But I emerged victorious!

Went out both days this weekend, had a great time. Went to pull my my anchor on Sunday night to head home and no luck. It was strange though, I could pull it up just enough to loop around the cleat one loop. I did this for about 45 minutes slowly getting not very far. I pull the boat around. Get a little more slack. The strange thing is, I'm moving in a side to side radius of about 75 yards. My buddy and I are doing everything trying to get this rope up. We engineered a ratcheting system out of ropes using the front and side cleats. At this point I've taken a layer of skin off my hands and got some bloody knuckles, but I won't let this lake steal another anchor.

I decide to make a move for the shore line and suddenly get all the slack in the world until I get to the chain. We are both pulling on it as hard as we can and then we see what we're caught on...an old 3/4" dock cable that apparently spans from the shore to AT LEAST the middle of the lake.

I pull even more and my buddy pulled the cable up and over the claws of the anchor. Then I hear someone yelling from above, "DID YA GET IT?" Some guy in one of the houses was watching this hour and a half production. After I wave the anchor at him, he says: "THERE'S OLD DOCK CABLES EVERYWHERE AROUND THERE. MOST PEOPLE JUST GIVE UP, CONGRATULATIONS!"

Things that would be handy to know before hand

Moral of the story, don't go very far in to Devil's Cove. Especially nowhere near that dock with the four sliding garage doors on each side on the left side of the cove as you are heading in to it! I hear there's some old ass cables that snag anchors. 

Ha, I wouldn't go that far! I think someone needs a longer track record to be considered a veteran. But it's a good notch in the belt I suppose.

Good for you!   I'm glad you got it back.

Just be careful, I had a friend of a friend pull a cleat out of his front deck.    It wasn't very pretty.    Don't mean to knock Bayliner,  but it was a 90's model and didn't have much of a backing plate.

horns98 wrote on May 4^th, 2010 at 8:50pm:


It's pretty rare.  The backing plates are pretty flimsy though, and not exclusively with Bayliners.

You did know that Bayliners and Sea Rays come out of the same plant, right? 

Once again, not knocking Bayliner.........

I got a couple of buddies that are boat snobs.

My response is, "at least they are on the water".

Any boat beats....not having one in my book.

IMO, Bayliner makes one of the best entry level boats available......it was just a couple of years ago they had the $10K special (boat, motor, trailer).    You gotta start somewhere.

And what's this have to do with Devil's Cove and anchors?

I plead..........Guilty!

Major thread drift.

Bringing it back to topic.   Captain, just be careful using your cleats to power yank up an anchor.   

Another hint might be to not use your cleat at all when working an anchor out.   I'll take it off the cleat and tie it to the trailer winch strap "eyebolt".    There is a lot more support behind that connection.

Not only does it have more support but it also lessens the chance of a line snapping and coming back and biting someone.