Friday, October 24, 2008

After coffee we went up to weigh anchor at 8:00 am and leave by 8:30 am but couldn't seem to break anchor. Forward, backward, spin in circles - no luck, didn't matter. At times between the windlass and the motor the bow was being pulled down, so we had to very carefully rethink our tactics to get unstuck! Wayne chided me for worrying about dragging during the night... We weren't going anywhere... Finally after maneuvering forward, backward, circles again, with the bow bending down to try and pull whatever was there up, we could feel a mighty weight being pulled to the surface. Wayne thought it might be an old mooring weight, but as he lifted it higher with the windlass, it was our anchor... attached to....another anchor. A monster anchor covered with clay, oysters, and other materials. The anchor was better than 6 feet in length. Wrapped once around our chain and snugged into our anchor. I kidded him that he really shouldn't have thrown out 2 anchors last night, just a little more rode. This anchor was a beauty - a better than 6 ft long Herreshoff anchor (the old Popeye type anchor). The ketch next to us (Grand Eagle) radioed us that they had bolt cutters if we needed them and offered assistance. I didn't want to cut it free, I wanted to drag it up and keep it!!! Oh boy! It would look great on our front lawn. Only problem was, how do we get it up? Then, how do we get it aboard. Then, will it fit in one of those one price mailers that the post office offers??? It was longer than our bow or the topside of our deck... I asked Grand Eagle "would you like an anchor?" LOL, they responded back that they already had four of their own. I radioed back that we were trying to figure out how to keep it and get it up and they suggested going dockside and trying it there - so we did. As we pulled up, one fellow came to help us in to the dock."Look what we caught!" He looked stunned to see what we had attached to our anchor, while helping us tie up. Then a voice came from above. What can we get for you, what do you need (we'd pulled up to the gas dock)? Um, help getting an anchor up? What? What can we help you with, what do you need? We picked up an old anchor in your bay with our anchor and can't get it up off ours... No response. Wayne finally went up to the marina office, I think they thought we were kidding, and I just looked at the anchor trying to figure out how we could ship it home. I couldn't figure out any way that the anchor could leave with us and had to come to grips with leaving it - donating it to the marina. Fishing Bay Marina was going to be the proud owner of our anchor . I walked up to the office too and the dock master said a couple guys were going to come look at it and help us. One sight of the anchor had them drooling too. Yes! We'll help you! Yes! We'll take it off your hands! They had us pull into their dock area where the travel lift was and ran and got their hoist. Fastest I ever saw dock hands move - they were afraid we'd change our minds and want to take it with us I guess. We wanted it bad. So did they. They won. We had no room anywhere. So we caught the big one. Fortunately not the ship it was attached to. Unfortunately we had to let it get away. Fortunately we didn't lose our anchor, or our bow, or our boat from the strain of lifting it... Damn I really wanted to keep that piece of iron! Needless to say we didn't leave the harbor until 10:00 am and I guess we were lucky to have left then. Wow...

Windy and wavy we proceeded down the Chesapeake to Chisman Creek. This is a snug little creek, not much room to error here, depths change from 8-10 ft to 1-0 feet pretty fast, but bad weather is predicted for tomorrow so hopefully we'll be okay. We're anchored by a small marina and next to another sailboat from Canada in the channel by a red buoy. Made excellent time, anchor time 4pm. 33.5 miles in 6 hours. Beef in gravy over garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. Hopefully no "anchors away" tonight...