Pulau Simeulue
Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Fri 1 Jun 2012 19:00
02:28.4293N
096:23.8263E
1/6
2000LT
Easy motor down the
E coast of Pulau Simuelue with binoculars pealed on the shore and reefs. Not
really expecting to find anytghing yet as the ocean swell is still small to
nothing and the next swell not expected to arrive until tomorrow at the
earliest. However some possible white water sightings en route had Scott
optimistically zooming off in the Duck to check it as we continued on our way.
One possibility had him with leg rope on and board attached but after a paddle
in and 5 min attempt to catch something we realised we're all pulling at straws
and lets power to the next anchorage and wake up tomorrow with a swell
arriving.
Meanwhile the boys,
Frase and midget-Zac (as apposed to our ship-Zac) have been productively
spending all our travel time catching up on a few decades of movies from the
ship's collection of around 5000.
Another natural
harbour in the SE end of Simuelue was our destination..We entered comfortably
before sunset, fortunately, as the chart error of 540m was even worse than the
hbr last night. This was quite well marked but would be tricky to impossible to
enter unknown at night. As we were creeping along a side breach searching for
our pre-defined anchorage location we experimented with a different (although
not unique as we'd passed a cargo ship high and dry on an outlying island)
method of using the keel to attach the boat to the bottom, a quick effort with
all on the boom to heel the boat was never going to work so while they all hung
out like monkeys I prepared the spare anchor and Duck then we quickly kedged our
way off backwards. A few hundred metres away we used the more traditional method
of the anchor and chain to attach to the ground and enjoyed our first BBQ of
lamb chops, bratwursty-type things from Phuket, mash and
coleslaw.
SJB