We found that our 8 pound Danforth did not hold well in sand, so about a week ago, we bent on the 22 pound Delta anchor that we bought for storms. We set that Wednesday night at Long Key on a mixed sand and weed bottom in about 5' of water.
The wind really picked up overnight, gusting around 25 KT, judging by the wind in the rigging. Luckily, we were close to land, so there wasn't much fetch for waves to build up. Still, we did a fair amount of tacking around the anchor, and it held solidly all night.
Just before sunrise, we were awoken by the dinghy bumping the side of the boat. Upon investigation, we were being blown sideways at about 2 KT with the anchor skating across the bottom. Letting out another 50' of rode had no effect, so we started the motor to find an even more protected area in the large and mostly unoccupied harbor.
Oddly, the anchor came up clean, so I'm guessing that it had dislodged a chunk of vegetation that clung to the point and kept it from resetting. The even more notable part of the event was yet to come....
While motoring, I knew to avoid a 2' deep shallow area between where we had drug anchor and where we were headed. With the depth meter reading 3-4' under the keel, I pulled out the chart to refresh my memory on how far out the shallows extended. In the 20 seconds I spent on that, we ran sound gently in 20" of water (we draw 24").
D'oh!! Evidently the strong wind had created a super low tide. We took probably 20 minutes to free ourselves and it took every trick in the book some simultaneity: engine in reverse, anchor rowed out and set in deep water, Kate winching in the anchor between hiking out on the shrouds to heel the boat, and me in the water pushing as hard as I could on the bow.
Nothing like a little low-grade hypothermia to start out your morning!
By noon the wind eased, and we had a pleasant light-wind beat to lignum vitae key. 13.60 NM at 3.9 KT over 3:23. Total odo 486.32
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