Medana Bay Marina, Lombok > Lovina Bay, Bali (2015-09-27 - 05:00 UTC - 08:09.553S 115:01.349E)

Aquamante
Vries Peter Pons
Sun 27 Sep 2015 04:00

A novelty story for us: after having spent more two weeks at the rough and rusty dock of Medana Bay Marina for our overland trip to Kalimantan and Java, we picked up a mooring of the marina for the last two days of our stay to make room for another boat. In the morning of the 2nd day we furled out the genoa in light winds to attach the sheets and noticed that the boat was sailing more than we had expected. We checked whether the boat had moved, and although it looked that way, it did not look much, and after furling in the genoa again we stayed put. In the late afternoon I decided to switch on the instruments to check on our depth, as it did look we had crept towards the surrounding reef. To my astonishment we were in 4m of water (draught of boat 2.5m), whereas the depth was 10-12m when we initially had picked up the mooring. I decided to motor in reverse and drag the mooring towards its original position. Interestingly enough we moved backwards in idle reverse without any resistance felt, and continued to move until we were almost halfway across the mooring field, not good! I put the engine in neutral and checked the mooring line: it was hanging down straight and limp and when I pulled it up, nothing was attached to it. I quickly asked a bypassing fellow cruiser in his dinghy to tow the remainder of the mooring ashore, so as not to risk having it end up in the propeller of somebody else, untied it from the bow, anchored with our own tested and trusted ground tackle at the beginning of the bay and counted our blessings not to have run aground. So much for moorings in Indonesia. I should of course have checked it by pulling back on it, as we always do with our anchor, but the assurance of Peter, the owner of the marina, that the moorings had recently been checked, and all the other cruisers having tied up to them, I assumed it was ok. Another lesson learned. Two days after we had left, we heard another boat had come off its mooring, less lucky than we, though, as they hit the reef and damaged the boat considerably.