The Lord Who Never Slumbers

A fine mist turned into drops that came through the butterfly hatch and fell onto my cheek, waking me that Wednesday morning. Or did something just jar the side of the boat? Had our outrigger canoe line gotten tangled and been blown to the front of the boat?

I lay there for a moment before I rolled over to see the clock read a quarter to 5 a.m. The wind began to howl, and I wondered if I would be able to distinguish the gentle rocking of the boat between the boat actually moving?

We had been at anchor for just over two weeks. I had never questioned the anchor before now even though we had been through a few windy nights. So I decided to get up and empty the bilge and then changed my mind. I woke up Mike and told him I thought it would be a good idea for him to just check and make sure we weren’t dragging anchor. He jumped up all bleary eyed, and said, “I was thinking the same thing.”

Mike went on deck and strained to determine where the boat was in relation to the shore. We were along a familiar shoreline with landmarks we had seen the last couple of months as the boat was being built, but it was stormy and still dark that morning. Mike went into the cabin and turned on the bilge pump.

As he stepped back onto the deck just minutes later, dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, and Mike couldn’t believe that we were indeed dragging anchor! We were headed west right into a group of moored boats. In a matter of minutes, I heard the chain of the anchor line being pulled up, and Hudson ran to help his dad. I filled the kettle to put water on to boil and then popped my head up only to see that we were mere meters from hitting a boat—and we were moving fast. Mike pulled hard on the tiller, and the rudders worked to move us just in time. We missed a collision that morning.

All credit goes to the Lord who woke me with a thought. According to Mike’s judging the distance of our short jaunt, we started dragging the anchor around the time I woke him. All credit goes to the Lord who never sleeps nor slumbers but is always working, always watching, always with us.