The Pass at Makemo and some interesting weather...
Nickanddenisesailing
Sun 25 Jun 2017 21:36
So where did I leave you....
Well we were having a great time hanging out in a beautiful anchorage. After nursing our hangovers we went off snorkeling as a gang, windsurfing and more surfing behind Sun Of Moondance's tender. Lots of beautiful coral and always a few curious black tip reef sharks. Even a few white tips as well. That night we had a nice fire on the beach and marvelled at the hilarious activities of the many (in their 1000's) large hermit crabs. Turns out they love: peanuts, pate and crackers. They don't like red wine and spicy salsa as much. Who would have thought we would be running a boozy, snack fueled feed trial on hermit crabs out here? Great to see my years of marine biology training coming in useful haha :) Then dodging the bommies we all headed back to our boat homes for the night.
Then about midnight the fun stopped and things started getting more serious. The wind swung around and increased and the swell started coming in. We started getting some of the weather from a system that we knew was passing further south. All 3 of us boats swung around so that the wind was blowing us all onto the coral bommies. Our poor anchors were working hard through the night and all of us dragged anchors at various points. I dont think any of us slept well that night. Early morning saw all of us bashing into the wind and waves and yanking on our poor anchor chains. Silver linings ended up snapping their snubline through the night and all their chain ended up on the bottom. In the process of the jerking motion of the waves they had ended up bending their anchor roller. So getting their anchor up the next morning was a team job with Sun of Moondance helping. Sold the Farm were on standby to dive on anyones anchors if needed. As we had planned to stay another night I still
had our
windsurfing gear out and de rigging on a heaving, rocking dinghy in 25knts at 6.30am was interesting. I even got cold for a moment! It didnt last too long dont worry haha
Anyway after all the organising in the early morning we were all on our way to the more protected anchorage by the western pass. We could see the weather building and the lightning a ways away and then it hit us. Sun of Moondance and Silver Linings managed to anchor up just in time but we caught the worst of it just as we were heading for the channel. We saw fork lighting hitting the anchorage ahead (thankfully missing all the boats but giving them all some good frights in the process). Quickly the visibility faded as torrential rain hit us and we were left doing circles in 30+knts, avoiding bommies and hoping that the rain would clear so we could get through the tricky entrance into the tight (but well protected) anchorage. We waited it out for an hour but the rain didn't clear. So relying heavily on our charts, satellite images, navionics and anything else we could lay our hands on, we slowly made our way across the pass to a wider, deeper, more exposed anchorage. After som
e
bommie dodging we got the anchor down in deepish water and could finally sit down. The rain eased and we tucked into some food. We were exhausted so decided to stay there the night. Then about 2am the wind shifted (again!) and we were swung around (the total opposite direction from the previous night) towards the shallow coral bommies. Nick spent the night on deck and neither of us slept well. As soon we we had the light we radioed our mates in the sheltered anchorage and told them we were on our way. After some interested close maneuvering we made it in. Its where we are now, this time with a stern anchor out as well as there are shallow bommies all around.
So the weather has been pretty unsettled and we have been busy doing boat jobs. We have squeezed in some snorkelling and some exploring ashore. The weather should settle tonight (fingers crossed) so that we can make our move to the next atoll tomorrow......
So its not always fun in paradise but we are still enjoying ourselves!
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