There is more to the Carolina Beach story...

Jim had gone to bed and I was playing around on the computer when our anchor drag alarm went off. That is not an unusual thing, since sometimes it beeps when we've swung with the current or wind. I went out to look and we had indeed swung and the wind had some up quite strongly, but everything seemed OK so I just hit the "clear" button. Back down below, I finished what I was doing and then before I went to bed, I looked out the window before I reprogrammed the alarm. To MY alarm, I saw pilings where there shouldn't be any! I dashed up the companionway steps - yelling to Jim that we had dragged. As I turned on the engine and got the boat in gear to keep us off the dock that was less than a boat length away, he scrambled out of bed, hit the windlass switch and deck lights and ran forward to haul up the anchor - shouting as he went by that the boat next to us was also moving. So - here we were - two boats circling in the dark, windy night, trying to find new places to settle down again.

There is nothing any fun about dragging anchor and almost crashing our vacation home/ investment, but it sure gets the adrenaline moving and induces huge gratitude that we were saved yet again. Two good things are that we had no damage done, and we worked in perfect symmetry. I felt sorry about the other boat, who had come into that anchorage on our advice. They also found a new spot for the night and had no damage, but I'll bet that's the last time they listen to us!!

We figure that the wind came up so strongly after we swung that instead of the anchor resetting itself, it came loose. We set the alarm to the tiniest amount of movement just in case and took turns getting up all the rest of the night to check on it. Needless to say, neither of us got much rest.