Back To Raiatea

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Position: 16 degrees, 44 minutes south; 151 degrees, 29 minutes west

Infrastructure on Raitea (note the kitty on the right)

Our Pareos

My Pareo (they are very comfortable)

(Sitting here in my new dress…I bought a Parea in Tahiti. Men and women wear them in the islands. They are very comfortable. Google it to see. It’s basically a big sheet that you can wear many different ways and I’m enjoying its comfort). We are back on Raiatea. After a pretty calm couple of days, we’re back in the “wind events”. Today we woke on our mooring to 25 knots of wind and two plus foot waves. We were protected by the reef, but it was a mile away, so the “set” was far enough to produce some good size wind waves. We took our time having our coffee because we knew once we left it would be slammin’ all the way down to Raiatea. Turned out to be right as we saw gusts into the mid-thirties that heeled the boat even though we were motoring (most of the trip was into the wind).

The smartest thing we did yesterday was put the dinghy away before dinner. If we had left it out overnight we would have had a very difficult time this morning putting the engine away and getting it aboard. As it was, it was so windy and the waves so high, we had to sacrifice part of our mooring lines. Since hearing several stories of broken mooring lines, we have taken to tying bowlines into the moorings instead of just putting the line through the mooring and then back from one cleat around to the other side of the boat. This is the most elegant way to do it, but two things happen: It introduces friction and wearas the bow line goes through the mooring attachment and if your line chafes and breaks you have no back up. This is exactly what happened last week in Bora Bora to Blue Rodeo. Their mooring line chafed in fairly high winds and the boat went walkabout while they were ashore. If not for some of their neighbors (and Super Pedro- see our blog titled “Bowling Alley” from late June) there would have been a high price to pay and some changed cruising plans.

Anyway, we put two lines out- one from the port cleat and one from starboard. Each tied with a bowline to the mooring. That way we have a safety. The only issue is getting the bowline untied in high winds. You can’t. The boat is pulling too hard to get close enough to the mooring which is underwater from the force. Soooo…our exit included a carefully timed cutting of the lines. We basically left about ten feet of line from each side of the boat on the mooring instead of trying some heroic method of untying the lines in the big wind. First the port side since I wanted Charisma to “tack” over onto starboard for our departure. There was another boat on our starboard side and the wind was such that I knew when we untied we would be blown a ways before we could develop enough speed to gain steerage. Sure enough, we “tacked” to starboard, Ann cut the line and we got blown sideways a boat length at full throttle before I had steerage. We definitely would have hit the boat on our other side. As it was, we came closer to the reef than I would have normally liked. Oh well, all in a day in the islands…

We wanted to come back to the east side of Raiatea since that’s where all the services are but it’s blowing so hard (and will continue to do so for a few days) that we ducked over to the NW side where we’re having a very calm night. The island is blocking the wind. The downside is we’re going to have to hitch a ride to the other side and then a taxi back when we go into town for provisions to get us from here to Tonga or thereabouts. In other words three month’s worth of food. Actually we have a lot of it, but we’re perilously low on beer and we need some fresh veggies and fruits. We also need to officially check out with the Gendarmes. Seems amazing we’ve been here for three months. We’ll miss French Polynesia, but are looking forward to new adventures as we move west toward New Zealand.

Moving On (Reluctantly)

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Position: 16 degrees, 37 minutes south; 151 degrees, 26 minutes west

Tahaa is in the foreground. We were anchored off the little island (motu) at the bottom of the picture)

Water doesn't get too much clearer than this

A beautiful day. Hard to leave this spot.

Sailing down the Tahaa coast inside the reef

This morning was one of the most beautiful mornings we have had on the trip. We were anchored in the idyllic spot we have described, flanked by stunning views of Bora Bora, ice-blue water and reefs with incredible fish (and a huge moray eel and octopus). This morning we woke with not a breath of wind. When I came up on deck, I could look down and see our anchor chain and even the anchor itself in 20 or 30 feet of water. Most amazingly though was the dinghy. We left it in the water trailing out behind Charisma and when I look out at the dinghy it seemed to be floating in the air. The water was so clear I could see below it and it just wasn’t clear what was holding it up! Very cool.

