A.R.E
Anytime there is an acronym people want to know what it stands for. Well, let this too be one of those times!
Anchor Retrieval Expedition
Last year while sailing in the San Juans, we set our anchor in 15' of water near the southwest shore of Blind Bay on Shaw Island. After Angela had finished the back down I noticed what I believed to be a crab pot buoy submerged about a 30' away from our starboard bow. It was just under the water. I thought nothing of it. The next morning, at low tide, we were sitting in 9' of water and there was the same crab pot buoy in the same place, but now happily bobbing on the surface. I thought a little bit more about it and came to the conclusion that it must be tied to someones perminant anchor! Whew! I thought stupidly. At least it is in the same location, and since we are also in the same location and with the same orientation, then everything will be ok. WRONG!
A little while later while I was cranking away at the windlass, I noticed that instead of gemtly drifting to the spot that we had set the anchor the night before, we were slowly drifting directly towards the crab pot buoy! This could mean only one thing.......during the night and tide change, we must have wrapped our anchor chain around the perminant buoy line. I was horrified.
I had never been in this sort of situation on Ghost. We tried everything we could think of to get loose from the little buoy. We now realized that this little buoy was attatched to a rather large chunk of something that was very much so NOT GOING TO MOVE!!!
Luckily for us, a couple of hours later, CB and Tawn came into the bay and helped me cut the chain.
So, 8 months have passed and we have mounted the expedition that hopefully will retrieve my anchor. There is some debate as to whether the little crab pot buoy will still be there to mark the spot. There is also the hope that we were not the first to cut loose an anchor firmly attatched to whatever is being marked by that little crab pot buoy.
Following is the log entry of the actual expedition.
A.R.E (ARRRRRR)
Eight months ago Ghost set her anchor in 21 feet of water in Blind Bay on Shaw Island. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we had set our 45 pound CQR near the starboard stern of a 65’ sunken hulk. The hulk was marked with a crab pot buoy someone must have thought would warn boaters of the wreck. To us, however, the marker was just another crab pot buoy marking some cruisers dinner. We didn’t even see the marker until after the anchor was set and it was just visible 30 feet away slightly submerged. “No Problem”, we thought.The next morning we awoke to a bright sunny day at low tide. There was the same crab pot buoy bobbing in the same place as the night before. “All was well”, we thought.
Three hours later I started cranking in the 100’ or so of chain so that we could depart for our next destination. As I cranked up the chain, we did not pull forward to the spot where I presumed the anchor was set, but instead directly to the crab pot buoy. Nothing could be done to wrestle the anchor and chain from the bottom. We must have swung at anchor during the night and wrapped around what ever was attached the crab pot buoy. “Must not have been dinner”, we thought.
Lucky for us, Palarran and her crew were entering the bay and helped us cut the chain from the anchor. We departed Blind Bay with out our primary anchor and about 30’ of chain.
Six months later
A group of guys sitting on a boat swapping stories can be an interesting thing. While I was once again retelling the “lost anchor” story, we all hatched a plan to go up and get it back. And that trip became known as the Anchor Retrieval Expedition or A.R.E (Arrrr) for short.
The plan was simple. Combine a week end camping trip with lots of beer and a dive in 20’ of water to get my anchor back. Chickenbone from Palarran, Dave from Septre, Rich from L’Orien, and I all headed up to Shaw Island on a Friday afternoon. CB and Dave would be the divers and Rich and I would be surface support.
While CB and Dave readied the dive gear on the beach, Rich and I took the dingy out to try and find the crab pot buoy. I had left it attached to my chain to mark the “obstruction”. You see by now it was clear that the crab pot buoy was there to mark an “obstruction” not a crab pot. At first we didn’t think it was still there, but after a short search grid, we found the buoy, still attached to my chain!
We returned to the beach to pick up the divers. Once in the water over the dive site they quickly were surprised to find my chain was attached to a winlass! Not my winlass, but the winlass of a large sunken wreck! My chain had gotten tangled in a wreck! Last summer, when I had pulled and tugged at the chain, trying to work it free, I did nothing but wedge the anchor further into the wreck. Nothing I could have done would have been enough.
The moral of this learning experience is: Don’t ever think a crab pot buoy is a crab pot buoy!
Scty
