tropical vacation. Yesterday is a great example of the difference
between staying at Le Meridien on the beach for a couple of weeks and
doing what we're doing. Plus, yesterday I made the first real mistake
since we left California.
After a 4-hour sail on Friday from Baie de Prony to Ile des Pins, we
arrived at the northernmost anchorage in Gadji. There's a small lagoon
surrounded by little islands. The whole lagoon is about 8 feet deep
and the entrance is a bit tricky. At times we had as little as 18"
under the deepest part of the boat. Running aground (hitting the
bottom) is one of the scariest things for a mariner, and our boat
isn't particularly suited to that sort of use. It was blowing about 25
knots as we came in, which makes it hard to go slow since the wind
tends to control the boat more than you. That's called not having
steerage.
Anyway, we pull into the anchorage uneventfully. There are 3 other
boats anchored here which makes it a bit crowded. It's the school
holidays so everyone with something floaty seems to be out cruising
for a couple of weeks. The wind was blowing out of the North so I
picked a spot towards the northern edge of the lagoon in order to be
blown towards the center, into deeper water. Sophie put out 200' of
chain so we could be sure of not dragging the anchor. We were in about
9 feet of water and the boat draws 4'3" (1.3m). The forecast was for
the wind to turn to the South during the night. I was aware of this
when we anchored, but for some reason I: a. Didn't really believe it
even though I knew it to be true, and b. I somehow got disoriented and
intuitively felt that when the wind was coming out of the South it
would have been coming from "that direction over there" which was
actually East. Oh great. Some mariner I am. I can't map the cardinal
points to the surrounding geography in my head, despite having paper
and digital charts right in front of me.
So, as predicted, the wind shifts 180º during the night and starts
blowing out of the South. Exactly out of the South at 20 knots, just
like they said. So instead of swinging directly away from the shore
and the patch of coral heads there, we swing right into it. Not only
that, but because I had laid out so much chain, we were way in towards
the shore.
I woke up at 0300 because something felt wrong, it was pouring rain
and the wind was up. When I got out on deck, there was enough
starlight/moonlight that I could clearly see what was going on. Huh,
I'll be damned, I said to myself. It's blowing out of the West! (nope,
it was the South). We still had 9 feet of water under the boat but
just off to Starboard, there were two little reefs. Occasionally we'd
drift over the closest one. The sounder showed that we still had 4
feet of water under the boat. The sounder is in the hull, a couple of
feet underwater, so that made 6 feet of depth on the reef. I checked
the tide table in the computer and factored in the discrepancy between
the computer tables and the locally published tables that I couldn't
find. Remember it's 3 A.M., pouring rain outside and I'm groggy and
half-naked. Not to give you the mental picture or anything, but for
some reason when you're scrambling around on deck, being half naked
makes a difference.
I set an alarm on the depth sounder and decided to wait it out,
thinking that we could have cleared the little reefs if we eventually
did go on them and that the wind would change and push us the other
way anyhow. I must have fallen asleep around 0530 and was then woken
up by a gentle scraping on the skeg right under my head. The skegs are
like fins that stick down in front of the propellers and rudders to
protect them in case of a collision. They're very strong and can
support the entire weight of the boat. I got up, went outside and saw
that we were in the same spot and were occasionally heading over the
closest little reef. I still had it in my head that the wind would
change and push us the other way. I'm all for being optimistic, but
talk about wishful thinking. After a few more minutes there was a
healthier "crunch" as the wind shifted slightly and put us on top of
the next reef. I shot outside, started an engine and started pulling,
full throttle in order to swing the boat away from that reef. I yelled
at sophie to get on deck and man the anchor windlass. I wanted to pull
the anchor up and change spots. There was daylight now, so it was safe
to move around.
The problem now was that the wind, still blowing out of the South at
20 knots, was pushing us down against the reefs. As I pulled the boat
away, she would turn sideways to the wind, vastly increasing the
pressure exerted by the wind, which pushed us back down. We tried
letting out a bunch of chain, turning the boat violently and trying to
move away from the reefs in forward gear. There wasn't enough room to
do that and the chain was rubbing hard against the Starboard bow. So I
told Sophie to grab the knife that's kept outside in the cockpit for
emergencies, let out all of the chain and cut the piece of line that's
ties the bitter end of the chain to the boat. So we dumped the anchor,
which is a pretty big deal. It's kind of like pushing the emergency
"eject" button. Now we were free to move away from the dangerous
reefs. We moved to the windward edge of the bay and just kept the boat
stationary with the engines. That's very tricky because unless you're
moving forward, this much wind tends to push you down violently, so
you're always turning hard left or hard right under full throttle just
to keep the boat straight. Sophie had to do this while I got one of
the backup anchors ready. These anchors are stowed away and they need
to be deployed manually since we don't have a dual anchor setup on the
bow. I think it was around this point that Massimo was nice enough to
hand me a pair of pants.
It took me about 15 minutes to get the new anchor all rigged up and
then I "tossed" it overboard–the anchor and 40' of chain weigh more
than a hundred pounds. Another hour of trials and tribulations with
this anchor and finally we had it rigged so that we both felt
comfortable with me leaving the boat to go get the primary anchor. The
problem was that if this temporary anchor broke or dragged, Sophie
would only have a few seconds before we were blown onto the other
boats anchored behind us. We left the engines running the whole time.
Massimo and I got in the dinghy and with the help of a neighbor we
recuperated the main anchor and 300' of chain (which weighs about 1200
lbs). The chain was wrapped around the reefs and was bar-tight. We
started at the bitter end and pulled it up into the dinghy. Luckily
the water was only 8 feet deep, so it was easy to dive to the bottom
and we were only ever pulling on 8 feet of chain by hand. We brought
the whole mess back to the boat and threaded it back into the
windlass, and into the chain locker. After that we ditched the
secondary anchor with a bumper tied to the end of the line and re-
anchored with the main anchor in a better spot more suited to
SOUTHERLY winds. One more trip out to recuperate the secondary anchor
and then another hour of work to clean up and put everything away.
By now it's 11:00 in the morning and the kids have been holed up in
the boat behaving themselves because of the emergency on board, so
they're ready to go nuclear. We take them out to a little beach that's
so beautiful, with such fluffy white sand, that the morning's drama
just melts away.
All in all, it wasn't really that big of a deal since there was no
damage to the boat and no one was hurt. It's just frustrating to me
since there was a lot of action required because of a simple
misjudgment on my part, all of which put the boat at significant risk.
We all need a good wakeup call from time to time.
It's still blowing 20kts-25kts out of the South, but we're going to
try to hunt some lobsters for lunch with our neighbors who are locals
and know all the good spots.
-maurice
