WELL…. A second morning with challenges…. When we left off yesterday, we and the AB had found an anchorage that we had never used before; SKULL Creek.

Nice anchorage, in that it came at just the right time…. Just off the Port Royal Sound, and at a time when the wind was blowing like stink, and we were towing our dinghy with the motor still on it… (not our norm, in the least)…. SCARY… in the waves of the SOUND.


Anyway… SKULL Creek came with some pluses and minuses….(+/-).

The water was deep enough and sort of wide enough…. But after we dropped the hook… and were making our selves at home, so to speak… I made the mistake of calling up Active Captain on the computer, and reading about SKULL CREEK anchorage…… (the comment section)…. The first comment section had a note from a SEATOW proprietor… telling about calling divers for various cruisers that happen to put their anchor down on a sunken Shrimp boat….. (GREAT !!!! ) So that was on my mind all night….. WE didn’t…by the WAY

OUR anchor was fine in placement… (can you hear the BUT coming?)

BUT………………………………. When I started to retrieve the anchor chain (on a very rapidly falling tide… i.e. time to GO) I saw that the current had spun AB twice around during the night… and wrapped the anchor chain around the Mantus chain hook (for the Bridle.. snubber), with last wrap the chain links actually entered the locking slot of the chain hook….. Wow… I’d never had that happen…. Didn’t even think it COULD happen… but… there it was…. A big KNOT of chain…. (big enough… that no way was it coming up through the bow spirit HOOP….. and there was no way I could untangle it while under the tension of the current against AB…. (and not risk loosing a finger or two)….

SO………… I tried a spare SS hook below the snubber and tensioning that…. HUmmm Definitely took the tension off but the work area was now below the bow spirit… in the COLD… Not GOOD…

OK… Plan B… Disassemble the Mantus HOOK, and bridle gear…. That WORKED… disconnected the bridle from the Mantus Chain Hook, and then cranked the double wrapped chain hook up through the bow spirit… and over the windlass Gypsy…. NOW when not under the tension of holding AB… I quickly unwrapped the chain… OK…. Everything else worked fine… and we were again FREE of the BOTTOM…

Yeah…. I put the bridle gear back together when we were safely OUT of SKULL Creek…. And on our way to the COOPER RIVER (Daufuskie Island) (just north of the Savannah River)

The plan now is to wait here for a weather window… then Go OUTSIDE to St. Mary’s Inlet (the FL/GA border).

OK…. PAUSE here for hot BRUNCH… Hash and Eggs…. And hot coffee….