All good stuff, thanks.

Challenges:

Even when able-bodied, hauling a 5-gallon bucket full of rope, anchor, and chain from cockpit to bow is an obstacle course of standing and running rigging. Can it be done? Of course. Will it be done? Yep. Is there a better, easier, less risky, more-reliable-in-all-conditions solution? That's what I am working toward.

My immediate home waters are an estimated 1,000 miles of Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta. These largely narrow and twisting sloughs feature murky water most of the year and little or no navigation aids, except for the two major deep water ship channels going to Stockton and to Sacramento.

Depth is rarely over 20 feet with shallow flats, sand bars, between-island-berms, with floating and fixed debris all over. I have never seen a chart detailed enough to trust except in general terms for depths 10 feet and under.

The boat supposedly drafts 4.5 feet or 4 feet 5 inches, depending on the documentation. I will be carefully checking this, though the one inch difference is unlikely to be critical often.

In the ship channels I do not worry much about depth because they are dredged to about 40 feet (I only check the charts every 10 seconds or so). In the sloughs I rely heavily on prior experience, visual inspection of shore topography and shoreline vegetation - especially aquatic weeds, and checking the charts every 30 seconds or so.

Areas strange to me and night navigation out of the ship channel areas call for very slow passage, and probably little or no sailing.