Well we watched the swell go down over the past few days and we were hopeful that a high tide around noon conditions would be good enough for us to escape. Murray and Collette our helpful guides over the bar gave us the go ahead to raise our anchors and proceed to the entrance.

So I started cranking the windless, careful not to loose the handle again. When we had about 25 feet left to pull up it tightened and pulled the bow down towards the water. The anchor was stuck on something! Damn! Sherrell drove the boat around like mad. We did circles, we backed up, we rammed the thing. About the only thing that seemed to happen was our bow dipped towards the water with all the tension of us pulling on that anchor. About 10 minutes into this struggle I decided I'd better dive down and see what's going on and get it free. We're not going to miss our exit window!

Sherrell told Murray and Collette we were having trouble while I put on the snorkel gear. The other boats were already underway, so we felt the panic set in. I dove down into the murky black water and once I got my face up to where the anchor was supposed to be (visibility was about 1 foot), I saw the anchor was really buried deep. After some digging I found the shackle, so I new I was getting closer. A few more dives on it and I had dug a small pit. Now the only thing we could do is use the boat engine to really try to crank it out.

I climbed back in the boat and Sherrell gunned it again. We dipped the bow down and puuuullled, but no joy. So we tried again at a little different angle. Suddenly we were free! I cranked the sucker up, tied everything down, closed all the hatches, and we floored it to catch up to the group.

Fortunately the swell was small and we climbed a few 3 footers on our way out, but no waves broke on us. Man were we glad to have made it out! Bahia del Sol was a great place and we had a lot fun there, but we were ready to go.

We had a great sail for about 14 miles to some unknown beach. The next major anchorage is too far to arrive in daylight. So we are at this VERY rough roadstead and in the morning we'll bolt out of here for somewhere nice.

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