time haul out and put the boat on trailer for the night.

After a camp fire breakfast the wind did pipe up. The anchor began to drag, undersized for the conditions it was time to cut and run. It was KeystoneCops as S’man struggled with a line fouled in tree roots. I called for the ignition keys about then, thinking that it might be necessary to warm the engine. He heaved them but overshot the cockpit and they landed overboard into the drink. I wanted to cuss a blue streak (lucky they were attached to a floater) because the water was like ice and I was the one to be going after them! Glad to be doing this it in the daylight.  Another lesson.