Sailing at/over anchor

Last night was a sleepless, “lessons learned” one!  Anchored off the St. John’s River before the entrance to the ICW, we were subject to strong currents and gusty winds.  We saw similar conditions in Beaufort, NC, but this was a first!  The wind had caused us to sail over our anchor chain, which then actually got stuck around our keel.  We noticed the odd motion of the boat and lots of noise on the hull and went out in the dark, in a rain shower (of course!) to discover the issue.  With the chain wrapped around the keel, I couldn’t bring it up.  And with the weird motion, we thought we might also be dragging towards another boat.  After trying some rudder maneuvering we finally had to start the engine and drive out of it.  It worked and we settled out nicely.  But after that, I could barely sleep, agonizing over every sound.  

Today we did a little research and decided to go with a shorter snubber on our chain in these conditions.  We are back in the current tonight and that (plus a two-snubber bridle setup) seems to be doing the trick.  We have long snubber lines so we can actually tie them off at midship and gets lots of stretch in windy conditions.  We have a deep keel, so current really grabs us, but so does wind with our dodger and bimini.  I guess I’m happy to be learning these tricks now—we’ve been blissfully ignorant for the past decade. 🙄