We anchored OVERNIGHT for the FIRST TIME No. 130

We had been for day sails, bought ourselves a new anchor and swivel and had dropped the anchor just for the afternoon. Now we're going to put all these together and anchor for the first time overnight. We picked Corsan Bay to head to due to it being a local anchorage at just six nautical miles away and also being sheltered from the northerly winds we were getting that night. It may not have been the best night's sleep we had ever had, but this view in the morning made it all worth it. We're Becca and Zach, a couple who recently, after years of dreaming, bought ourselves a beautiful 40-foot Colvick Victor sailboat. Life is short and the world is wide and there are so many lessons to be learned, laughs to be shared, people met, adventures had and nautical miles to be sailed and this is our way of sharing it all with you. Welcome to the dive. What a great feeling. It's lovely isn't it? What's happened to the end of our end time? Oh dear. We are on anchor right now and as we're staying the night for the first time I'm super excited but we think we're a bit close to this boat. There are maybe two or three boat lengths between us but we just feel like it's our first time. We had lunch and we thought we'd think about it and actually we think that why have even the risk of us dragging? Like it's just not worth it. We had to make a bit of a trickier decision because loads of boats were over there and only some are over here and the reason we picked over here is because at the moment the wind is northerly and it switches at 1am to southerly so that was a bit of a hard decision to make but we think it would be best if we're because the other side of the anchorage is so packed as it is this side just seems a lot better so yeah we're happy with our decision and now we're just going to pull up the anchor do another loop round and reset it and with more scope out just in case. Well done. We're rocking quite a lot at the moment. The swell is actually hitting us side on because the wind's completely dropped. All the boats around us are just all pointing different directions so hopefully the wind will just turn us around nicely and we will kind of face into the swell but currently waves are kind of going against here under us and just going it's just shifted around from the north so it'll be better. We're gonna have an interesting night's sleep if it doesn't. It will change around in a minute. Yeah it will but I just can't get over how beautiful it is. The water's glassy right now and there's a beautiful sunset. The sky's an orangey colour. The water's bright blue and it could be anywhere in the world. I'm not quite sure how cold it's going to get tonight. We're used to having heat on when we're on board but obviously we're not going to have any tonight so we should be fine. It is May after all but like a half a cup. A tiki mug. Oh I'm really going for it. I think it's because the swell like it like lines up sometimes and it will just and I think it kind of encourages it when it starts going back and forth. But look the catches are moving more. I can't tell. There's some other catches around and all the sloops seem to not be moving that much and the three catches that I can see right now are just wobbling more and I don't know whether it's the fact we've got an extra mast so we're way higher up. I don't know if any of you guys know let us know because that's the only thing I can think of. But Zach's making a hot chocolate so that'd be nice. So we've got our hot chocolates and the tide has dropped so much but everyone's going in such different directions but annoyingly we tried to stay away from everyone and someone's actually gone quite close to us and I don't know whether if we swung around we're getting really close to them. Let's see what Zach says. We're going to be fine for a bit now. You what? We're going to be fine for a bit now because our stern's to the waves. Yeah we will but do you think if our stern did go around we'd be okay with them? Yeah because theirs will go around as well. It's just because there's no wind. Yeah. As soon as there's a bit of wind or something like that everyone will start backing up on their chains again. Yeah. This is when we realised either the alarm was malfunctioning, we had set it wrong or we're dramatically dragging anchor. What distance are we going to set on? We're not moving. 20 meters. Set anchor. Current location. I think our first time was a false alarm. Maybe it's the GPS on your phone is like bouncing around. Why is it doing that? Yeah we're definitely in the same position as we were to begin with Now we're side on again. This thing spins. I feel like it's gonna be the whole evening of like oh we've turned. What's that Zach? I don't know. Oh it's the onions. It's the onions. Where are they? In the basket. What that's them rolling around? Yeah. It sounds like water. Yeah Something like that. I think he's putting his boom out over the water and putting like something down and weighting it down. Let's find out what it's called. Is it a flomper stomper? Womper stomper. Flomper stomper. Anchoring. I don't think it's called that. What is it called? Womper stomper. I can't remember. Nothing's coming up. Maybe something a flopper. Flopper stopper. It's a flopper stomper. Okay let's read out about these. Womper stomper. Flopper stopper. Oh yeah that's exactly what he's doing. Interesting. I think it is actually a thing. Look. It's like a bag. I think you need something for it. I don't think we have that. Oh it is look it's a roll reducer and it's like a it looks like a drying rack under the water. Time to anchor roll proof the boat because we don't have a womper stomper. The time is 9 30 and we just went to turn the gas off. We spotted some water at the bottom of our stern locker and so we've got everything out and there's quite a lot of quite a lot of water at the bottom. It's not draining into the bilge for some reason. So that's fun. Luckily