Saturday, Mar. 7, we left Columbus with a Looper 'buddy' boat, the Manifest [Tom and Phyllis Hedge, from San Diego], a 1989 42 ft Cruiser Express Bridge, at 08:30 and had a great trip down to the anchorage at the State Park of Sumpter Landing, travelling about 10mph, and passing through 2 locks without any delay or difficulty on the water.

The inlet to Sumpter was a bit - as boaters say - 'skinny', meaning shallow - only about 2-3 ft below the boat keel; Manifest actually grounded going in [they were about 20 ft off-center of the 200 ft inlet compared to us] and stalled their port engine; but once inside the lagoon, it was 6-10 ft and we both anchored in soft mud. We put out both a bow and a stern anchor to stop any swing which might put us into the shore, since the lagoon is only a few hundred feet wide at best. We turned off the generator once anchored, for about an hour to share a scotch and solitude; unfortunately, have to run it all night because we have a 2.5 cu.ft. freezer. Still, it was a peaceful night with a full moon and we slept well.

We have a Rocna Vulcan bow anchor, 55 lb, in the 'spade' group, which 'sets' well and has held us for all our anchoring so far [a number not yet approaching Guinness records - only 3]. There are formulas, based on length of boat, anchor weight, and the size/length of chain and rope. Our Rocna is slightly heavier than recommended for a 49 ft but that's always better when anchoring - we have 40 ft of 5/16 G4 chain and 125 ft of 3/4 inch 3-strand nylon rope. The chain plus rope is called 'scope' and how much scope to deploy is related primarily to the water depth + hull height, as well as the weather; it is critical to how successful your anchorage will be.

This anchorage will be memorable: when leaving the next morning, I couldn't get the blankety-blank bow anchor retrieved, thinking is was snagged on a boulder, or 'something', because the winch kept slipping and I was having to manually pull and assist the winch. The 'something' finally came up: a 3 ft x 18" tree trunk wrapped around a 2 ft angle iron with camouflage rope, with that rope hooked on the anchor! Had to get my razor sharp tomahawk (with its wrist strap so I wouldn't drop it in the water) and lay on my belly on the bow pulpit, hang down and cut off this little 'tumor'; it dropped so I could retract it under the bow pulpit [the part sticking out in front of the boat]. As Marg said, "there's always something. We had no cell or internet service, so we both read a novel.