Thursday, October 19, 2023

Day 18 - October 19, 2023


Someone asked the question of how we can feel safe when anchored. We've spent several nights "on the hook" (anchored) and generally feel pretty safe. When anchoring, we first follow the rule to let out chain and rode (rope) that's 7 times the depth in which we anchor. For example, if we're in 10 feet of water, we let out 70 feet of chain and rode. After the anchor is dropped and the rode fed out, we set the anchor by reversing the boat and pulling under power. When the boat stops moving backward, we can assume the anchor is set. Next, we use an anchor monitor app on one of our phones. We set it for the amount of swing we'll allow. If the boat moves outside this area, an alarm goes off that is loud enough to wake us up and get things back under control. The anchor app records our position throughout the night, as seen in the photo above. The anchor symbol indicates the position of the anchor and the blue dot indicates the position of the boat. The blue line shows how our boat moved over night. The shaded green area is the safe area. If the blue line had drifted outside this area, an alarm would have gone off.

This morning we borrowed one of the marina's courtesy cars and drove ten miles into the city of Camden. They had a Walmart where we re-provisioned, as well bought a few things we learned are needed.

Upon returning from Walmart, Denise laid out everything we bought onto the dining table. Our boat isn't very big, but we somehow managed to get everything put away.

We didn't intend to travel on the lake today, but our two overnight neighbor boats did leave. The winds were pretty intense at times and I even added another line (rope) to make sure we didn't pull away from the dock. Denise did her morning run this afternoon and took this photo of our boat from across the bay. We took our boat flags down due to the wind, but the American flag on the dock was blowing straight out most off the day. Our plan is to travel to our next destination early tomorrow morning in order to avoid similar winds predicted for tomorrow. When the wind blows hard, the wave on the lake make it pretty uncomfortable in our little boat.

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