A Sleepless night

As we have dear friends planning to join us in Ft Lauderdale, it was time to reluctantly leave Vero Beach and continue our migration south.  Tuesday, February 2nd, we woke early, fueled, and set our course south.  Warm weather was promised, and we set our day's goal as a quiet anchorage outside Jupiter in Peck Lake.  The day would take us through Ft. Pierce, Past Stuart, and the junction with Okeechobee Waterway (a cross state canal to the west coast of Florida), and finally alongside Jupter Island to lovely Peck Lake.  An uneventful day on the water brought us into the anchorage which proved to be more crowded than we had hoped.  Squeezing past about a dozed boats, we found a tight anchorage in close to shore.  After two unsuccessful attempts to anchor, dragging ancor both times, the 35 lbs. CQR anchor we use finally bit. 

We enjoyed a beautiful evening with 12-15 mile an hour winds out of the southeast. After dinner, we set up the computer, found an open WIFI connection, and turned on the Duke / Georgia Tech. basketball game.  We were in our berth by 11:00. 

And then, it happened.  Cece and I woke to a loud horn blaring.  Rushing on deck, we found that the wind had built to 20-25 knots, veered further south, and we had dragged anchor into another boat.  In the pitch dark, for the moon had not yet risen, we turned on the engines, pulled forward to retrieve anchor and cable, and hunt for a more secure spot to drop anchor.  All we could find was a spot along the southern edge of the anchorage in 4'4" of water.  The anchor bit, and because of the long fetch we spent a sleepless night listening to the pounding water against our hull and checking the anchor every two hours.

Lots of lessons learned from this one, and tomorrow is in a marina, so we can catch up on our sleep.