Matt and I have fallen into a pretty good routine of chores and duties on the boat.  Matt cooks and handles most of the maintenance (engines, electrical, plumbing, you name it – he can do it).  He also likes to work the lines which means I sit at the helm a lot when we are under sail.  However, when we anchor, Matt is at the helm and I am working the windlass (Wendy) and the spade (Davey) our anchor.  When we anchor, we typically let out a 10 to 1 scope (meaning for every meter of water, we have 10 meters of chain).  So, if we are in 6 meters of water, we have out 60 meters of chain.  After that, we put on the bridle which is about another 8-10 meters and then I will let out between 20-30 meters of kellet (chain that sits on the ground after the bridle to prevent the boat from moving around too much-just an added protection.  Probably a bit overkill but it has served us well in the past.

On this bright and beautiful morning, the sun was shining, the water was crystal clear, and the breeze was soft.  I looked down and saw all of my beautiful chain and thought that is a pretty picture.  Until that is, the windlass stopped bringing up the chain.  Hmmm…bent over the seagull striker, looked down, and thought oh no!  My chain is wrapped around a rock or something.

My anchor chain fouled on an old mooring.

Keep in mind, we are in 7 meters of water (21’), I cannot hold my breath that long so, down went Matt.  After a beat or two, he came up and said, it’s fouled on an old mooring and we need the hookah. Great.  So, we got all the gear out, connected it to the stern engine battery and Matt went back down – except the hookah cable did not reach. It had to travel 50’ from stern to bow and then 21’ down to the mooring.  So, we got the spare battery out, brought everything to the bow and back down he went.  After an eternity (or actually 7-8 minutes) he came up with the line clear.

Hooka Round II trying to reach the mooring.

Matt under the tramp attempting to unfoul the anchor chain.

Matt 3 meters under water fixing our anchor chain.

All in all the entire adventure took about an hour, but once everything was stowed, we went on our merry way.