Cruise or Safari?
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 6 Aug 2010 07:23
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Friday August 6th 1930 Local 0630 UTC
20:02.79S 174:40.94W
We have now sailed Rhiann Marie over 16,000 miles
and are almost at the furthest point from home now though we have sailed more
than half "the course". I sometimes worry that I am getting to complacent with
how we are progressing the adventure as we are continually pushing the limits
and getting perhaps too daring.
This morning Craig sailed us out of our
stunning anchorage at Uoelva in Ha'apai through the reefs and into deep
water. We were headed for an island called Oua and into a coral
surrounded reef on the south side.
On the way across the deep water to that island
Humpback whales came along side us and eventually they came right up to the boat
to investigate. One it seemed rolled over just below the surface, I presume to
"eyeball" us. Siezing the chance I got the snorkell, mask and fins on but had to
hold back a bit as I would have almost landed on top of one of the whales had i
jumped over right away! After the momentary pause I jumped in and in the water
got my mask on, but by the time I was face down they were heading off - I
suppose that tells me something.......
After sailing through the reefs and islands we set
ourselves up to enter an area to the south of Oua which was wall to wall reef on
the chart but which a pilot book gave instructions on how to enter. Craig took
the helm and I stood forward "spotting". Two marks were gone but just visible at
the waterline and one was gone all together.
The light was not the best for the job but we got
all the way to the last mark and were creeping forward with the sounder
and eyeballing at one knot. We were trying to creep into the anchorage
shown on the pilot book sketch as having 5 fathoms and had a starboard pole off
to starboard about 6m and clearly there was coral to port - but how deep? "Two
metres" said the sounder. "Hard astern" I shouted to Craig but too late! The
keel was on the reef. But of course as we were doing one knot, it
was oh so gentle and was not even apparent that we were on initially. Once
we realised, it was "action staions". Craig went over the side with the snorkell
and mask to give instructions - the rudder being our chief concern. Tactics
were to get the girls to launch the RIB to lighten us (400kg) and act
as tug across our beam to help shove us off side ways into the "slot" in the
reef which was the 3m wide entrance to the anchorage. I also furled out the
mainsail to heel us to starboard and planned to give it a bit of bow
thruster.
Here is how shit happens: the girls lowered
the RIB and it would not start and took too long to clear it from the stern
which held me back from running astern, the bow thruster tripped immediately
on deploying it and as I came off to leeward with the
starboard reef and pole marker a few metres away to starboard Trish had a
blank and could not get the mainsail away!
As it was I just managed to dump the main out
haul and come hard astern out of the, oh so narrow, channel and reverse up
to windward sufficiently to turn and anchor up outside the markers but deep
inside the lagoon and virgin uncharted reef. Exciting stuff and no harm
done but the crew would all prefer less drama and less adventurous "land based"
destinations!!!
On anchoring we fixed the generator which need a
new impeller again and the bow thruster which really seems to be unusable as it
keeps tripping immediately on use and did a couple of other boat jobs. Trish
cooked us a great lunch including the three red snapper which I had shot the day
before
which really were delicious.
Rhiann, Amy and I then went ashore to the island
where we found two groups working at the top of the hill at the end of the
jetty, gutting, cleaning and then boiling sea cucumber before they layed
them out to dry on trays. The sight was gruesome and with the boiling vats, it
really looked like something out of Dante's Inferno. We proceeded on to the
village which was fully fenced to keep the pigs in, and stopped to talk to the
school teacher in the school yard. There were lots of kids around and he said
that the kids were asking if they could walk through the village with us. They
followed us, in fact surrounded us, and we estimated more than twenty were
jostling for position all around us and asking to have their picture taken. It
was really great fun and they were very entertaining, with one or two of the
older ones scolding any of the younger ones who got over excited.
On the way through the village we were invited to
the local dance this evening, which by our reckoning could only really have
about 30 people there - so we will form about 15 - 20% of the crowd - we
think!
We will let you
know.
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