The Wall of Sharks

16º 26.796s 145º 21.925w

Thu Jun 20 2019

The Southeast corner of the atoll Fakarava is a pretty magical place. Isabel and I liken it to Tenacatita on the Mexican Pacific coast just a bit North of Barre de Navidad. It’s a place where cruisers come to relax, play, do boat projects, and make new friends. Tenacatitia has the advantage that the village of La Manzania has all the provisions one could want, along with some nice little restaurants. They’ve also got a totally bitchin’ crocodile zoo like place that Mike Racine and I visited. True to Mexico safety standards, it’s a bunch of rickety plank bridges with dodgy hand rails that enable the punters to walk above those giant prehistoric creatures. They look up at you and hiss and I was convinced that we might be eaten alive, even if there was no sudden catastrophic structural failure. It was nuts!

There’s a lovely couple here who live on a pair of rafted up boats; they run a kite boarding and free diving school. Isabel and I are both keen, so several days ago we took the first in the series of free diving lessons. There was an hour of yoga on the beach followed by some deep breathing exercises, then individual time in the water with the instructor to do “static apnea”. Floating in our wetsuits while the instructor held on to us and talked gently, Isabel managed to hold her breath for just under 3 minutes and I got just over 3 minutes. It was remarkable and something we’d never imagined. The next class will be dynamic apnea so we’ll be moving in the water at about 8 meters depth with the instructor’s direct supervision. A bit more challenging, but the skill has real utility, not only for spear fishing, but also just to dive on the anchor in deeper water to verify set and security.

A couple days ago I had my first kite boarding lesson. Isabel rode along in the tender while I learned to drive the kite around while belly surfing. Tons of fun, and after more than 2 hours I was beat. I did get to try with a board, and while I mostly kept it on my feet I didn’t succeed in getting up and scooting along. The wind was dying off and keeping the kite airborne with my fledgling skills wasn’t very easy. Not discouraged – will continue with lessons as soon as the wind gets back into the 15 – 20 knot range in a couple days. Right now it’s a bit too light, so we’ll focus on other things. With any luck we’ll rent a casita from Stu Wild at La Ventana near La Paz someday; not only is the kite surfing magical there, but they’ve also got killer roadside roast pollo!

Yesterday Isabel realized about mid-morning that we had a window to go drift snorkel the South pass. It’s got a world class reputation and I reckon you can find the local dive shop’s website or Youtube channel; they’ve got an underwater camera in the channel that pretty much shows an image of zillions of sharks swimming around. We drifted the pass twice while I held onto the dinghy painter; we must have seen around 100 sharks including white tips, black tips, and grays. They were lurking well below us, but the visibility with the incoming tide was insanely good so it was hard to tell if they were 20 or 40 meters away. I also saw the tail end of the full moon grouper spawning season – a crowd of perhaps 100 or more grouper all clustered together at the bottom of the canyon. Our Swiss pal Marc on SV Sauvage was there for the peak of the event, and was amazed at the thousands of grouper he saw, along with all the other fish in the food chain that show up.

Marc related more details of the loss of the sailboat on the reef as he had spoken with the owner. It appeared to be an almost new Dufour 56’, Lady Erel 2 of La Rochelle, France. We walked out to the headland where we were perhaps 60 meters from her as she lay on the reef, being rocked around by the big sets of waves. Full headsail out, 2 reefs in the main, just laying there on her starboard side dying. No doubt a large hole has been ground into her hull, and she’s a total loss. We saw the crew and the life raft by the diving resort; they had some equipment off the boat that they’d successfully salvages, but obviously it has been too rough to get the sails down and removed. With luck there will be a couple days here where they can walk over the reef at low tide and fetch some more articles, but it’s going to be really rough around Monday with a strong blow from the Southeast, and that may finish her off. Looking at her in her death throes, it was hard not to burst into tears, and I’m sure the owners have ridden an emotional roller coaster.

As is typical, the initial details we got were well intentioned but quite in error. Turns out the boat was inside the atoll preparing to depart through the South pass. They had the main set for the conditions they expected to encounter once at sea, just as we would. I doubt they had the headsail unfurled, but that can be deployed in just a few seconds. They elected to motor against some current and through the pass around 0500, pre-dawn but perhaps there was a little twilight. They managed to wrap their prop on a rope attached to a dive boat mooring or float marking a dive spot or a fish trap or some such, which caused the engine to stall. Once a prop is wrapped there’s probably no restarting the engine until the rope has been cut away, something that can take hours. The current and wind took them towards the reef even as they deployed the headsail, but the couldn’t get enough motive power and they went hard aground. Word is they deployed the life raft but it blew away, in any case the 8 members of the crew were able to walk across the reef to shore. There’s likely still some error in this update.

In Mexico we would never elect to depart or arrive at most anchorages due to the overnight fishing activity of the local pangeros, with the risk of becoming entangled in gill nets or long lines. The passes into these atolls present even more challenges due to the potential for very strong tidal flow. Generally it’s good to aim for slack tidal flow, but a bit on the bow isn’t too bad as it guarantees better steering and the ability to move more slowly and deliberately through the channel. Even when the passes have navigation lights, we would not elect to pass without adequate daylight to see breaking or standing waves, as the tidal “guestimators” are just that. Perhaps once we have enough experience in these waters we’ll think differently, but for now we’re newbies with a lot left to learn.

We’re insured, but our boat is our home with all our possessions on board, and the last thing we need is the emotional and possibly physical trauma of a grounding event, losing the boat and our “stuff”, and having to endure the long insurance claim process before hopefully finding another suitable vessel. We ain’t getting any younger, and every day is precious so we don’t want to waste a second. Call us sissies, but we’ll err on the side of caution and continuous learning to minimize the overconfidence, ignorance, and perhaps even arrogance that might enable our own mishap.

Our dear friend Brad Pedersen used to have a poster in his office. It depicted the actor John Wayne and the caption was “Life is tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid”.