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If your lines look seriously slack or your arrays are out of alignment, it’s possible that one or both of your anchors might have dragged. As your kelp grows, the drag force on the system increases, and anchors can move underwater, especially if they weren’t properly set to begin with. It’s also possible, that when you were setting your anchor there was an issue that you might not even notice until there is strain placed on the system and the anchor starts to drag. Using tag lines or other marking buoys that run directly from your anchor to the surface is very helpful in getting a visual of the placement of your anchors and identifying any change in position.

Sometimes you can solve anchor drag by pulling on the tensioning line, but other times the only way to inspect your anchors is to dive or use an ROV – or underwater remote camera – like the one that took this image, to see what’s going on. In some cases, you may have to retrieve the anchor and reset it.