Well, today’s title should have read ‘Manihi to Fakarava’ but here we still are, stuck in paradise. Literally! Stuck!
The day starts innocently enough. Wake up (obviously … well not always obvious in my case as according to Mike I am a morning zombie), breakfast (eating the most enormous pamplemousse I have ever seen), get washed and sort of dressed, then start to pull the anchor up.
Photo: At over 6” across, this is what I call a pamplemousse!
It pulls up enough to remove the hook and the bridle, and another 20 feet of chain come up easily but then suddenly, and with a huge jerk, the boat pitches forward and down and the chain stops coming up. I take my foot off the windlass button immediately so as not to burn the motor out, wait for the boat to drift forward a bit (this normally does the trick) then have another go. Another huge jerk, then nothing. OK, so the anchor is jammed. Nothing serious. It’s happened before.
Mike moves the boat round to a different angle and we try again. Nothing. We move the boat to 180 degrees from where we were and have yet another go. No chance. Nothing.
Mike decides to get his Hooka gear on and dive down to take a look. This takes some time to organise but eventually he is ready, and with what looks like a vacuum cleaner hose suctioned to his face, off he goes, leaving me with orders to keep a watch on the pressure gauge.
Photos: All kitted out and ready to do battle with the anchor
I watch the gauge, watch for his telltale bubbles and take pictures of the pretty scenery all around.
Photos: Pretty above the sea, pretty annoying below
He’s back fairly quickly as the breathing hose won’t quite reach the anchor. We disconnect it and move the Hooka to the trampoline, giving us a further 40 feet to play with, re-connect it all and down he goes again.
Photo: Back for another go
He comes back up again and asks for the broom handle so that he can give the anchor a good poke (actually I think he just wants to hit something). It only seems to be dug in deep to sand, although there must be a rock under there somewhere giving it something to hold to.
He manages to get down to the anchor - only just making it though as the Hooka gear is only rated to 14m and we are in 17m of water – poking underneath it with the broom handle to try to loosen it and trying to pull it out by hand but the wind is putting too much pressure on the chain.
He comes up and shouts for me to get one of the 'hurricane lines'. These things are bloody heavy – 100 feet of rope over one inch in diameter and they are down in the bow lockers. Dragging one out is flipping hard work for me, but having done so and tying it on to Jeannius, he discovers that it is not long enough and has to come back up for another one, ties them together, goes back down, ties it around a bar at the front of the anchor and then finally climbs back aboard Jeannius.
We take the strain on the line and motor forward ... bang ... the line goes slack and we think we've snapped it, but when we pull it up and can see that the line and the bowline on the end are intact, Mike realises that we’ve pulled the one inch bar off the anchor!
Frustrated and tired, I try to phone the local scuba shop - the phone number doesn’t work - call the big hotel where the scuba shop is located - no answer!
Mike goes back down and ties the line around the shank of the anchor, comes up, gets in the dinghy and tries to pull the anchor forward. Nothing. He ties the line to Jeannius, motors forward, and infuriatingly we just go round in circles. At this point, he gives up.
Photo: Frustrated, Mike and his Hooka come back to the boat
He could have tried putting the stern anchor off the bow to take the strain off the main anchor but there is so much rock/dead coral down there he'd probably just get that one stuck too. The other thing he could have tried was getting me to take the strain off the anchor by motoring gently forward, but with the air line from the Hooka down, it doesn’t seem like that good an idea.
He calls the hotel again and this time someone answers and gives us the proper number for the scuba shop and we are able to organise for Marc from Blue Nui Dive Centre, to come out tomorrow. Graham from Eowyn also calls on the Iridium phone and gives us the number for another diver so we should be able to get the anchor up one way or another tomorrow and head off to Fakarava.
By the end of the day we are both aching and tired. I make an easy but delicious meal (wonderful pasta with chilli and garlic – good comfort food) – and we sit in our cool TV room (the stern cabin!). Hopefully things will be sorted tomorrow.
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