it's not quite dark yet. I'm just what you want on your first night of anchor. I don't think force it. There might be a reason. It could have been blocked for ages to be fair. Okay. Yeah is that all of it? Yeah. Got it. It's grim water. I wouldn't have tasted it if I was you. It seemed the bilge was just blocked so we emptied the water out and we tackled this when we were back in the marina the next day. It's 10 o'clock and we've got our anchor light on. We've secured the boat so hopefully nothing moves in the night and now we're just looking at the weather and planning our night. So what do you think we should do? I'm just going to go through the times. So midnight is still northerly, six knots northeasterly which is still very sheltered from here and then seven knots northeasterly at seven in the morning. Really flat. We couldn't have actually picked a better night to anchor for the first time. I think I'll set an alarm for three in the morning. I'll just get up, double check everything's fine. Because we've both got a week and a half each time so we may as well set I think two alarms just to be super on the safe side. Or two in the morning or four in the morning. Well the wind's picking up later so surely we want to do more checks then instead of two and four. So I'm thinking three and five. Yeah three and five. And then it means yeah okay let's do three and five. Yeah. Because if it stays up right now we're literally not doing it. Oh someone's going. Oh bye. Nice knowing you. Okay should we hop on the bed? Yeah feeling happy about that. So we've got two alarms on on different apps and we're gonna wake up twice. And there's like no wind tonight. And there's no wind. I think we'll be right. Yeah we'll be absolutely fine. And we've got a 40 kilogram anchor and pretty much all our scope out. Yeah we'll be fine. I think we'll be fine. It's still a bit of a feeling though isn't it? Got a bigger battery and we have lights on. I know. And when we get. Fridge. Yeah the fridge is just like a puddle at the moment. It's funny. Night everyone. So it's currently oh I'm cold. Half 11. Our anchor alarm just went off. Scared the hell out of us. But we've actually just swung around exactly to where we were when we originally set the anchor. Obviously the wind. So we're right on it. Yeah perfect. So when we first set the anchor the wind was southerly and we were right by the five meter line and now it's northerly. Now hopefully we'll stay all facing the same way. We're not close to any boats. So we're just going to reset the alarm and yeah hopefully get some sleep at some point. And hide under the louver. It's cold. So the time is 2.40 and I've just woken up and checked and we haven't moved. The anchor alarm has gone off twice but I think that's because we've got a lot of scope out so we're just moving a lot but all we've done is move back and there's no one that way so feeling really happy that we're not really moving. But keeping an eye out the window the other boats and land and the transit we made. Yeah feeling happy but gonna get up again at I think about 5. So it's 5.15 in the morning. I just wanted to do a last anchor check and it doesn't really look like we've moved at all in the night which is really good. So I'm gonna go back to sleep and get the last little bit of sleep now. Morning everyone. Oh what a night. We haven't moved. Well we have moved a lot but not near anyone. Just kind of did circles. Yeah felt like we were off every half an hour. The anchor alarm kept going off because we kind of messed up the alarm system. Like when you drop the anchor you're meant to set the alarm the minute you drop it. Anyway we didn't do that. We dropped it, paid out and then set the alarm. But there we go. I think the first is always the hardest. It would almost be weird if we had a really good night's sleep the first night because then I think it would show that we didn't care and we definitely care. Coffee's in order and it's a lovely day. That beats the marina doesn't it? Coffee please. That boat we're miles away from. Why were we so worried? I think the biggest thing I can't get over is how much everything keeps changing. Everyone's kind of Everyone's really nice distance apart now. Yeah everyone is really nice distance apart. I wonder how like in the night how close we would have got. Well everyone would have done the same thing except that motorboat. The motorboat is the one that will do different stuff. Thank you so much. It says when you anchor not to you know pick an area with motorboats because they do different things but actually they're doing kind of the same stuff so yeah. Like one I was going to say to you we should just do watch so at least one of us can just like sleep consistently. Yeah. It probably would have been more efficient for both of us for like one of us just to stay awake and then one of Who needs sleep? What are you doing Zach? Warming up my arms to pull up the anchor. A bit stiff from yesterday. It's now quarter past nine still too early to leave right now. We need to be back for about 11 for low tide so what we're gonna do in the meantime is we're gonna splice. Yeah there's a knot there so cut it and then burn it. Seacocks done. Boils checked. Bow thrusters on. Hatches are closed. Missing anything? Boil. Radio on. Weather's fine. Radio marina. Don't want to do that yet. Make sure we've got fuel. We've got fuel. All lights are off. Bow thruster is on. Disconnect from shore power. All hatches are shut. Turn water on. Turn autopilot on. Doesn't matter we don't need it. Sail cover's off. They're already off. Halyards on. Yeah that's fine. Yeah can you pass me the other VHF? Yeah you might as well. It'll point us into wind. Water was coming out the exhaust yeah? Yeah. I think I've sorted out the... You sorted it? It looks so much better. Yeah I had a little fiddle with all the lines attached. Looks so much better Okay forwards a bit more. Okay it's up. Yeah it's dailing itself. Autopilot? Who needs autopilot?