After thoughts from a calm anchorage, part two. Saturday 6 Jun 20

Years ago while skydiving with ten of my closest friends, an air traffic controller error resulted in us passing an America West 737 climbing out of Tucson. We were doing around 110 knots straight down, the aircraft perhaps 300 knots horizontally. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard something other than the roar of the wind at terminal velocity; the roar of the engines was clearly audible. We only missed the left wingtip by maybe 50 meters, and we didn’t even think to wave as we went by. We continued with our freefall formation and only after we all landed did we begin to appreciate how we narrowly avoided disaster. The close call was a result of human error, a simple geometry and physics problem that perhaps contributed to a moment of spatial disorientation. The jump plane was well above the jet when we were cleared to exit, and by the time the controller realized his error and radioed the pilot to “hold your jumpers” we were already in freefall.

 

We’re fortunate we didn’t get badly hurt or lose our boat during that storm. The waterspout was the first real hint that the weather forecasters might have underpredicted the severity of the system. The wind came in directions and magnitudes (hey, that’s called a vector!) that we weren’t expecting. The speed at which things went from good to marginal to extremely bad was astonishing.

 

I used to fly little airplanes, mostly slow ones, then we purchased a Van’s RV-6 which cruised around 155 knots. My first real flight in that airplane was from where I collected it in Florida all the way to Arizona, and the airplane was ahead of me the entire time. It took several more flights until my brain and flight management skills caught up, then we enjoyed several years of blasting around the US.

 

Part of our slowness to react to the deteriorating conditions in the anchorage was the misplaced faith in the forecast that said winds from the West would be reasonably light. Part was lack of experience in that sort of weather event while in a vulnerable anchorage. Perhaps a bit of our delay in responding was just plain disbelief that this couldn’t be happening to us. Regardless, we should have gotten the anchor up and headed out into the lagoon much sooner, and after the waterspout we should have had the boat completely ready to go to sea if necessary. Like skydiving, it’s the hard things that will smite you, in this case a lee shore and breaking waves in fairly shallow water.

 

We’ve spent the last 3 days reflecting upon our escape and how we’d handle things differently next time. We still believe we selected the most protected anchorage given the weather data we had to work with, but if and when this happens again we will depart for open water as soon as the wind and wave trends begin to go high and right. We’re safer at sea, and as long as we can navigate to avoid hard things JollyDogs is tough enough.

 

The question is, are we tough enough? Neither of us were challenged by the physical exertion required. At the time we handled the mental and emotional stress well. No panicking, only shouting to make our voices heard. We both did our jobs, made informed decisions and got the situation under control. After following SV Long Temps over to the number seven anchorage on Thursday, all we’ve really done is relax, snorkel, sleep, eat, and do a couple of minor projects. Nothing ambitious. We both seem to need time to chill out, to reflect upon that dangerous night, appreciate the lessons we better have learned, and calm our frayed nerves. This anchorage is gorgeous! Have a look on Google Earth. Latitude 16deg 57.083’ South, Longitude 144deg 44.528’ West.

 

These sorts of situations help you understand just how strong your partner is, and the strength of your relationship with that person. Over the years we’ve been through some very difficult things together, but Wednesday night was the biggest test yet. I think we passed.

 

We also got our anchor chain floats back!

After thoughts from a calm anchorage, part one. Friday 5 Jun 20

Anybody get that REO Speedwagon reference? Great band, the favorite of my USAFA doolie year roommate Jim Malaere. Jim was an intensely religious fellow and we didn’t get along too well. That said, he introduced my ignorant 17-year-old ears to REO Speedwagon and for that I’m eternally grateful.

 

Two nights ago Mother Nature took a shot at putting JollyDogs on the rocks and either hurting or killing one or both of us. The storm that attacked us wasn’t forecast in a way we or many of our sailing companions could understand. There were 8 vessels in the atoll, 3 went to the North side which left them exposed from West, South and East. One remained at the Southeast end of the atoll and so was exposed from the South around to the Northwest. One (let’s call it “vessel A”) went North from that location several miles and was still exposed from the West Northwest around to the Southeast. Three of us moved to an anchorage just South of the Northwest pass, which left exposure from about 160 degrees around to about 300 degrees. The forecast depicted the strongest winds from the East to the Northwest, and we 3 thought we had picked the best spot. What we didn’t know at the time was that we needed a “hurricane hole”, that mythical place that provides protection from wind and waves from all directions.

 

The waterspout was the first clue of the violence that was about to be visited upon us, but that was Wednesday morning. The day settled down after that and we thought maybe the serious stuff had moved on, but just a bit after dark it blew up from the West leaving about 15 miles of fetch to the far side of the atoll. There were some steady winds from the West in a short portion of the forecast, but they didn’t exceed the upper teens and were only a couple of hours in duration. The other stuff looked like the more dangerous stuff, hence our choice.

