The scene is Lake Powell, Reflection Canyon to be more
specific. Our 60 ft houseboat is anchored up against a red-rock beach with some
sand. How it works is that you pull the boat up against the shore with four
anchors stretching out from the bow and stern: two lines on either side, two
lines on both the bow and the stern each. The lines are attached to anchors
which are buried in the sandy shore or, in our case, wrapped around and pivoted
against large boulders. Over the course of our two weeks of previous experience
from summers past on Powell, we have found our preferred method is to rely on
the shear inertial force of a boulder instead of the compacted frictional force
of sand.
What we didn’t know is that as an evening front blew in from
across the desert that evening, we would have to rely on far more than just the
boulders to hold us to the shore.