It was only very reluctantly that we hoisted anchor on this day, but we had to move on. Our stay in Polynesia is about up and it’s time to provision and check out, so we had to move on. So…up anchor, thread out way through the bommies on the way back into the main channel around the island and off we go. Our goal on this day was to get halfway around Tahaa to a pearl farm where we could pick up a mooring, tour the pearl farm, hopefully stay the night and then back to Raiatea tomorrow to provision and check out with the Gendarmes.

It was a beautiful day. The wind was light and against the direction we needed to go, so we motored. Turned out to be a good thing since we really needed to make water and charge the batteries-both need a little extra “oomph” than just the solar panels can provide in the tropics when the afternoon clouds show up.

So, we found the pearl farm around noon. We tied up to the mooring and made lunch figuring they might be closed during the lunch hour as happens frequently in Polynesia (many stores are actually closed from 12-2:30). After we had lunch, we jumped in the dinghy and headed in. What we found were five ferocious looking dogs barking at us from the dock. Bad marketing I’d say. Anyway, I convinced Ann that she should step up and make friends with the doggies who were snarling and drooling at the prospect of biting us. She bravely stepped on the dock assuming that it would be poor retail etiquette to have dogs that bite customers. She was ultimately proven correct even though there were a couple of tense moments. Anyway, after making a tenuous friendship with the big doggies, we moved (cautiously) toward some of the buildings seeking someone who might be in charge of the pearl farm. It was deserted. We walked around and all the buildings were closed and the “boutique” was locked. Oops, it was Sunday. Just when we assumed we would have to go back to the boat, a nice young woman came out of somewhere and said that they were open. She called into one of the huts and out came a nice young man who said, “We’re open, we’re open!”

To shorten the story, it turns out they are not really open all the time. Only when people show up! As they explained, it keeps their costs down to not have to be open all of the time. We got a tour of the place and a demonstration of how they “make pearls”. During the demo, we also learned that they couldn’t actually make a profit here on Tahaa farming pearls so now they are just a demo place and boutique. Disappointing, but the guy was very nice and we had fun seeing how they “culture” pearls. He then opened the boutique (which was disappointing in lack of selection). I ended up buying a loose pearl for Ann. It was a very nice one, but more as a “thank you” for them opening for a private tour and as it turned out, letting us use their mooring for the night.

So, we’re in this bay with no other boats in sight because the bay is too deep to anchor in (hence the mooring-we’re in over 100 feet) It’s actually very peaceful and nice. It’s also raining as the weather is changing, so kind of nice to be tied to a mooring instead of hanging out on the reef waiting for possible nighttime winds to come that threaten to drive us onto the reef.

Tomorrow we go the last 10 miles around the island of Tahaa and back to Raiatea to provision for our next leg into the Cook Islands. We’re working on our list, but I can tell you beer, wine and rum are at the top of the list. Ahh, the essential commodities!

Just Hangin’ At Tahaa

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Anchored at Tahaa

SnorkelAnn!

 

SnorkelAnn and the YellowFish

Snorkeling!

Sea Anenome

Another view of Bora Bora in the background from the snorkeling spot at Coral Gardens off Tahaa

Mike from Astarte: "Is it time for a beer yet?"

This spot is so beautiful we decided to stay one more day now that the wind has dropped.

The colors are so amazing. We’re anchored just inside a deep blue line (i.e. about 50 feet) in 17 feet of water (cerulean blue) and just 20 feet behind us the water turns almost clear in six feet over sand. We look over that very pale blue color toward a motu with shimmering green coconut palms. All of this is set against deep blue sky with the distant purple outline of Bora Bora’s distinctive double peaked mountains about 10 miles away. Amazing that we’re here.

Much of today was just relaxing. We did a lot of lounging and reading, but also made time for two snorkel trips out to the reef. The highlights included an octopus and the biggest moray eel I have ever seen. I know water magnifies things, but this eel’s head was at least 10 inches tall and I could see it snake at least five feet back into the rock it was under. Just huge. When it came out to say; “hello”, I couldn’t get away from the rock fast enough. I don’t like eels. I haven’t had enough experience with them to know what to expect and they are so huge they could do a lot of damage if they wanted to.

Don and Deb from Buena Vista showed up in the afternoon and dropped anchor behind us. After they set we went for an afternoon dive, then just soaked up the sun the rest of the day. The evening included a pot-luck on Astarte with Buena Vista and Ladybug. Great fun and lots of laughs. We have to leave tomorrow and head back toward Raietea as Monday is our check out day for French Poly. Sad to go, but hope to continue friendships that we’ve made here on across the Pacific as we move west toward New Zealand.

A Blog A Day Is All We Ask

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Position: Off the island of Tahaa (16 degrees, 36 minutes south; 151 degrees 33 minutes west)

View from our "backyard" at Tahaa

Another sunset with Bora Bora in the background

Tonight is Ann’s turn to blog. I was thinking of this blog post prior to getting on Facebook today (yes, we still have internet access for a few more days – until we leave Bora Bora, and so I partake!) and seeing the devastating posts about the horror in the movie theater in Aurora, CO. My oldest brother and his kids live IN Aurora. Panic. It seemed like any try on Facebook to connect to my Colorado relatives was blocked – probably by the massive influx of attempted communication to that area. Thankfully when I did connect, via my sister in Southern California, I was informed that my family is fine. God bless them but special prayers to those that lost family. So why do I mention this? Because we are constantly being ribbed by other cruisers who are amazed that we put such an effort into posting daily blogs. And we wanted to let you all know that we do it not to brag about where we are or what we are doing, but because it keeps us connected to all of you. Yes, we are half a world away but we think of you constantly and want to share this with all of you. AND it helps us realize how fortunate we are to be here. Even days that seem “vanilla” have a special flavor to them and our blogging helps us appreciate it. So we do it because we love you! Now on to a lighter note – the silly side of cruising. The fun part of this trip is the people we are meeting. A very unique group of people with incredible senses of humor and endurance. I’d like to share the current “joke” going around right now. Anchored just off of us is a boat that has adopted a new name: Charisma Victoria. I mentioned them last night. As we approach our 90 day visa limit in French Polynesia we are forced to check out of the country. Sometimes boats are not totally ready to go, as in the case of Charisma Victoria. So our friends have adopted a new name to stay under the radar of the authorities. They even adopted new individual names: Mini-Ann and Mini-Bob. We’d like to say that we are honored by the use of our names. However what happens is we can’t make our check out date and need to go under cover? Our friends on Astarte have come up with our incognito name: Charisma Tinkerbell! I was thinking Charisma Never Never Land. Charisma Tinkerbell will be easier to say on the VHF. As it is we all giggle when we hear Charisma Victoria hailing us. Oh, and today’s update – we spent the day hoping that the wind would not increase too much and get Charisma hobby-horsing at anchor as we only have about 3 feet under our keel at this anchorage. So we stayed aboard. The early morning brought a pair of manta rays swimming past. Later in the afternoon was Michael from Astarte swimming past looking for the anchor that must have been attached to the chain that Bob found around the bommie we caught in our initial anchoring yesterday. Later I polished the stanchions and attempted to remove the green beard that grows at our waterline while Bob dove the anchor again. To his surprise it had dragged about 7 feet! But the good news was that it really buried itself this time – and straight in too! We also enjoyed some “book time” and played a game of cribbage. If I lose a third game in a row to Bob I may stop playing it altogether. Anyone for Chinese Checkers? Tomorrow promises to be a calmer day so a big snorkel trip is planned with Astarte and Charisma Victoria and then maybe a move to the Pearl Farm around the tip of the island. Of course, we will be thinking of you while we do this; think of us too!

North Side Of Tahaa

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Position: 16 degrees, 36 minutes south; 151 degrees 33 minutes west

 

View of Bora Bora in the distance from where we're anchored

Sunset with Bora Bora in the background our first night at Tahaa

(It’s pretty cool where we’re anchored right now. We’re a half mile off the island in about 12 feet of water up against the reef. In the distance, on the island we can hear drums beating marking the rhythm to the hulu dancing. I get the same feeling listening to this and seeing the surf, sky and stars as Captain Cook must have when he first showed up those hundreds of years ago)

We had a lovely sail today. We headed north on the passage inside the reef on the eastern side of Raiatea, up the island and then across to Tahaa and up the west side inside its reef. Two things made it great; it was flat water all the way and it was downwind. After pulling up anchor at about 0830, we unfurled the jib and headed downwind with just the jib at 5 plus knots all day long. All we had to do was watch for the channel markers which were spread about every mile or so and watch out for reef markers which from time to time were right in the middle of the channel. You definitely had to be on your toes or you could hit a reef doing five knots, but for the most part it was just a tremendous cruise.

We followed Astarte and Ladybug (AKA Charisma – Victoria -once you check out of French Polynesia as they did, you need to travel incognito and they decided that there were enough Charismas around that they could just “blend in”) followed us. Each vessel was about a half hour behind the next so we were in very loose formation. We ended up sailing 17 miles and are now in a spectacular spot with a view of Bora Bora in the distance. At twilight the view was amazing. Many shades of blue with the outline of Bora Bora in the distance and the outline of a motu with coconut palms tracing the sky in the foreground.

We’re anchored at the northern end of Tahaa right up against a sandy reef. When I say “right up against” I mean it! Both Ann and I dove the anchor to make sure it was dug in sufficiently. The anchor is in about 25 feet of water. Charisma is in about 12 feet of water, but her rudder (at the back of the boat) is only about three feet off the bottom. We’re in the “blue water”, but right up against the light blue water. It’s amazing to look at. The “treachery” of these waters was apparent when I dove the anchor the first time. What I saw was the chain wrapped around a “bommie” (a big coral rock that sticks up and can pierce the bottom of your boat). There was another big chunk of chain also wrapped on the bommie from someone who had been here before and had to cut theirs loose to get away. I debated leaving the anchor “as is” but decided it was a bad omen to allow it to be wrapped on a piece of coral that had a broken chain already wrapped on it. So…after diving the anchor the first time, we pulled in the anchor chain and moved a bit, then reset. Now we’re out of bommie territory. I also have a float on the chain to hold it off the bottom and above the bommies if we swing.

So, that’s our day. We’re also starting to plan our post-Polynesian trip since we have to exit these waters within the next week having been here for our allowable 90 days. Wow, it went fast. We’re currently thinking of the following rough itinerary: First the Cooks: Aitutaki and/or Raretonga, then Palmerston and finally Nuie. Then possibly Samoa if the weather permits and Tonga. That’s today’s plan anyway.

Tomorrow, weather permitting we’re going to dinghy across the shallows to a spot that’s supposed to be great for snorkeling. It’s called the “Emerald Garden”. We’ll see and report back in the evening.

Moving To Raietea

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Position: 16 degrees, 49 minutes south; 151 degrees, 21 minutes west

We’re currently anchored just inside the reef at Raiatea. It’s both unnerving and spectacular. The ocean waves of up to 10 feet and the winds in the low 20’s are hitting the reef and making for a lot of noise. However, all the energy gets expended when the wave breaks on the reef, so it’s relatively calm where we’re anchored. We’re on a “shelf” between the shallow reef and a deeper inner reef passageway that goes all the way around the island. The reef protects the outside and is very shallow and the passageway is like a lagoon around the island protected by the reef. The shelf is a very narrow transition zone that allows us to anchor in reasonable depth. As we approached the spot we wanted to use, the depth went from 100 feet (deep blue) to 20 feet (turquoise) to 10 feet (light green/blue) in about two boat lengths. We dropped anchor in 20 feet, but once the chain was out, Charisma was sitting in 45 feet (the anchor is still at 20 feet) and a boat length behind us is 100 feet. The anchor alarm is set, but less of an issue over here since if we drag it will be into deeper water in the lagoon and we’ll have plenty of time to do something about it versus over at Huahine were we would drag right onto the reef if the anchor let go.

