June 27, 2014 At Sea Again

Making way under full sail in 12 knots of wind, beam reaching for Vava’u, Tonga (700 miles distant).  Perfect sailing!  This morning Steve dove on our anchor, which was wrapped twice around a coral head.  We’d have lost our anchor if it wasn’t for him.  The depth & shark factor were beyond my scope as a beginning diver.  There were loads of sharks and scallops the size of footballs on the bottom, 85 feet down.

We were fortunate not to have become a statistic in Suwarrow.  The atoll is littered with shipwrecks.  Many sailboats wrap their chains around a coral head just like we did,  and when the wind & waves pick up (which they did for us too) the chain comes tight & snaps off the rode, and the vessel is driven onto the coral reefs.  Our rode came up tight & vertical two nights ago and it snapped our snubber in two as we bounced in the chop.  We spent the entire night hanging on the end of our nylon rode extension, adjusting chafe gear, and had the engine on and ready to go, at the helm and ready to act at the first moment.  Luckily it never came.  All of our dock/snubber lines are shredded, but we have our ground tackle!

Needless to say, it feels very good to be back at sea, where we can get a good night’s sleep!  We have a very favorable GRIB report for the week ahead, light to moderate SE trades.

13 31′ S

163 47′ W

SOG 6.6 kts

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