Fidra Ahoy

The start of the big adventure! Rather more of an adventure than may have been wished for but more of that later!
The crew arrived at the appointed hour and off we set, waving goodbye to a tearful wife on the quayside.
On we surged, buoyed with excitement, close hauled against a fresh north-easter. And then, not far beyond Leith, suddenly a rumbling, louder and louder. Looking forward I could see the anchor chain leaping out the locker over the bows. Sheet!!! I depowered both sails and shot forward just as the last of the warp disappeared over the side leaving the whole thing tethered by a large knot fortuitously caught under the cleat and a small line to a fixing on the locker. And there we sat, arse end upwind, anchor presumably 60 metres to the rear and unable to turn or reverse (twin keels y’see). What to do.
Well, I got 20m of warp tied between the cleat and anchor line and then, cutting the small line got enough slack momentarily to get the boat swung round, head to wind and we started winding the anchor in.
That would have been terrific except that 10m of chain to go and it got very easy.... no anchor! How???
Oh well, I did have another, a monster of a thing in one of the lockers. Just the small matter of shackling it on and getting to the anchorage on the west side of Fidra before sunset, which we did. Just.
But snuggly anchored up in the lee of the island, I got out the aperitifs and starters while the pies heated in the oven and the crew began to unwind. And I began to unwind too.
Though later, in the darkness, listening to the anchor chain occasionally bang as it went slack and taut again, and the wind coming round to the north, I began to wind up again.
That’s the mark of real captaincy, right? Never mind trivial stuff like properly lashing down anchors.