We had a nice sail over the 20 mile channel between Huahine and Raiatea. Deep blue water, 10-15 knots of wind and four foot waves. We did 5 knots most of the way with just the jib (yes, I’m lazy and didn’t want to put up the main for such a short sail).

Coming through the pass was an experience. It’s pretty narrow and the surf breaks aggressively very near the boat on both sides. You feel like if you are a few feet to either side, you’ll run up on the rocks, but in reality there’s probably 100 yards of room. Still, not much when you’re talking about powerful Pacific waves crashing down.

Once anchored, I dove on the anchor. Not as solid as I’d like to see. It’s laying on its side, but we backed down very hard on it and it held. We have a lot of chain out so we should be good.

Once we were set, we joined up with the other two boats here-Astarte and Ladybug and went ashore to see Marae Taputaputea, which is held to be; “the most important religious and historical site in Polynesia”. Indeed it was very impressive. The number and size of the rocks that were brought here and put into place to make the platforms and monuments where religious ceremonies were held centuries ago, is truly amazing. After visiting the site, we walked around the little village and then back to the boats for…what else at that time of day? Charismas! Yes, everyone came back for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. A lot of fun sitting in the cockpit watching the sunset and swapping stories. Ann is cooking a light dinner of scrambled eggs and bacon and then we’ll sit in the cockpit listening to the wind and waves crashing on the beach before crashing ourselves into the bunk.

Another fun day. Did I say “fun”? Yes, we are having fun again now that the “wind event” has passed.

event” has passed.

Snorkel Day

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Today’s big event was a trip over to the reef to go snorkeling. We picked up Chris and Rani on Ladybug and went by Orcinius and The Rose. They came in their dinghy and we all went over to the the reef for some “fish sighting”. There were lots of fish, a couple sharks and I saw a couple Octopus. One that everyone was looking at was just hunkered down in a piece of coral. But I lucked out and ran across another that didn’t see me. He was meandering across the bottom from coral to coral and changing colors along the way. When he was over the sand, he turned white with some black flecks. When he was over the purple coral, he turned purple and when over some other coral, he turned brownish. Amazing to watch. He literally would “disappear” into his environment. But, now that I have a visual image of what he looks like, I can find more. Just like some of the seashells that we look for (especially the cowries). Until you’ve seen one, you can’t find them, but once you have the sight picture, you can see them everywhere.

We might leave for Raitea tomorrow, but we might not. Orcinius and The Rose want us to stay another day. Among other things, they are going to dive one of the passes and Ann and I can act/snorkel above them as safety guides. Plus it’s really beautiful here and why move?

We’ll see.

Simple Monday

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Doesn't get much clearer than this.

No big deal today. Finally got some moderate weather. It was only blowing 20 knots most of the day. We went ashore and walked a couple miles. Felt good to stretch our legs.

Happy hour with about 10 boats from the anchorage at the open air bar right next to the dinghy dock. In fact, the dock was full, so we tied to the rocks 10 feet from one of the tables and climbed up and ordered our beer. Really fun and then the evening was topped off with fresh Mahi dinner with Orcinius who got in around 1630 and who caught the mahi about an hour out. Really good! Had a wonderful time catching up with them.

Looking forward to some snorkling tomorrow, but we’ll miss Buena Vista and Astarte who are moving over to Raitea. We hope to catch up with them soon.

Nice to have a quiet day with no adventure for a change.

The Winds Abate (somewhat)`

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Had we known the winds would have eased a bit in the afternoon, we would have waited to re-anchor. But…in the cosmic trade off between another night of dread over the Bad Ferry versus the hassle and potential embarrassment of trying to re-anchor in a half gale, we choose the embarrassment. The Bad Ferry is very big and very real.

