In the evening, Paul went out for a kayak paddle in the lagoon. He brought along his fishing pole. He joked that he was going to get a workout, if he hoped to paddle fast enough to troll.
Not five minutes after he left, a huge storm came upon us. We saw Paul was closer to shore, so we knew he'd be okay. The wind was blowing like crazy, enough to make smoke appear on the water. Then the anchor started to drag. The engine started like a champ (yes!), & TC appreciated that we had a windlass, as we got the anchor up fairly quickly.
We then attempted to re-anchor - TC up on the bow, in charge of dropping the anchor; me in the cockpit, attempting to steer. Every time I popped my head out of the dodger to try and hear what TC said, the rain would stab me in the eye (or that is what it felt like). The wind was blowing so hard, I needed "step on the gas" to keep us going forward, which made the boat very quick to react to any steering changes. I am not used to that when anchoring - normally, the engine is at low RPMs, so I can slowly maneuver.
I saw Paul paddling up to us. However, as he kept paddling, we kept moving farther away - there was a huge coral head behind us on the port side. He actually paddled past the boat & watched as TC set the anchor.
As the wind continued to bow, we started to make dinner - curry with the bananas that are like potatoes (gifts from one of the families on our Saturday sail). We weren't 10 minutes into making dinner when the anchor started to drag - again. We turned the stove off, & all headed outside. With a sense of relief, I handed off the job of steering to TC. Paul was on anchor duty. And I was at the back of the boat using my skills to be a human bumper - making sure the dinghy didn't run into the boat when we drift back or go into reverse. It doesn't sound like a tough job, but since the wind was blowing so hard, Cherokee was pretty much constantly trying to attack the dinghy.
We set the anchor down again. It then started to drag, but thankfully, it eventually caught something (most likely a coral head). Apparently, the ground here isn't very sandy.
We were finally able to cook our dinner, which turned out very well. I think putting those bananas in the curry is probably the best way to eat them. They still retained their unique flavor, which added to the tastiness of our curry concoction.
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment