7 Oct 13

Weather forecast for today is rain, but with a south wind, so we decided to move on up the coast a bit to North Myrtle Beach. We got away just after 10:00 and motored all the way to Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, arriving about 15:00. Shortly after we arrived, we were invited up for docktails with a bunch of other transient sailors, some of whom have been here for several weeks or days, and nearly all of whom are moving south. Several are long-term live-aboard couples. We had leftovers on board for dinner.

8 Oct 13

The predicted cold front arrived at 05:45 and it remained cold and rainy all day long. The yacht club office had, among other things, a slightly used Manson 25 kg (55 lb) galvanized anchor for sale on a consignment basis for $125 (a new one costs ~$875). As I have been wanting a bigger anchor than our 35# CQR (and a slightly different style), I opted to buy it, after spending all morning making sure it would fit on the bow roller with the existing CQR. This turned into quite a rigging job as it is impossible (for me) to man-handle a 55# anchor onto the bow roller while hanging over the pulpit. Anyway, it fits great, so now we have two anchors ready to go on the bow roller; although I do need to add rode to the old CQR. The current plan is to leave the original 40’ of chain and 240’ of rope rode on the old CQR, with 165’ of chain and 250’ of new rode on the Manson. But first, I need to get one more swivel and buy the new rode, which I will do when we are a bit closer to a West Marine, or have a car. For the time being, I simply transferred all of the current chain and rode onto the “new” Manson. We decided to spend at least one more night here at Myrtle Beach YC, until the front moves on and the weather improves.

9 Oct 13

Cool, very windy (N 18 - 23) and high probability of rain today, so we decided to stay another day. We rented a car for a couple of hours and went to West Marine to buy new anchor rode and another swivel, and also got in a bit of grocery shopping. After we got back, I cut the link (joining the old 40’ section of anchor chain to the “new” 165’ section) off and joined this - along with the old rope rode to the old CQR anchor. Then, I spliced the new rode onto the end of the 165’ length of chain, which now completes the anchor system with the “new” 55# Manson. Then, we spliced the main brace (docktails, for any land-lubbers reading this).