December 1, 2022

Last night my sister asked me how we managed to paint our anchor chain without getting paint all over the dock. Good question! After dragging an 85 lb anchor and 400 lbs of chain onto the dock, we measured and marked every 25 feet of chain. At each 25 feet of chain, we placed 2 feet of the chain into a box, and spray painted the 2 feet of chain in the box. That kept the paint off the dock. Also…the wind was light, so we didn’t have to worry about paint blowing onto the boat.

This is our color coding system: 25′ = blue. 50′ = green. 75′ = red. 100′ = yellow. Then the pattern starts over. 125′ = blue, etc. We have a total of 220′ of chain.

Everyone, including the Navy, has their own system of color coding their chain. Since I’m usually the one raising and lowering the anchor, I wanted a system that I knew I would easily remember. If Tim tells me to lower 50 feet of chain, I know exactly what I need to do.

Here’s a photo of our painting process. It took 24 hours for the paint to dry.

Painting the anchor chain

…and around the marina…

Here is Leigh Ann and Darrel’s dog Argus. He’s just a puppy, and already weighs about 100 lbs. He is a sweetie, and very obedient.

Argus

Dark clouds on the horizon. That huge catamaran is not ours! It’s parked in front of us.

Boats along the dock

Storm brewing