It's always an adventure when you anchor, isn't it?

I'm not referring to the actual act of dropping and setting the hook, but rather in finding out if you've done a good job of it or not. Such are the things that dreams are not made of. This is especially true of those places where there is a significant tidal current. In those instances you arrive, drop anchor, set it in by backing down on it, and then for as long as the current runs in the same direction all is well. But what happens when the tide changes and the flood current ebbs? Have you done a great job and the anchor merely twists in the mud and corkscrews itself in deeper? Or does it pop out and bounce along the bottom without resetting itself? Yesterday, after we got in from the yuck trying to get to Southport the anchor set perfectly but that doesn't means it would again last night. We have had two horrible experiences with a dragging anchor: one in Ketch Harbour at home where we were saved by our friend Vince who rowed his dingy over and pounded on our hull to wake us up so we could reset the anchor and the other in North Lake Worth when Barb happened to look up from reading and wondered why that boat was passing us so quickly and wasn't making any noise and didn't leave a wake. Of course, it was us who was moving and she quickly roused me from slumber so, again, we could re-anchor. I didn't get much sleep after that as you can imagine. Notice a common theme here? In both cases I was asleep. We were saved by luck and by friends. So, now I am a little paranoid. I mean, how much can you rely on luck, and a friend who, first will notice, and second, is prepared to launch his dingy and row over to warn you. It's nerve wracking!

So, I stayed up to watch the current shift from flow to ebb and see what happened and to get new points of reference that I can check the anchor set by and see if we're dragging and, whew. We're not! The only other thing that I would have to worry about would be if there was any strong wind blowing which, fortunately, there wasn't.

Huzzah! Funny, isn't it? How sometimes, apparently small things can make us happiest?

Anyway, by 1130 we we tied up alongside at Port Royal Municipal Marina again. I think this is the second time that we stayed here - a really nice spot with great facilities within easy walking distance from groceries, hardware, machine parts, and the all important alcohol. Not that we had to walk anywhere since Bill and Ann Robertson, folks we met here in 2012 at our last stop, were kind and gracious enough to not only host us to dinner but also to drive us about to buy various provisions. They have recently moved here from Atlanta and have a magnificent new home with an astounding view of a salt water marsh from their dining room, living room, guest bedroom and master bedroom. I would never have thought that a marsh view would be an asset until we saw this place - birds, deer, raccoons, etc in abundance all by just looking out their window. They BBQed us a wonderful dinner and as an extra attraction we met their daughter, Christine, who lives just south of Saint Augustine and among other things works taking care of nesting turtles. A fascinating woman to speak to and to learn about what that entails.

One issue on the boat is that the cranking bank wasn't doing its thing this morning and I had to jump start it from the house bank. This is the second time that this has happened. As some of you may know, when we bought the Yanmar to replace the Perkins it came with a 12V starter. Instead of waiting the week or so to get a 24v starter I chose to simply patch into the lower 12V of the cranking bank and still charge the overall 24V cranking bank from the 24V alternator. In theory this should work but this is the second time that the lower battery has failed. I spoke to a local diesel mechanic and learned that he had seen this before and advised me to check to see if the solenoid was also keyed by 12V or 24V. I seem to remember that when they installed the engine back in Deltaville they used the existing wiring that was in place for the keyed system that came with the boat. If that is the case then the solenoid is activated by the 24V system which the mechanic said is what caused similar problems in the past in his experience.

As we were being driven home by Bill and Ann I was giving this much thought and have decided that tomorrow, instead of charging off, we will fix this problem once and for all. First I will make sure that is the issue with my VOM, then I will figure out how to re-wire the whole starter circuit. Hopefully it won't be too hard to trace.

This marina has a deal that if you stay here for 2 days the 3rd is free so unless I can get it fixed tomorrow AM we might end up here for a couple of days. I keep having to remind myself that we are retired and what is the rush? The answer, of course, is that we miss our family, we miss Canada, and we miss our friends in Shelburne.