We had to do it. We'd been talking about it since we bought our boat. It was our "holy grail" of seamanship; sailing on the ocean. All of our sailing had taken place on inland estuaries, rivers and the sound; it was a glass ceiling that we dreamed of breaking. We decided after having the boat for three years, we were ready. We were going to sail to Lookout Bight!
Ok, everyone who knows the area can stop laughing right now! For us, it was the great unknown. Eight whole miles, took us all of about one hour, forty-five minutes; all while sailing about a mile or two off of Shackelford Island. Ok, now the rest of you can stop laughing. It was the stuff of dreams for us! We kept high-fiving each other, and saying stupid, mundane things like "We're sailing in the OCEAN!" It was great! I'm glad we were alone, thinking back, it was pretty lame.
We arrived at the bight and set about finding a place to anchor for the night. We had studied the chart and headed for the spot we had selected. Unfortunately, the water wasn't as advertised, and we watched as the depth gauge went to five and a half feet. That's when I declared that we'd gone far enough, and ordered the anchor to be set. Now we had thought to get a lot further and were disappointed not to tuck in closer to the shore, but not going aground is more important. Of course, later that afternoon, we watched as two other (larger) boats sailed right past us and secured our first choice spot. "Gee, honey, the water must get deep again, I'm glad they came along and showed us that."
Now the current flow at Lookout is strong, and so we would hang first in one direction, and then as tide turned, swing around one hundred eighty degrees. This sort of stuff makes me nervous, (What if we drag? We could go aground!) When night fell, we still secure, but I set what we call the worrywart anchor watch.
Basically, I toss and turn all night, getting up every time the tide turns and I feel the boat shift around, to sit in the cockpit and check our position against other boats and shore objects (i.e. The lighthouse) Al sleeps quite well whenever I'm on worry-wart anchor watch. I finally succumbed to complete exhaustion around four AM.
Al was up by seven fifteen, and on our small boat, I can't sleep when he starts saying things like "Time to get up! You gonna make us some coffee?" I poked my head out and checked again, (still ok) and started getting breakfast ready.
Al went out to the cockpit after getting dressed and said, "We've moved." I leaped up and out. We had moved, were still moving, at a pretty good clip, thanks to the current.
Forget breakfast. I started the engine and sent Al up to retrieve the anchor. We could eat underway. Al pulled up the rode, as I kept us in place. Then he reached the chain.
I've only seen it done in the movies. First my hearing went. I couldn't hear the sea gulls; the wind went dead, no engine noise either. Dead quiet. Even my tinitus took a break. Total silence. Then my eyesight zoomed into the action on the bow. Then, clear as anything, the opening strands of "THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY" started in Dolby surround in my head.
I watched as Al retrieved a giant ball of anchor/chain, or chain/anchor, or well, I can't really describe what the hell I was looking at. It was massive and it defied logical explanation. Al set it on the bow and looked back towards me. I could sense his fear. What was this? We had set out an anchor, on the end of fifteen feet of chain. This on the other hand, would never fit in the anchor locker. Carefully, I cleared my throat, and said the only thing I could think of under the circumstance. " I think you'd better see if you can untangle that mess before somebody looks over and sees it."
It worked. Al got right to work, horrified at the thought of someone spying the evidence of our making. We're nothing if not good at wanting to mask our mistakes.
We did untangle the mess, eat, and had a great sail back (in the OCEAN!) where we promptly went aground and had to be towed. But hey, it was Beaufort!