Well we were supposed to race to Murrells Inlet on saturday but for one reason or another it didn’t happen. Everyone else bailed and decided to do a Sherman and back race instead of going to Murrels inlet except me on Sea Puppy and Patty & Jeff on Pirate Girl. We left around 8 in the morning and once out on the ocean there was no wind. So we decided forget the race we will just motor for a while till the wind comes up.. 2 hours later “no wind”. Patty decided she didn’t want to motor all the way to murrels inlet and I went along with it as at this point I was just happy hanging out with her and Jeff. We were about 10 miles down the coast line from Little River Inlet and 3 miles off shore. We just anchored there. It was about 36 ft of water and the water was very clear. I almost went swimming to give the bottom of the boat a scrubbing but I got lazy. We were going to raft up but even the very light swell was making them rock to much so we just tied me off of Pirate Girls stern about 20 ft behind her. It was a great afternoon of lazy 🙂 We ate and kicked back under tarps for shade and read and napped. Jeff rigged up a seat cushion on the end of a line to float watermelon over to me. A good time was had by all.
Around 3 or 3:30 I started to get antsy and decided to get back to Bird Island to anchor out for the evening. The wind had been picking up and was starting to blow around 8 to 10 knots. Jeff threw my line to me and I put up sail as I drifted away from where Pirate Girl was anchored. Patty and Jeff didn’t want to leave and because the forcast was for calm they decided to stay anchored where they were for the night 🙂 I was able to sail back in 2 and a half hours the wind was steady off my starboard aft quarter and I just zipped along.
Coming into Little River Inlet and the anchorage at Bird Island I put the engine in the water but didn’t bother cranking it. I decided to sail onto the anchor. I had been leaving anchor a lot under sail but had only once before on my last boat actually set anchor while under sail. This time I did it down wind. I furled the jib and put a reef in the main just to make sure I didn’t have to much power in the rig for a first time. I then picked a fairly open spot back behind Bird Island between a couple of other boats and slowly sailed right at it. As I approched I walked up to the bow where the anchor was already rigged to go and feed it out about 40 ft before where I wanted the boat to end up. When I got the the 5 to one scope I intended to use I quickly snubbed the line down on the forward deck cleat and as the boats momentum and weight hit the anchor line it dug the anchor in hard and Sea Puppy pivoted at the bow and was laying at anchor pointing into the wind. I had center lined the main just before going to the bow so she laid straight into the wind without trying to tack back and forth on the anchor. I was then able to drop and flake the main at my leisure.
It was beautiful evening and sunset.
Later in the evening the wind picked up and started blowing. I would estimate that it blew 18 to 22 knots for the rest of the night till around 3 am. I had to get up and shift to a different spot because a 60+ ft motor yacht “Chablis” that was there prior to me had put out 85ft of chain and with the high winds pushing me and the 2 knot current pushing them we looked like we might bump. water depth in the anchorage is max 13 ft with a low of 8 to 9 ft. I think they were a little excessive with the scope with an all chain rode but it was all ok in the end.. Just one of those things you have to watch for when anchored near other boats.
Patty and Jeff got bounced around a bit but came through ok on their offshore anchoring. I don’t think they will want to do it again like that though.
Around 3 am I finally got to get some solid sleep till later in the morning. Prior to the winds dropping I would stick my head above decks every 30 minutes to an hour to check the other boats near me and how I was lying compared to them.
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