Thursday we decided to clean the bottom as did Denny on Kokomo. He looks like a yellow footed booby. The visibility was poor but I managed to clean the prop and remove most of the remaining fish lines as well as the worst barnacles. I used my new scuba tank and the BC (bouyancy compensator) that I bough at a swap meet. After 20yrs of not diving it all went together pretty well and the $25BC works like a champ.
I justified the new tank and getting my regulator repaired " in case we needed to dive on a lost anchor or something" And one day later (Friday) I was diving on Denny's stern anchor to retrieve the broken anchor line.
The visibility was so poor that I dove to the bottom and ran my hand along the bottom in a search grid that yielded the broken line. Kokomo was able retrieve it using winch and engine. The fortress anchor was so buried that all I found was chain going into the bottom sand and disapearing.
In the last post I gave the benefits of bow and stern anchor.. today we know first hand there are downsides as well. The surge back and forth actually snapped the "Quick line anchor strap on a reel" This has I believe a 4500lb breaking strength and the achor was so buried it snapped the line!
I have on my stern anchor traditional 3 strand nylon but I added a "tripline" attached to flukes so was able to retrieve with no difficulty.

One more lesson in the school of "hard knocks"