Day 9 - Untangling the chains, Sail to Meganisi In the morning we watch another boat leave, and sure enough he snags someone else's chain on his anchor. The process for dealing with this is fairly straightforward. First, maneuver back and forth while raising and lowering anchor to get it as close to the surface as possible, and ideally above it. Then take a line, make a loop on the end of it, and lower it on the far side of the tangled chain. Next, use a boat hook to pull the loop under the chain and back up to the boat. Cleat both ends of the line with as much tension as practical to support the chain. Then lower the anchor from under it, and once free pull it up and release the line to drop the chain. The maneuver was performed perfectly and got applause from both sides of the harbor. Then it was our turn. To overachieve a bit, we snagged not one chain but three!!
Putting the lesson into practice released two on first try and the last shortly after, earning applause as well.
Then on to our next habor, where we are told it is full and we need to go somewhere else. Again, planning and logistics. Much communication with Mila over whatsapp (we've had good cell service the entire time) and we are directed to a well-proteted bay where we can anchor offshore and use the dinghy if needed. In the first picture below if you look on top of the middle peak you might see two small bumps. Second picture is using my phone's 30X zoom. GPT later identified it as a likely old NATO radar installation.
The bay is large but very crowded with likely over a hundred anchored boats. We make our way towards the back of it, find a relatively open spot, and try to set anchor. Strong winds are forecast overnight with many direction changes, so we need to have room to swing. We try to set anchor several times but the bottom is all mud and it doesn't hold well.
We finally get it to hold, although we have many neighbors closeby. Dinghy is lowered, we install the motor, and some choose to spend the night in a hotel ashore. I and some others remain onboard.
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