Day 55 Anchors away

Today we got an early start pulling the anchor and chain.  Wanted to see how much we had and in what condition it was in.  I undid the shackles to the anchor and pulled it off the boat.  I made sure that the anchor was attached to line before I pulled it.  Didn't want it ending up at the bottom of the harbor.  Tracy held the line and I pulled.  Off it came nice and easy.

Next off with the chain.  I pulled it out of the locker--also known as the deep garage in the bow of the boat.  Tracy pulled it off the bow and piled it on the dock.  She pulled it out so we could see how much we had--225 feet of 3/8" chain and high tensile steel at that.  Very strong and a good length.  Because it is high tensile steel, it is harder than most chain but weighs less.  That makes it great for a sail boat where weight is all important.

We'd planned on putting tags on the anchor as specific lengths so we know how much we have out but we couldn't find webbing to tag it.  We put the chain back on board.  Thank goodness we have a windlass on board.  It has a very strong motor that winds the chain back on board.  The biggest problem is that to use it you need to have the engine running as it eats power by the bucket load.  I could not imagine pulling the chain on board by hand let alone with a 66 pound anchor attached.  Not sure it's even physically possible.

Tomorrow, reattach the anchor.

So far, no shortwave radio nor any information from the dealer I bought it from.  The internet modem shipped today.  We ordered it last Friday and will be here Wednesday.  We order the radio ten days ago.  Lets hope it gets 

here soon.

Oh, I messed up last night.  The head(toilet) in the front head operates by flipping a switch.  To the left is for pumping water into the toilet to flush it.  To the right is to empty the bowl.  I forgot and left the switch on the left that puts water into the bowl.  The bad thing is that the water never stops coming into the boat.  By this morning, the bilge was full of harbor water as was the shower sump right in front of the head.  I had quite a mess to pump out and clean up.  There is an automatic switch that turns on the 

bilge pump so that the boat won't sink but it didn't turn in.  Found that a wire was sitting on top of it and kept it from turning on.  Fixed it so hopefully it will work next time.  It could have caused the boat to sink if we had happened to have left the boat for the weekend.  Rented the wet/dry vacuum again and flushed the bilge with fresh water and cleaned it out.  We'll see what the future brings for the bilge.  I've learned my lesson.

As you can see, Blue has settled in just fine.  She rules the roost and makes sure the other kids know it.