There was no chance, however to strech our legs.
is it because it has only one clause there (sub) and was (verb) ? isn’t strech our legs a noun phrase?
why is strech not acting like a verb?
It’s an infinitive phrase not a noun phrase. You have to look at the head of the phrase to determine whether it’s a noun or a verb phrase. The head of your phrase is “to stretch” not “our legs”, which is just the direct object of “stretch”.
Infinitives don’t act as main/finite verbs.
There’s only one independent clause, yes.