Safe arrival in Suwarrow

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 26 May 2008 06:26
13:15.090S  163:06.433W
 
We arrived.  By the skin of our teeth.  Don compares our arrival to that of an instrument approach in an airplane....all instruments and no visual.  Well, almost no visual.
 
At about 1pm today, we looked at the distance we had left to go, the wind speed and our boat speed at the time, and both came to the same conclusion....'Ain't no way we are going to make there before dark!'  So, we were faced with a decision....continue on under sail and upon arrival at the entrance to the Suwarrow lagoon, hang out and wait until daylight.  Not fun.  Or, turn on our hand dandy engine and motor sail as fast as possible to our destination in hopes that we make there before dark.  An easy decision.  On the motor went.
 
Over the next five hours, we monitored our progress...
2pm: 28 miles to go - at a current speed of 6 knots, that gets us there at 6:40pm - We think the sun will still be up
4 pm: 15 miles to go - at a current speed of 6 knots, that gets us there at 6:30pm - that's a little better.
6 pm:  We can see the palm trees!  The sun is starting to set! We think we can get in there before dark.
6:30pm:  There's the pass!  Can't tell where the shallow water and the reef is!  The water color all looks the same in this twilight!  Watch out for those breakers!  The ones on the right!  Oh, and the ones on the left too!  Don sent me up to the bow to get a better look at the water.  I can't see a thing.  It all looks gray to me.  We put our trust in our radar, depth sounder, GPS and electronic charts, and through the pass we went as the sun sank.
 
Me on the bow, "How's our depth?"
Don, "6 meters!"
Me on the bow, "I can't see a thing! How's our depth?"
Don, "10 meters!"
Me on the bow, "I can't see a thing! How's our depth?"
Don, "20 meters! We're in the lagoon!"
 
Done.
 
We moseyed on over to the area designated for anchoring to join the other four rally boats that arrived before we did and set down the anchor in the dark with no problem.  We looked around.  Four rally boats, one non-rally boat and one small residence for the caretaker on the nearby aptly named Anchorage Island.  That's it.  A deserted island just for us (and 15 of our closest rally boat friends).
 
Soon after we anchored a dinghy approached carrying David, the captain of Kealoha 8 and Mandy, World ARC Event Manager.  They gave us a hearty welcome and congratulated us for being the fourth boat to arrive.  Not bad out of sixteen.  Shortly thereafter, we heard rally boat Williwaw on the radio.  They were 15 miles away and asking World ARC Control (Mandy) if she thought they could make it through the unlit pass through the coral reef in the dark.  She basically said, 'No way.'   So, while we are snug in the lagoon, sipping wine at our dinner table, Williwaw will be circling and sailing for the next eleven hours while they wait for the sun to come up.  As Don says, 'Sometimes, you just get lucky.'
 
Anne