 

Nobody got off easy that night. While the three of us all had to abandon the anchorage to save ourselves and our vessels, vessel A endured the same conditions but was unable to raise their anchor. Their anchor chain had gotten wrapped around a bommie multiple times and they were left on a very short scope. This can result in a broken anchor chain, but luckily they only destroyed the bow roller and narrowly avoided ending up on the beach. The boat at the Southeast end had set two anchors and lost one but the other held. The boats up at the North end had a rough night but the wind remained just far enough to the North that the distant Westerly terrain provided some protection and to our knowledge nobody had to abandon that anchorage.

 

At the time we were trying to raise our anchor, the first time that is, the waves were occasionally breaking over the bow as I worked to remove anchor chain floats and get the chain on board while directing Isabel’s actions at the helm to avoid excessive tension or slack on the chain. Too much slack and the chain might wrap on a bommie which could result in us dumping the entire anchor/chain system to escape, too much tension and the windlass might rip out of the locker and depart, doing major damage to the boat and possibly seriously injuring me. Judging from how much it was flexing as we got the chain and anchor on board, the bow roller structure saw some extreme loads. Detailed inspections may result in some expensive repairs.

 

Back in my skydiving days, my pal Jim McChesney fixed me up a big hook knife to Velcro around the main left webbing on my parachute rig. That same hook knife helped me to rapidly cut away anchor chain floats without cutting myself. It was still sharp because I never had to cut tangled parachute lines or risers from around my neck or elsewhere.

 

The three floats I cut away are probably washed up on the beach somewhere, but they’re like Lay’s potato chips. I can get more.

Riding the storm out! Thursday 4 Jun 20

Well, the waterspout was just the prelude for more “interesting” things to come. During the day the wind behaved as forecast, giving us confidence in our anchorage. That changed when the wind clocking around to the West and began building, reaching a peak gust of 47 knots. As cousin Johnny says about hurricanes, “it’s not the wind that’s the problem, it’s what’s blowing in the wind”. In this case a lagoon full of water, miles of fetch to absorb wind energy and subsea terrain rising into the anchorage, resulting in breaking waves. Participants on the evening SSB net couldn’t even hear my efforts as net controller, likely because of the monster storm that was almost upon us, and all I could hear was static, and Christine on SV Sugar Shack had to take over.

 

When the swell began to build and JollyDogs started pitching up and down we made preparations to get underway. The other boats in the anchorage were doing the same, and we were the last boat to depart, raising the anchor with waves breaking over the bow. We got the anchor up without serious mishap and began motoring through the swell towards a safe part of the lagoon, when Isabel shouted something about the dinghy. I looked around and realized a shackle on a lifting block had failed and the stern of the dinghy was dragging in the water. Isabel took the helm while I wrestled with various lines, and soon the dinghy was detached from the davits and safely in tow with a second painter attached in case the primary one parted.

 

We motored out into an area of the lagoon that we believed to be well charted and began a back and forth course over the same safe subsea terrain, trying to keep the wind and seas at about 60 degrees off the bow. Not quite lying ahull, that still resulted in a fairly comfortable ride and the dinghy seemed happy enough to stay in position. Nearby SV Ari-B and SV Long Temps were doing pretty much the same thing. In deeper water the seas were fairly short and steep but there were no breaking waves. We reckon we departed the anchorage a little after 1900, and about 2300 the wind had abated and the seas calmed so that the two other boats returned to the anchorage for some rest, with the hopes that this storm had finally passed. We did the same, arriving last and feeling our way around to find a sandy spot to drop the anchor. The water was really churned up and Isabel struggled to see the bottom even in 4 meters depth, but we found a place and got a good anchor set. As soon as we had about 13 meters of chain deployed we swapped places and she took the helm while I moved to the bow to install floats on the anchor chain. Soon I had the bridle installed, Isabel pulled down with both engines at high rpms and we were safely anchored. Isabel went for a hot shower while I set the anchor drag alarm on our AIS, then I soothed my own nerves with a hot shower and we crashed.

 

Well that didn’t last long, and about 0300 we were awakened by “freaky storm part deux” with winds strengthening again from the West and a building swell. This call to action was enough that we got the anchor up and moved out into the lagoon once again, joining Ari-B who had departed the anchorage about an hour before. Long Temps elected to remain at anchor and simply post an anchor watch. At sunrise the VHF crackled and Long Temps announced that they had safe routing data from a previous journey over to the #7 anchorage on the West side, and we were welcome to follow them over to seek protection from the West wind. Both we and Ari-B joined them and in about 2 hours we were safely anchored underneath sunny skies in beautiful calm blue water, celebrating our close call with disaster aboard Long Temps with fresh fruit, cake, and a shot of rum. The strongest friendships are made from these sorts of shared experiences.

 

Cheated death again.