So this morning, after sufficient coffee, we got ready to haul anchor. Taking our time so as to not get wound up into a frenzy and make a mistake, we slowly got ready. All the while watching the anemometer reading 25, 26, 27, 28 knots. This wasn’t going to be fun, but at least it wasn’t reading 37 this morning. The other issue was; if we move, what will the bottom be like? Will the anchor chatter along on hard coral while I’m paying out 150, 170 and then a last ditch 200 feet of chain trying to get it to dig in and then not? The result of that would be cranking up all that chain a second time and trying again. Ugh.

We waited through a couple squalls complete with rain and then saw a window and pulled up the anchor. Once up, the wind came up again but we were committed. With the engine at about 1500 RPM we were barely making forward progress against the wind. We were just concentrating on keeping the bow upwind as we crept forward as far as we could go to the line of boats in front of us. The plan was to (as we later told Don on Buena Vista – the boat immediately upwind of us); “put our bowsprit into Buena Vista’s cockpit” to get as far upwind as we could before dropping the hook. This was the only way we could stay out of the way of the Bad Ferry who jealously guarded the pass into Fare (the village we’re anchored off of). As an aside-later in the day when we saw Don he (in his low-key way and characteristic Aussie accent) said; “I was having coffee and saw your bowsprit right off the end of my boat and thought; ‘oh, right, they’re re-setting their anchor then'”. Thank you Don for being so calm and friendly.

A couple boat-lengths from Buena Vista, struggling to keep the bow into the wind, the gusts approaching the “difficult” stage again, we were determined. I thought of driving away and coming back around, but something said; “you can do it”- so kept going. Then with the bowsprit literally feet away from Buena Vista, we put the engine in neutral and I jumped up to the bow and dropped the anchor. Fast. The wind had grabbed the bow and was pulling Charisma around and downwind. We really needed the anchor to grab on the first try, otherwise, we’d just end up back in the pass where we were in the first place. The bow swung down, the chain flew out. Counting off the markers on the chain: 70 feet, 120 feet, 130 feet and the magic 150 feet that would put us close to a 5:1 ratio on chain to depth. This is when the anchor will dig in deep if you’re in sand which is what we were hoping. I had my foot on the chain feeling whether it was bouncing along on the bottom or whether it was grabbing the sand. I could feel it start to dig. Then some dragging, but the bow was starting to come around. Some more dragging and then whomp, it grabbed. Just then a large series of gusts hit and swung the bow first right-40 degrees and the boat heeled over up through head to wind and over to the right followed by heeling over as the anchor held, then left, then right and back again. All we could at this point was just sit and watch and check the chain to see if we were holding. Amazingly it all looked good. The gusts were so strong we didn’t even have to reverse the engine to set the anchor. The wind had far more power than the prop would have brought to bear. We did it. First try. Yay!

The other part of this whole maneuver is something all cruisers find which is that this is potentially the morning entertainment for the anchorage. As you probably know from reading this blog, this kind of stuff can make for great stories that get told over and over among the fleet. We all hope not to be one of these stories. On this day, we avoided being the day’s entertainment. I will proudly quote Chris on Ladybug (who was watching, no doubt secretly hoping for a little entertainment as-I admit-we all do) who said later over the radio; “Masterful job anchoring”. Thanks Chris!

The rest of the day was mostly spent waiting for the wind to die down. After lunch, it dropped into the teens for the first time in days and we launched the dinghy. No more bumming rides from the folks who got here before us and had theirs in the water. *****Just as I’m writing this in the evening after dinner, some BIG gusts blew through and Ann and I went up on deck and put a 5 gallon water jug in the bow of the dinghy to add some weight and keep the wind from flipping it in the night as it sits tied to the stern. I also put away my snorkel gear lest it blow off the deck in the breeze****

The other highlight today was our delayed Bastille Day celebration aboard Astarte. Michael and Barbara hosted Ann and me, Chris and Rani from Ladybug and Don and Deb from Buena Vista to the afternoon “Let them eat cake” party. A red, white and blue (for the French flag) chocolate bundt cake with chocolate syrup and rum poured over the top. Yeeeum! Chris and Rani brought Tahitian coffee with brandy. As you might guess, there were more than a few laughs as we all sat and enjoyed a good get-together. A very good time was had by all.

