Anchors aweigh, but how do you get it back?

It’s been quiet on Moon Dance IV because we have been sitting in Panama City Beach at a very nice marina, though this has not been our objective. We have been waiting for a weather window to leave the GIWW and head out to do the big bend. A requirement for this next part is being prepared to anchor out and as Linda mentioned in her last post we had a bit of trouble retrieving our anchor.

We were anchored in Choctawhatchee Bay and and were feeling quite proud that we had started anchoring out a lot more in these waters than in the rivers, when a mechanical fault in our windlass kept us from retrieving the anchor. After some fuss we got it back on board by hand and headed for Panama City Beach.

Upon closer inspection by an experienced technician, it was determined that our windlass was… hmm let me think what was the technical term was that he used, oh yes now I remember “toast”.

So off to the internet to find a replacement. Ours is 20 years old and parts are no longer available. Besides, at this age why add parts only to have some other component fail down the road. That’s our rationale and we are sticking to it.

Our new windlass may not arrive until the end of the month so we extended our stay here in Point South Bay Point Marina and worked on finding a technician that will be able to do the install when the parts arrive. I will try to dismantle the existing windlass and get it out of the way. In the meantime we decided to repaint the anchor chain. We mark it red every 10 feet and add a blue mark every 50 feet so that we know how much has been deployed.

We are trying to keep busy and as Jimmy Buffet and Linda both say “the weather is here I wish you were beautiful “