Here comes the boom! Wednesday 3 Jun 20

Sorry, that was a really lousy movie, but the title reminds me of the weather system that motivated us to move anchorages a couple days ago. This time of year the surface prognosis charts for this area look a bit busy, with troughs and ridges and cyclonic activity popping up here and there, the effects of which put the occasional damper on our otherwise ridiculously fun lifestyle. Rule number one in this business is to review the various weather forecasting products daily and as soon as something icky begins to rear its head find somewhere to hide and ride it out. Inattention to this information can result in a lot of sucking and blowing and then your house goes away. Sorry – that’s an old joke comparing the similarities of tornados to marriage and divorce, perhaps not appropriate for this forum, but hey, nobody said this was a family show.

 

Anyway, the Southeast corner of Tahanea is no place to ride out a blow that includes big winds with a Northerly component, so we weighed anchor on Monday morning and moved back up to the anchorage just South of the Northwest pass. From where we dropped the hook the terrain gives us swell protection from the East Southeast up to the Northwest. The forecast that motivated our pick of anchorages showed a big rotation in wind direction, some pretty robust wind velocity, but not a lot out of the West before it all dies off. Now that we’re tucked in here that’s changed a bit, but here we be.

 

Tuesday a couple of other boats joined us here, having made their own judgement calls about the upcoming blow. The rest of the boats went to a couple of different spots with the exception of one vessel who remained in the Southeast end. Things were nice and calm yesterday and well into the night, then the sporty winds arrived, clocking around the East Northeast where we have excellent protection. Next up – an insanely heavy rainstorm featuring lightning and thunder, then in the middle of all that a bloody waterspout, for Pete’s sake. Our pals on SV Long Temps spotted it first and sounded a warning horn, motivating us to shut the saloon door and prepare for anything. I’ve only seen a waterspout once before, at our hailing port in the harbor of Beaufort North Carolina. I was hanging out with cousin Johnny watching a tall ship regatta featuring sailors playing pirates when we spied this tornado-looking water thing.

 

Waterspouts can be extremely dangerous to small pleasure yachts, kind of like whales. Fun to see them in the distance as long as they don’t get too close. This one got within about 200 meters of us before disappearing into the very low visibility environment. In Arizona we had dust devils which are kind of the same thing, except it takes a lot more energy to lift a column of water into the air than it does to suck up some dirt and twigs. I was happy to watch the movie Twister on the big screen – no desire at all to be in the remake called “Waterspout”.

 

The one boat that remained in the Southeast anchorage got on the VHF this morning and cried “uncle”. They’re now underway to a more protected spot, being coached in there by another vessel. Perhaps they didn’t examine the weather as hard as the rest of us, or perhaps they figured their ground tackle was big enough to handle it, but after a few hours of the abuse they came to their senses. Problem is, now they’re having to move and re-anchor in very difficult conditions. Hopefully they’ll be OK, and you can bet next time they’ll reposition before it all goes down the toilet. Right now where we are it’s blowing hard out of the Northwest, up to 34 knots so far. Despite our confidence in our own anchoring skills and ground tackle, the engine start battery is in the “on” position and the keys are in the ignition.

 

Bommies are what we call coral heads, John. The guys on the boat that’s currently moving anchorages call them “boomies”. I like that name better, because it describes the sound you’d hear if your boat runs into one.

Our international cruising world Wednesday 3 Jun 20

In the past few weeks we’ve been anchored with about ten other boats. Almost all are crewed by married couples, three of the boats with children. There’s a Swedish boat with a lovely young couple aboard. Their little boy will turn 4 in a few days and they departed Sweden together three years ago. There’s a UK boat with an Austrian husband and English wife. A Polish boat with a successful businessman and his young crew member. A New Zealand boat with a family of four, wife a French Canadian, husband a Kiwi, and two teenage daughters who have lived most of their lives in France. An American boat with a lovely couple, she from Romania and he from Norway. They met during college in Southern California. A New Calidonia boat with a couple and their two teenage children. A US boat with a young couple from Southern California. A boat from Martinique with a lovely young French couple aboard. Another UK boat with a couple from South Africa. JollyDogs is a US vessel. I was born there and Isabel is from England. We’ve all been hanging out with the French Polynesian men and women who have been working on the copra crop.

 

It’s higher math for me, but I think I counted thirteen separate nationalities among those folks. We became cruisers partly because we wanted to experience various cultures around the South Pacific and beyond, but what we didn’t truly appreciate was how many cultures from around the world would join us out here. We’ve had a Danish fellow on board as crew for a short spell. Spent time with Canadian, Swiss, German, Australian, Dutch, Hungarian and Turkish sailors. What we’ve realized is that just by being a part of this cruising community, we’ve become part of a small tribe of folks from all over the world. We drink and eat together, kite surf and snorkel and spear fish together. We learn about one another’s cultures and learn to appreciate how different people’s life’s experiences and backgrounds shape their views of the world.

