Sunday, June 26, 2016

Anchor Failure!

Well not really anchor failure but operator ERROR.

We left NWCM late morning and headed to Cedar Creek on Adams Creek. We had a nice run and motorsailed
-- a third of the way until wind was on the nose. We were in around 2:30pm. As we set the anchor a large shrimp boat
was leaving and he came mighty close. Apparently we were crowding his desired path out.

I opted to pull the anchor and move further into Cedar Creek. I pulled the anchor up but not completely out of
the water -- thought I would save time and energy. We dropped it but it didn't set. I pulled it up again and
took it completely out of the water and the problem was readily apparent. The flukes were holding a LARGE mud
ball -- no wonder it wouldn't set. I bounced that off and we tried again and it set fine.

Then we saw several other shrimp trawlers leave. Then it was several small boats dragging shrimp nets -- this
must be opening day of the shrimp season here. I tried to look it up online but the information was not
readily available, and since I'm on battery power I didn't look too long.

In addition to the anchor light I think I'll run the LED spot lights on the aft end of the boat above the
dinghy. I suspect there will be a lot of boat traffic near us tonight.

Tomorrow early -- 7am or earlier we will leave for Cape Lookout. We didn't go all the way today because the
current would be adverse from 9am until 3pm. Tomorrow it will adverse from 10am until 4pm and if we leave early
we should be either in or just left the inlet when it changes. Wish us luck

Temps were fine today and only in the low 80s. Tomorrow will be a little warmer but not really HOT.

Ohhh I'm looking forward to the beach and swimming at Cape Lookout.

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