I'm still in Fiji, the story follows:::::::::
well let me tell you what happened the other day, Monday morn to be exact. At around 0800 I was entering the channel to Lautoka and as I rounded the corner there was an oil tanker offloading oil at the main dock. It had two long cables out to the mooring bouys and it almost completely blocked the channel, except for a little bit on the edge. I was a bit confused, at first I thought I was on the wrong side of the channel marker and so I altered course a bit. But then I realized that there was room for me to pass, but I was now too far off the channel and the depth alarm went off. A second later, I was hard on the reef.
The tide was falling, so after a few minutes of reverse, then tugging with my 6 HP zodiac, then tugging with a village 40 HP boat, no luck, she was listing to port and the tide was going out. I gave the village guy $20 and got prepared to stay there until the tide re-floated her in the afternoon. Another village guy came out, he saw that I was preparing a cushion for Prism on the reef, when she laid down on her bilge, I didn't want any coral poking holes so I had a small tyre and lots of sinking ropes. He said he had bigger tyres, I asked for 2 and he brought them. I gave him $20 too. Those tyres saved my boat.
The tide went down, the seas were calm and so Prism just gently laid on the tyres. Later on the wind came up with a bit of a chop and so I put the main anchor out into the channel and then tied the spinnaker halyard to it. Then I pulled it in tight and the anchor pulled the mast down. This pulled the hull down onto the tyres even though the waves were lifting the hull up and down. As the hull was lifted up and down the tyres got jiggled a little bit and so by holding the mast over with the anchor, I was able to keep the hull planted on the tyres. Soon the tide was too high and the hull was lifting up and down on the tyres, so I released the anchor from the mast and the hull popped up a few inches and she was floating. I left the anchor rigged to the mast, though, because when it came time to float, if the tide wasn't quite as high as the tide I went on at, then I could lean the mast over on the anchor and reduce the draft of the boat.
Good idea, but bad timing. Shortly after that a ferry departed Lautoka and apparently it couldn't turn into the wind and get out of the harbour, so it dropped its anchor in the channel. Sure enough it drifted back on its anchor and sure enough it got turned around and sure enough it snagged my anchor on the way out. I had to cut the spinnaker halyard, and it screamed away. Then the anchor line came tight and it dragged Prism around on her keel. Then the anchor line started to make some cracking noises from inside Prism where it was attached, and so I cut that line too.
All the ground tackle was lost and it didn't come up onto the ferry. It was pretty straight forward after that, Prism got off on the high tide and I went to the anchorage and anchored in exhaustion. Next morning we dove for the anchor, no luck. Now I'm going to see the master of the ferry and see if he will re-imburse me anything for my lost anchor. Wish me luck.
Certainly no luck there, no sirree. And he didn't know where it dragged to, it never came up with his anchor. No he couldn't help with the cost of the divers. No no, don't know nothing, I pretty well expected that.
So we had another dive this afternoon, no luck, and one last dive is scheduled tomorrow at 8 AM. If nothing happens, well, another lesson learned at the cost of only money, nobody was hurt, nobody was injured. That's not too bad, just one anchor and rode lost in the crossing of the Pacific. I'll go to Australia and find an anchor and chain replacement, even better than the one I lost, and carry on.
This delay and the delay getting an anchor in Australia is going to make me way behind my schedule to get around the top of Australia and into Phuket. I can see myself spending the Austral summer in Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps I'm just tired right now and want to go somewhere I can cruise in comfort, like the Austral summer.
Yesterday first thing, I went to get my divers, but they had dove at night so they didn't want to dive again until 1 PM. So I dragged the pointy thing, or grapple, around searching for my anchor, I must have snagged about 22,000 plastic bags of mud, but no anchor. Then we dove at 1, two divers no luck.
I changed the fee schedule for my divers, now they will get $300 if they find it, but the $50 dives are over. One of my divers had a leaky second reg, he wasn't down very long. The other diver didn't find anything. So tomorrow they are going to dive for free, unless they find something. I might hang around until they give up the diving, dragging my grapple, hoping to catch that anchor.
After the diving, Tom invited me back to his house for Cava. so I accepted and had a great time talking to all the guys, no girls allowed at the cava. Talked to his grandpa, his friends, his brother, all went well. Apparently I am not the first yacht to strand on that reef. That's why I didn't get home till late. Tom's wife, Lucie, made me a very nice fish dinner to go, and I just finished that.
So it has been kind of neat, getting to know the people in the village of Bio, instead of sailing to Australia, as planned this week.
Anyways Bill, more will follow, I don't know when I'll get out of here.
Jim
No comments:
Post a Comment