Now here we sit. Much more comfortably than last night since we’re now anchored up and out of the pass. It’s narrow, so the Bad Ferry still might take a swipe at us, but now there’s another boat that actually sticks out farther than us, so we feel pretty good. I also dove the anchor and am happy to report it is buried all the way in the sand. I can only see about 2 inches of the top of the shank so feel pretty good about not dragging. Nevertheless, not knowing the texture of the sand or whether there’s hard coral underneath we have the anchor alarm set. It we drag further than 130 feet it will go off.

The wind is supposed to go down tonight, so we’re hoping to get to go ashore tomorrow. Here’s hoping for a fun day now that we’ve spent the last three days solid, sitting on the boat. I mean, boats are fun, but let’s have some balance here. 😉

Bastille Day (in French Polynesia

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Read on to find out about "Saving Ladybug"

More about saving Ladybug, below...

Our reward for the rescue (read on for the story)

Probably would be fun, but we can’t get ashore. We can’t even launch the dinghy it’s so windy. I have to admit there are some “not fun” cruising days. This has been one. Memorable, but not fun. Exciting, but not fun. We keep repeating the mantra my sister sent a while back; “The difference between adventure and ordeal is attitude”. We’re keeping a good attitude, but it’s not all fun 😉

Let’s take a look at where we left off yesterday: ” Tomorrow: Our nice friends who invited us to dinner so we didn’t have to cook after our tiring passage and the huge supply ship that comes in here and misses us by about 70 yards in the dark”. Ha! That’s nothing compared to today! But let’s talk about these before getting to today.

It was soooo nice when we got in here on the 12th after what turned out to be almost 24 straight hours including the last couple of stressful ones, to get a call on the VHF right after we anchored with an invitation to dinner-and by the way; “don’t bring anything, we’ll take care of it”. Hallelujah! Our friends Don and Deb on Buena Vista and Michael and Barbara on Astarte knew we were exhausted and came to the rescue. Great job guys and thanks! That meant we were able to take a quick shower (i.e. jump in the water, get out, soap up and jump back in, then a rinse with some fresh water to get the salt off), have a bite and get a couple hours of much needed sleep. And I might add dinner was great and we had a wonderful time with really nice people.

About that supply ship. It’s ironic. The name “supply ship” makes it sound like this is some huge port or something, but on these islands, the supply ship is the only means people have for fresh supplies and other stuff like mail, fuel, etc. There is no “Port” in the usual sense. These ships are what you might call tramp steamers. They don’t need a port, they just come in through the reef passes and maneuver into what we all call the dinghy docks. It’s literally where we tie our dinghies during the day, and they are bringing in 200 foot ships. They have their own cranes to offload stuff and do an amazing job of pulling up to the tiniest quays where there’s suddenly lots of action. Pickups show up and the cranes offload directly to the pickups and off the stuff goes. When the ship is gone-it usually is only around for an hour or two at the most-you’d never know there was even a place for a ship to dock. It’s back to mostly beach, coconut palms, and jungle with a street or two and some huts, a couple restaurants a store and maybe a post office.

Anyway, the entry through the reef is very narrow and there are about 20 boats anchored in here just inside the reef, which is close to as many as will reasonably fit. After our engine experience we were too tired to do a lot of due diligence over where to anchor, we just took a likely looking spot behind one of the other boats. Unfortunately when we anchored we dragged a bit before the anchor caught and since then the wind has come up to almost epic proportions (we saw a 37 knot gust this afternoon and 25 knots seems “calm”). The combination has our anchor rode stretching out into the pass in the big gusts. The pass is pretty narrow, so when a large ship comes in, it’s a very close fit between Charisma and the other side of the channel which is a reef with 4 foot depth. We’ve had three supply ships come by in the last two days.

