That's a lot of heel!

Well, we are free. We are nicely anchored again, but this time with our big danforth anchor. we have been anchoring with a plow type “Delta” anchor, which is what came with the boat, but that anchor is terrible in mud. Terrible!

This afternoon we put out the big danforth anchor to windward off the bow and led the line back to the cockpit winch. Then we put out another smaller danforth to windward off the stern and led its line to the other cockpit winch. Then we winched them tight to keep us from getting pushed further aground. Then we waited.

The water fell and fell and fell until the boat was on her side, 45 degrees off level. What a disaster! It is positively painful to see a boat in that position. Thank goodness there was at least some comic relief in the hilariously absurd positions we had to put ourselves in to move around the boat at that angle! When the water was at its lowest, we hopped off the side and went looking for clams. We got some too!

Then we went out again in the dinghy and this time we pulled up the main Delta anchor and then re set it off to windward so that we had two anchors to kedge us off from the bow.

When the evening high tide came, we raised the head sail and ran the motor and worked our asses off winching in on the anchor lines. It took every ounce of energy and determination that we had and then some. But, we mustered it, and we got ourselves free.

So all is well that ends well, although the stress was exhausting. Now we are enjoying being able to walk on our boat again, since it is level now.