Anchor a drag on Bush's boat

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — The Secret Service bailed out President Bush on Sunday when his boat anchor got wedged in rocks along the Atlantic Coast.

Relaxing before his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president went fishing with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and daughter Barbara.

They dropped the anchor to fish less than 100 feet from shore at Biddleford, Maine, but when they decided to leave, they couldn't, according to an Associated Press photographer who took pictures of the incident.

A fishing guide along on the trip tried unsuccessfully to pull up the heavy anchor.

Soon after, a member of the president's security detail called divers aboard a Secret Service boat that had been following.

The anchor was untied, and the elder Bush backed the boat — a blue-and-white craft named Fidelity III — out of the way. After a diver descended into the chilly water, the president nonchalantly resumed fishing.

But he had time to cast his line just a few times. Within minutes, both diver and anchor surfaced.

Residents and vacationers renting houses along the coast gathered to watch the anchor-retrieval mission. Bush waved his hat at the crowd as his father began steering the boat back toward the Bush family estate at Walker's Point, where Putin was to arrive a few hours later.

As he waited on a driveway for the Russian leader to arrive, Bush was asked about his fishing experience.

"Lousy," he said.