Now you might ask; “how did you anchor in the channel, dummy?” Well, that would be a good question. However, it’s not hard to do since there is no channel marker on the port side of the pass where we anchored. And there were a bunch of other boats here, so we just came up behind them and dropped the hook. It was only after the first ship came past and I almost fainted as I looked up 50 feet at the bridge and waved to the officer who was looking down at me, that I looked at the GPS and saw that there SHOULD be a port side marker. It’s on the chart, just not in the water. We’re anchored just inside of it. Whoops. I thought that first experience was bad until later last night the inter-island ferry boat came in. He was clearly miffed that we were in the channel and “brushed us back”. On purpose. He did the same to about five other boats up the way as well. Basically we saw him alter course towards us as he came up the pass and miss us by, oh, about 30 feet. Sounds like a lot until you consider he’s 150 feet long, 50 feet high, weighs about 150 tons and is powered by I don’t know how many thousand horsepower engines. We call him the “Bad Ferry”.

Problem right now is that it’s blowing so hard we don’t dare move for fear of dragging on a new anchor setting like our neighbors did yesterday and our new neighbors did today.

And did I mention, it’s been windy. Let me describe exactly what that means: -The boat is constantly tipping over 20 degrees and we don’t have any sails up! -You can’t stand up on deck without holding onto something to keep from getting blown over the side -You live in constant fear that someone up wind of you is going to suddenly come loose from their hold and drift down and hit you, or… -You will come loose and drift onto the reef which is downwind And did I mention it rains a lot in the squalls?

Dragging anchor happens very quietly (at first) and suddenly. Yesterday the couple was down below in their cabin, probably having breakfast and the boat just started floated away. Unfortunately for them they really didn’t know what they were doing and had a terrible time re-anchoring which I described yesterday.

Today however, our good friends on Ladybug II were right next to us and then they weren’t! It was early afternoon and they were ashore-their boat was NOT occupied. Ann and I were playing a game of cribbage while having lunch. We finished the game and I got up to look around and to my surprise Ladybug was not where she should be out our starboard cabin porthole. I went up into the cockpit and whoa!, there she went. Since Chris and Rani were ashore, I quickly called Don on Buena Vista and asked for some help. He came over in his dinghy (ours has still not been launched due to the high winds) and we both went over to Ladybug. Mike from Astarte jumped in his dinghy as well and came over. We three “captains” all got on board and talked about what we should do. (Later, after all was settled down there were many jokes about three captains all disagreeing on what should be done) In the real life situation though, we decided pretty quickly that rather than “hold the fort” and wait for Chris and Rani to be found, we should probably raise the anchor and move the boat. Not a simple thing since all our boats are pretty different. Sometimes you can’t even operate the starter switch on someone else’s boat. But between the three of us we each were familiar with a part of their boat and were able to sort things out and move the boat to a safer place away from the reef. Fear of dragging is one of the reasons I’m not being quick to re-anchor. There are so few good spots left, our current spot has been “bomber” in some huge gusts and the wind today has not let up. Hopefully tomorrow we can re-anchor as both Ann and I are getting tired of waiting for the Bad Ferry to come back. I did call the most recent supply ship on the VHF when he was a couple miles out and advised him that we were infringing on the pass and unable to re-anchor from our spot on the north side of the pass and he was very nice about it. It’s still unnerving though seeing that huge thing bearing down on us through the pass. Even when you know they know you’re there and they are keeping 50 yards off-it’s still a huge ship relative to us (AIS said he was 210 feet)! We are hoping tomorrow brings lighter winds. Today’s winds have been consistently 25 knots and above. We almost don’t even jump to look at the digital read-out any more because the big gusts are no longer unusual. Barbara and Michael on Astarte invited several of us over for a Bastille Day celebration this evening (“Let them eat cake” – and so Barbara made one to celebrate) that unfortunately has been postponed to tomorrow. They realized many of us would be nervous about leaving our boats, even while staying in the anchorage, so plans were shifted.