Yesterday, on the Cruisers net here, there was someone who mentioned that they had lost their dinghy and wondered if anyone had seen it. Another cruiser came on and mentioned that yes indeed, they had seen the dinghy drifting off into the sunset (so to speak) and had watched it until they could no longer see it...
Sadly, this sort of thing happens more and more these days. Last year there was a cruiser who called into the net wondering if the sailboat they had seen dragging anchor across the anchorage the day before had fared ok or if it had come to some sort of grief or damaged any other boats in the anchorage.
A couple of weeks ago another cruiser had pulled a dog out of the water, left it in a parking lot of the marine store, and called into the net the next morning to see if anyone had lost their dog... To let them know (I suppose) that the dog in question was somewhere on the island... He pointed out that he was too busy to actually do anymore...
WTF?!?
One of the nice things about the cruising gig, has always been the whole dynamic of people being more of a community than land bound apartment dwellers and the like. People might actually say hello to folks and when someone had a problem, someone might actually offer to help and assist when they were having a bad day. Sadly the whole "I'm alright Jack" thing seems to be creeping in and we are all a lot worse for it.
Just keep in mind that the next dinghy someone watches drift past, the next boat that drags anchor and is heading for a reef, or the dog or kid that goes missing, just might be yours...
How would you feel if they just let it happen?
Over Jammer
4 days ago
