At the time of our last post we were still in Lewes, Delaware. We have moved, and are now in Annapolis, Maryland back at our favorite boatyard in the Chesapeake: Bert Jabin’s Yacht Yard.

Getting here started out with a real adventure, and NOT one of the good kinds. Lewes has been a harbor since the late 1600’s. For part of that time is was a fairly important port. There are 400 years of debris on the bottom. On our third visit, we found some of it.

As we pulled up our chain, it seemed the windlass was working a bit harder than usual, but not anything exceptional, until we got to this:

That steel cable is about an inch and a half across, and is as stiff as a steel bar. We can’t bend it, or move it much at all. It took us about an hour and a half to figure out how it was wrapped around our chain, and maneuver the two so we could drop the cable off.

But we were not done yet! As the anchor came up…

…our “friend” shows up again. We never saw the whole thing, or what, if anything, it was attached to. Careful study of the photo would show that what we have is really just a loop of cable over the anchor, but try as we might, we can’t get it off. We eventually tied a line to the anchor, and disconnected the chain. We lifted, we bounced, we dragged, we puzzled.

After another 2 hours, we FINALLY managed to pry the loop of cable off the anchor and send it back to the bottom. All through this time we are very slowly drifting along with the tide out to sea. Lucky for us there are no shallows or other obstructions in our way.

Clearing this mess was hard, physical labor that lasted nearly 4 hours. We were both exhausted and sore for days…

Also, in the spirit of “Catch and Release”, we didn’t catch any fish offshore, but while making our way up the Chesapeake we pulled some trolling lines and ended up landing a big redfish.

Not just big, but TOO big! the local regulations require you return to the water any fish over 26 inches, so back he went!

And More Boat Work…

Always more boat projects… we have just started on a bunch and will be working hord for the next couple of weeks to get them all done before it’s time to head south for the winter. More details on those will be following!

If you are in the area, feel free to stop by, we would welcome an excuse to take a break!