Thanks for the tips. And don't worry about the anchor. The first thing I do when we get to an area where we want to dive is to swim down and secure the anchor. Since we are almost ALWAYS near live coral here, I always move the anchor to a spot where it won't damage anything live. I took that photo on the way down to grab the little anchor and move it. That's just where it initially landed. There are always a bunch of rocks laying around and I always jam the anchor flukes under one. If it's a sandy area I make sure it's well set.
In my 40 years working on and under the ocean, this is the first one of these little folding grapple anchors I have ever played with. All our other anchors are way too big for this little kayak. (Our other boat is presently a 25 ft. Contender with a 300 horse outboard.) But I do know a fair bit about anchors. I like Danforths, Fortress, and Bruce myself. And I do know about the trip lines. This little folding one we got from Hobie is kinda neat. I found out I can kinda "customize" it to fit into rock crevices. I folded up two of the flukes, and the other two fit perfectly into a crack between two rocks that kept it jammed right where I wanted it. Once I realized that I didn't have to depend upon the sand holding power of it, I saw all kinds of possibilities. You can fold up three of the flukes, and with one out it becomes an "L" shaped anchor and this can be braced between rocks, too.
We don't use SCUBA or our Hookah here when diving for conch. It's against the rules to use breathing apparatus when conch diving. And spears are prohibited ( with two exceptions allowing Hawaiian slings). This is probably why we have so many fish and conch here. So we are always diving in less than 20 ft. of water. I have been diving for 48 years. We use a Brownie's Third Lung hookah setup when we want to dive someplace deeper than 20 ft, or if we need to stay on the bottom. It supplies three divers to 60 ft, and will run almost four hours on a half gallon of gasoline. I love not having to deal with handling, filling, storing, inspecting tanks. And 95% of the stuff we want to look at underwater is shallower than 50 ft.
The last thing I do when we are done diving is to free up the anchor so we can pull it. But this little folding one is so light I just picked it up and carried it with me. In fact, when I pulled it free from the rock I had jammed it under, I noticed how fast I was drifting tied to the boat. So I stayed in the water, and this is what started the whole "Tow Job" thing in the first place. I carried the anchor, and when I saw something I wanted to check out I just dropped it, which stopped the boat. It was working well. I am still not clear on the tow point idea. I am thinking now maybe a slip link, like a carabiner, on a loop from one aka to the other. That would let the tow point slide along the rope as the boat turned.
If you are interested in conch, I have a bunch of posts on the blog that deal with them. Here's one
http://2gringos.blogspot.com/search/lab ... results=20 but there are a bunch more. Once you get on the blog just click on the 'conch' heading over on the right side.
Gringo under tow:
wow, am I anal about that anchor knot or what?
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Island life in the Devil's Triangle:
http://2gringos.blogspot.com/