Blog 48. Suwarrow. 13.14.97S 163.06.46W

Alcedo
David Batten
Fri 20 May 2016 06:50
Thursday, 19 May, 2016. Sod's Law triumphant. We approached Suwarrow with about half the staysail and the spray hood in the company of Two Fish and Spirit, all of us faffing around in 17 to 20 knots of what would have been a perfect sailing wind. Needless to say, we had been motoring with whatever sails we could carry to help our speed until yesterday, when the wind got up from the E - ESE. To start with, we were making ideal progress, other than having to sail more south of our course. This was easily rectified when the wind went round to the SE, but with a gradual increase to 17 to 20 knots, we had to reduce sail over a 6 hour period to delay arrival time to arrive at daylight. At 06.30am it was still dark! The sea, which had reduced to a lovely slow and low swell, was getting rougher by the minute and we were crossing our fingers that the pass would not be too turbulent to be safe with the increasing winds and seas.

As it happened, we followed Spirit who followed Two Fish like the Pied Piper, not only through the main pass but also through the pass to the west of the south reef. Two Fish were brilliant in giving us information about depths etc and guiding us into the deeper water via our AIS on her track, so although it was all quite scary, we went through quite safely. Once inside, the wind has been relentless and with a lot of South in it, which means it is quite bumpy as Anchorage Island gives protection from the East and North. Anchoring is a it of a nightmare as it is small patches of sand with lots of coral heads to wrap the anchor chain around. Jason kindly dived on our anchor as it was clearly caught around some choral and confirmed that we have several wraps and are firmly attached to the bottom. He was not able to free it because it is under too bid a load, So the good news is, we are not going anywhere, the bad news is we are going to have a hell of a time getting the anchor up when we want to leave.

So what is Suwarrow like? Probably lovely in the right weather, but at the moment, onobody wants to go snorkelling and join the numerous reef sharks circling the boats and we have decided that a siesta is called for before further exploration. We are all feeling that the weather has been most contrary, giving us light winds with a lots of easterly when we wanted to sail and now we have made the effort to get here, it is blowing hard from a SSE direction. Sod's Law is prevailing big time!

Alcedo

PS Forgot to mention the fish. Reeled in by Anthyony and the Skipper on Wednesday evening, a yellow fin tuna weighing at least 20kg and we know this because the Skipper is used to lifting 20kg of horse food. We were not prepared for a fish of this size and probably only got it on board because it was exhausted and giving up the will to live. Plenty of mess on the after deck and we may well be sick of tuna by the time we finish it. Not sure the Skipper and wife are convinced about this fishing business yet!

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