Eric:
I’ve anchored cruising sailboats probably close to a thousand times. Although this time was unusual from the get go, but nothing glared at me with significant warning. Puerto Escondido was shown on both sets of electronic charts as a designated anchorage and the two older cruising guides described it as a place to visit, so I felt assured, although our trusted website guru Noonsite.com curiously was silent. Oddities began to present themselves. 1) the position dedicated as the anchorage was occupied by more than 50 pangas on individual mooring buoys. A local fisherman, fluent in English, approached us on his beautifully painted bright green panga advising us no mooring buoys were public. 2) the depths far exceeded the charts’ descriptions; 12 feet was now 80, and 15 was now 150. Thinking our depth sounder was on the fritz, I had Bryce drop a lead line to verify depth. “Line” is a nautical term used to describe loose rope on a boat, no matter the diameter. The sounder was accurate. 3) we were adjacent to one of Mexico’s primo surf sites, on purpose, and the current swell supported it. 4) with all the pangas on moorings and little room between them and the surf, we had to anchor outside their mooring grounds in 80 feet deep waters. Not our favorite circumstance. And, in addition to our bow anchor, we’d have to deploy our stern anchor to prevent us from swinging into the pangas since would have to let out so much chain due to the deepness of the anchorage.
The onshore breeze made anchoring that afternoon easy. We picked our spot, brought Kandu’sbow around, pointing her in the wind, then idled in reverse while in 85 feet of water, Bryce dropped our 65-pound Mantus anchor, the same anchor we faithfully deployed all around the world (an anchor few other long-distance cruising boats possess but wished they did, if only they knew how great it was). Bryce let out 150 feet of chain before we tested whether it would hold us. Most anchors need a chain to depth scope ratio of 3:1 to test, be we’ve found that the Mantus will grab at 2:1.
Once satisfied, we drifted back deploying a total of 240 feet of new high-tensile marine chain. Several types of marine chain exist, mostly all are steel galvanized with a zinc coating to protect it from prematurely rusting. Through our travels, we’ve learned that the French and Australians typically anchor with 3:1 scope, 4:1 in a blow. Americans, Brits, and Germans anchor 5:1 standard, and 7:1 in a blow. But at a depth of 85’ on a sharply rising seabed combined with the weight of 240’ of chain, we felt secure with 4:1. A rising sea bottom meant that the depth decreased dramatically, improving our ratio should we drift closer to shore, and such an angle advantaged us as well. As is our practice, Bryce attached our Mantus chain hook and nylon bridle, but with 240’ of chain deployed, we were a little too close to shore to let out all 30 feet of the bridle, deploying only half.
Our primary anchor is attached to all chain, 300’ in total. To prevent the chain pounding that can occur when a boat bow dips and rises, we attach a nylon rope to act as a shock absorber. It’s called a “snubber.” Wet nylon stretches more than dry, and the longer the nylon line the greater the stretch as well. We felt we had enough nylon in the water to give us the desired stretch. A bridle provides additional benefits in that two lines are attached, one from both sides of the bow, centering the pull forward off the bow, distributing the load, and adding security in the event one side should fray and give way, having the second to hold us still.
With our bow anchor secure, we set about the task of deploying the stern anchor, something seldom needed in most anchorages and therefore something we only seldom have done. We were not far from shore. Waves broke on the beige sand beach directly behind us, beach-goers Boogie boarding in the surf. To put out our stern anchor, Bryce and I inflated and lowered our dinghy, a task in and of itself, but one we are very accustomed to. With Leslie’s help too, the dinghy was launched in short order and our small, 3.3 hp outboard mounted to its transom. Seat and oars installed and with Kandu’s engine turned on, I boarded the dinghy, ready to receive and deploy our stern anchor. As agreed, Bryce monitored the outgoing line. “Leslie, reverse idle to port.”
Unlike the steel of our bow anchor, our stern anchor, a Fortress is made of aluminum. It’s the only anchor I know of made of such a light alloy, but that’s precisely the reason I like it as my stern anchor. I can easily “throw” it over board with minimal damage to the dinghy or myself. The proximity to shore and the greater than normal depth of the sea bottom made it impossible for us to first deploy the stern anchor from deck – a technic accomplished by traveling further forward to drop the bow anchor, and then pulling back in on the stern anchor line. Under our current circumstances, we needed to transport the 16-pound anchor and 50 feet of chain to the drop point, “toss” the anchor and chain in without damaging our dinghy, like pulling off an oar or puncturing something, and then have someone else on board Kandu take up the slack from the poop deck hoping it sets quickly. The make of our aluminum anchor, the Fortress, does this very well.
Over the next two days, we had to re-anchor the stern because the surf kept moving our anchor. Each time we brought up the anchor was challenging but we were able to pull up the stern anchor twice successfully. Finally, the third day it stuck. In that case, we anchored it much further away, almost at a 45-degree angle from the boat, directly in the surf.
The day before we were planning to leave this famous Mexican surf spot, a charter sailboat showed up, anchored for four hours, tried to pull up his anchor and couldn’t. He called two different scuba divers to free up his anchor and they both gave him the same reply, “No, I’m not going to do it, because it’s swallowed up by the sand and anything I do will be erased in a second by more falling sand. The only thing you can do is cut your anchor.” His anchor had mostly nylon hooked to little chain. I was hopeful that with our experience with the stern anchor and the fact that our fore anchor was all chain, we’d be successful.
