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
|