Sealine F36 Missing Link and Pedro 33 Doxy in the anchorage off Holy Island
‘Swallowing The Anchor’ is an old maritime term that infers an irrevocable move back ashore from the sea. With a faint whiff of pretension I chose to re-arrange the phrase in a quasi Yoda-like way. Appropriate for a man who has the 900-year-old Grand Master Jedi’s looks and physical proportions but alas not his intellect or powers.
The Anchor Swallowed no longer accurately summarises current circumstances, because Michelle and I own a motorboat again and very much enjoy getting down to Portsmouth Harbour in the UK at any available opportunity for weekends and holidays. But I first created this blog at a point when I was moving away from boating publications and websites for the first time in over 17 years and during a time when we were boat-less. Hence, salt was something I thought might only be experienced on food for the first time in a couple of decades.
I also had less and less excuse to write anything other than business reports and correspondence (which probably explains why my emails sometimes resemble books). This site is a bit of an outlet; the author’s expectation is that his words will have an audience of one but the effect is, I can assure you (me), no less cathartic. Although with gratification I see that other sections, such as the marine weather bookmarks, do have a useful following.
Sad to relate some recent Googling unearthed the suggestion that ‘Swallowing the Anchor’ has been saddled with an altogether more undesirable connotation in the ever-moving world of ‘urban language’.
My first reaction was to change the name of the site.
My second to stick with it and show my faith in a term that has described, for decades, the sadness, emotion, frustration and, in many cases I am sure, relief of sailors who retire ashore.