Bryce:
“Let’s go Trent” said Dad with determination. Initially, Dad and Trent paddled out in the dinghy to pull up the stern line and anchor while I was in charge of monitoring the line, the release and pulling the line/chain back in. Mom was monitoring the helm. “All good.” “Still good,” I yelled as I studied a fishing panga a little distance away to check the swell movements: whether the up and down movements were gradual or quick – the quicker movements indicated especially large incoming waves. “Still good,” I yelled every minute as I continued the pattern of letting the line out, and then pulling it in as some of the chain was released from the sand. “Outside set,” I yelled, and the two quickly abandoned their tugging in the surf and rowed to safety. This repeated at least five or six times when dad declared: “I’m exhausted, you need to take over with Trent.” As with Dad, Trent monitored the line and chain while I paddled out overtop the anchor which was directly in the break of crashing waters. I was worried about sinking and/or damaging the dinghy with too much pressure. When I grabbed ahold of the chain, due to the swell, I had to release or pull-in how much I had: swell decrease = slack, swell increase = the dinghy flying over top of the anchor, like when you spear a whale and it suddenly takes off. I placed my feet as if getting ready for a car crash to lock myself in. I was getting ready for a tug of war, holding on tightly letting the upward motion of the dinghy do the heavy lifting of the anchor. My position in the boat was far more secure than Trent’s because I was holding onto the anchor chain. Poor Trent was being thrashed around in the back of the dinghy like a malfunctioning carousel. Up, down, whipping all around. At one point, I only saw Trent’s legs hanging onto the back transom, and no Trent. Busy holding the chain I heard behind me: “Hey Bryce, I just fell in the water,” while lifting himself up pushing against the two ends of the dinghy. Trent’s torso and head had been completely doused. He looked quite disheveled. Both of us depleted, that was the last time we tried lifting the anchor with the dinghy. But still not giving up while rowing ashore, I decided that I would scope out the anchor with a mask and snorkel.
Dad and I rowed back out with the dinghy bringing up the line and chain as we went in order to attach a buoy, a floating marker. That was needed in order for me to find the anchor once dad dropped the line. I jumped into the pitch black with snorkel and mask and waited for the stirred-up sand to dissipate. Plunging down into the water holding the lead line, my goal was to see if I could touch the anchor. Once I got past all the floating sand, due to the moonlight and bioluminescence I could see pretty far…like there were stars under water, Van Gogh’s starry night! At the bottom of the chain, I couldn’t see or feel the anchor at all and every time I tried to unbury the sand, I would have to go up for breath. Then returning back down via the lead line just 2 minutes later, my unburied work was gone. I was so frustrated. I felt like all my hard work was for nothing…and I couldn’t change the situation. Like building a big Lego spaceship, while bringing it to your parents to show it off, you trip and drop it.
We figured there was forty-eight feet of chain with two feet remaining. The new plan was to pull up the slack as much as possible and during overnight’s largest swell we had experienced up to that point, the tugging of the chain by the boat would eventually pull the anchor out of the sand. At half past midnight, we went to bed exhausted.
The next morning around 7:00 am, we’d hoped to see the aft line slack, but no, the aft line was tighter than ever. I jumped back down into the water to see, and what I discovered was definitely not inspiring. I told Dad and Trent floating nearby in the dinghy, “We’re so screwed! That anchor is buried even deeper than last night because of the crazy swell we had during the night.” Due to the unbelievable current switches, the chain was buried an extra foot and I couldn’t even unbury the hook holding the buoy marker. Instead, I untied the buoy, leaving the entire marker line behind. I swam back to the boat while Trent and Dad in the dinghy, lifted up the chain and unattached the shackle holding the nylon line to the chain. We ended-up leaving all the 50 feet of aft chain plus the anchor. This whole business took about 45 minutes. We really didn’t want to lose our anchor, but we needed to get busy pulling up the forward anchor in order to depart that day. Trent’s flight out of Zihuatenejo was booked…we had a deadline.
Dad was still hopeful that we could bring up the forward anchor because ours was attached to chain, not nylon line. I remember dad saying: “We have to at least try to pull-up the anchor!” However, we had been anchored there for a week…not just four hours!! I wasn’t very hopeful.
Leslie:
After 4 hours of painstakingly raising chain inch by inch, Eric and Bryce working together the entire time in the hot sun, concluded that it was a lost cause. “In the last 4 hours we’ve brought up just 150 feet of chain and it is no longer coming up. The tension is just too intense. The continued pressure will damage the boat,” declared Eric. Regrettably, he pulled out the bolt cutters and hewed the chain in two. We lost 2 anchors, our stern Fortress anchor and our fabulous 65 lb Mantus anchor attached to 130 feet of expensive new chain, plus 12 hours of concerted effort. Darn, darn, darn. However, on the positive side, during our two-day motor to Ixtapa Marina pointing into the swell, we benefitted from a substantially lighter bow!
Fortunately, we have 3 more anchors aboard. In Ixtapa, just before departing for Cabo, Eric and Bryce hooked-up and situated our secondary bow anchor (now our primary anchor), a Plow anchor, in a matter of minutes to line and chain – not Eric’s preference, but good enough to get us home. It took 45 minutes for them to prep the adequate but much heavier aft Danforth anchor for the stern. We also have a 95 lb fisherman’s anchor stored in the bilge to use for massive storms, which fortunately we have never needed.
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