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Lexington - 5/23/17. Headed to Niue



The weather was a little up in the air. That was not a pun. There was a gale south of our area. There were lows developing in our path. There were predictions for significant southerly swells south of us. There were very light winds in the initial sailing area. We have a real honest to God weatherman in our fleet. He is very kind to give us a weather briefing when things are a little iffy. I really have a hard time being confident of my weather skills. In any case, we think our worst problem is that we are going to have to motor some at first. The more interesting portion of this post is getting underway. We were anchored in about 60 feet of water. The wind had shifted some during our stay. When we taking up anchor, Zeeland was having a little trouble getting their anchor to come up. We initially thought we should wait to see if they needed our help. Then we decided that we should make sure we could get our own anchor up. Zeeland got their anchor up in short order with the help of other boats. As for us, one owner from Ashia and an owner from Skyelark of London came over to help by looking in the water with a glass bottom bucket or by snorkeling to see if they could guide our maneuvers left and right to get our anchor chain from around coral heads. We ended up with sort of a figure 8 of chain around some coral that was mushroom shaped. We had just cleaned and put up the hookah but we drug it back out. I went down to where the chain was caught around coral. As I pulled it free Dan from Skyelark gave directions to Sam and Karen to take up chain. As they took up more chain I swam along near the bottom and pulled the chain from side to side to keep it off other coral. We very much appreciated all the help. The hookah is a lot of trouble but it was nice to have today. I am sure we would have kept working until we got free but using the hookah made it more easy quick work. These may be times I wish you were here instead of me but in all honesty it is a great feeling when people just appear to help and we have enough skills and tools to solve many sailing problems. May fair winds fill your sails with hookah like devices and World Arc like friends! Bob



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