 

One of the recurring questions from non-US people is “what the heck is up with the US healthcare system”? Most other people are from countries that have a national healthcare system (NHS) that provides a basic level of support for all their people. They acknowledge the limitations of such a nationalized healthcare approach and openly admit that if someone wants to priority in line or to have a higher level of healthcare access, then they need to purchase supplemental private health insurance. Isabel’s dad Paul has private insurance and one would think that at 86 years old he might have to rely on that to get prompt care, as the NHS should probably focus resources on those who have the greatest chance of repaying the system. In my mind, young people and families raising children represent the future, and those solidly in the workforce and contributing to payroll taxes are the folks who are putting money into the system. Seems like old folks would get the lowest priority, but let’s not forget that they paid into the system their entire working lives, and if they leave their children a financial legacy England’s rather significant estate taxes may also infuse more cash into the system. If Paul is a reasonable example, the NHS actually does very well by the older members of the community.

 

The point our international friends like to make is that a healthier society is a more productive society. Workers without access to paid sick leave and free healthcare continue to show up at work, spreading illness; the worry of how they’ll pay keeps them away from the doctor and perhaps further lowers their own immunity to illness and infection. The recent Covid-19 pandemic might have served as a wakeup call, even in capitalist America.

 

Naturally this is a wedge issue between Republicans and Democrats. With an election this November maybe we’ll see if this issue swings some votes. We’re registered as “no party affiliation”, but for us it’s a no brainer.

Respecting Mother Nature Monday 1 Jun 20

The Southeast corner of Tahanea is a great spot, especially when the wind is blowing from the South or East. Coming our way in the next few days is a bit of a blow, with a rotation around from South to East to North to West then back to the South then East. “Rock around the clock” as I like to call these events. Generally, the wind from the North and on around anti-clockwise to the West and South then East again isn’t very strong, but this particular weather system is packing a little bit more punch both in terms of wind and rain. We pay attention to both the ECMWF (European) and GFS (American) weather models, but the European model seems to be a bit more reliable here. This time both models are showing about the same general weather system behavior but the difference in wind and rain intensity is significant. Needless to say, JollyDogs will get a good bath.

 

Tahanea is a rather long atoll in the Northwest to Southeast dimension, and that means a Northwest wind has a lot of fetch but build up a sea and punish a boat anchored in the Southeast corner where we were. Sustained winds of 15 – 20 knots can blow up a bit of wave action and we do like our calm protected anchorages. With 7 other boats in the anchorage and all starting to think about where they might take shelter, we elected to weigh anchor and move towards the first place we anchored, just a bit Northwest of the middle pass.  There’s a reef and a bit of a motu that sticks out to the West, and if one can just tuck in tight enough decent protection can be had.

 

Well, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. We’re now anchored with about 6 feet of water under the keel, around 70’ of anchor chain deployed, and floats placed about every 20’ along the chain. There be bommies here! Anyway, this was our second attempt to get a good set today, as when we first arrived around 1040 this morning we found a sandy spot, dropped the hook and pulled down then in the water I went to see what we might swing around and hit. Isabel paddled around as well and also gave the anchor a good look. Turns out we dropped on a patch of thin sand over hard coral, and the anchor tip was about the only thing that dug in. Not good. There’s going to be a quiz about Wednesday, and ye olde Sarca Excel #5 better hold tight. We’ve got terrain blocking the seas from about 300 true around to the Southeast, so we should be pretty comfortable. Comfort enables sleep, one of our favorite hobbies.

 

Since attempt #1 didn’t work out so well, I lept into the dinghy to hunt for a better spot, a nice soft sandy patch with enough swinging room amongst the bommies so I could float the chain to avoid snags, and JollyDogs could rock around the clock without whacking any hazards. Found a spot, marked it with a weighted float then we performed anchoring drill #2. This time the anchor dug halfway to China, so I got all the floats installed and we both paddled around to satisfy ourselves that all would be well. With the exception of 8 small black tip sharks that seem to find us interesting, we’re all alone here, as it would seem that at least for now 4 of the other boats have moved to what’s called the #7 anchorage over on the West side. That anchorage is small and we figured everyone wouldn’t fit, so here we are. We do like our solitude, and lately we’ve been such social butterflies it’s nice to be alone for a change. In the past week we’ve had the entire anchorage on board for a potluck, had sundowners on SV Sancta Anna, had dinner (a killer Moroccan tagine) with Alex and Carla on SV Ari-B, then enjoyed a lunch time beach bbq with the entire anchorage yesterday. It’s been fun and we’ve made new friends, but darned if we don’t need a little alone time.

 

It’s also fun to leave the swim trunks behind and do a bit of skinny dipping. Not an option in a crowded anchorage. Hope the sharks don’t take offense.