So, Wednesday afternoon I made a last run to Home Depot and Publix. Back from that I decided to pick up one anchor, that way I would only have on left to do the next morning.
That was easier said than done. The two anchors had been wrapped around each other multiple times, but I had dealt with that before. But this time the chains were wrapped around, and they don’t let themselves untangle that easy. By the time I had the knot above the water both anchors had come out. Which meant I was floating. Running back and forth between wheel and bow, I tried a few times to get the knot out, but of course that was not happening. All that time I was slowly dragging two anchors around, near a channel marker, a few anchored boats, the channel and with a 15 knot wind. Not much fun.
Went to plan B: drop another anchor. So, I got my third anchor ready, dropped it, and once that was holding I had time to deal with untangling the mess. That took quite a while, but finally I got both anchors on deck, including lots of clay and mud.
Then I set one anchor again to hold me for the night. The temporary anchor I had set now ran partly into the channel. So, that had to be picked up. Got in the dinghy to bring it on board, well, it was stuck. There was no movement at all. Had to get the bitter end from the boat (the loose end of the anchor line) because it was restricting me from pulling the anchor out. Then I was finally able to get the anchor up, and it came up with another anchor line tangled in it. When I pulled that other anchor line a small anchor came up with it. The anchor line was in decent shape, but its chain was all rusted.
Wanted to keep anchor line and the anchor, but I could not get the chain off easily, so I let go of chain and anchor.
Well, that was quite a bit more work than anticipated, but I was glad to get it done before the morning of departure.