May 22 - A typical 24 hours at anchor AKA 4 am when the front comes through till 4 am the next day
We have been sitting anchored around the wrong side of the island for a couple of days waiting for a front to go through because the current wind makes it impossible to anchor elsewhere. (It is the wrong side of the island in the sense that it’s a wee isolated bay far from anywhere - the right side of the island being beside the one and only town, the place you can land your dingy and set off exploring from.) About thirty sailboats visit Easter Island every year and all three that are here right now are anchored in the same bay as us waiting for the weather. One, owned by a Canadian who single-handed from Panama, has checked out already and is just waiting for weather to sail on west, the other, owned by an Australian who single-handed from Costa Rica, is, like us, waiting for a chance to go to the harbour by the town and so to visit the island. (Yesterday evening we had the other two over for a drink, a totally enjoyable time.)
My ‘day’ began at 4 am when the cold front we had been waiting for went through. Holy shit batman! The commotion woke me up and I went up to sit in the pilot house so I could have a good view in all round (I could see blackness in every direction for anyone who cares), listen to the wind and the rain, and, of course, worry a bit. I expected the captain to get up and check on the situation too but apparently he was chilling in his bunk less worried than me. Mostly, I can tell you, I am thrilled that we were not at sea. The front was like a wall. BAM. Three things happened at once: the wind changed direction, its speed went UP, and the hammering rain arrived. Since we are at anchor and all the weather instruments are turned off I can’t tell you exactly what the wind speed was but I can say this, it was howling - a technical term which means freakishly fast – and the rain was beating down as if being ejected from a high pressure hose. Sven’s custom rig, as one calls a made-to-order boat, cost about 3 million to have built (yeah, wow) but for some reason, although he has a large wonderfully enclosed pilot house and a large well-protected cockpit, he didn’t get the halyards and reefing lines led back so every time you want to adjust the main sail, put it up, take in a reef, take it down, etc, you have to do up along the exposed deck at the side of the boat to where the mast is and do the work right there being, if it is very windy, blown about by gusts and drenched in waves sea water, and, if it is raining, rained on. (Even the wee boat Geoff and I bought had lines led back so you could do work safely from the cockpit.) So at 4 am I was listening to the crashing of the waves, the clanging of the rigging, the drumming of the rain, and frankly, as I mentioned above, was thinking how thrilled I was that we were not out at sea. What kind of sailor am I anyway?
Eventually the others got up and the weather settled down to more gentle winds, low nondescript grey clouds, and that steady sort of rain that gives the impression it will go on all day. It felt like a Saturday. We lingered over breakfast, had a second cup of coffee, and then slowly, without any undue stress, started a couple of inside chores. (The captain repaired the grey water pump, Lisa pulled out her sewing machine and made a new clothes peg bag to replace the one that I had let fall over board the day before, and I emptied and cleaned a couple of lockers we had somehow missed before we left whose back walls were growing mold.) Lisa prepared squid for lunch. The Australian, who had left his jacket last night by mistake, came by in his dingy. In the afternoon the captain and I both downloaded our photos to our computers and worked on our respective journals then sat in the pilot house reading for a bit. I had a nap, we all sat together and sipped a glass of wine and watched the sunset, I made supper, we ate, we watched a movie and, finally, we all moseyed off to bed.
At some point in the late afternoon the coast guard had phoned on the VHF radio saying that it was still no good at the anchorage by the town but recommending that we move to a third different anchorage even further round the island. Sven decided not to go so 4 am finds me up again, sitting in the pilot house, and worrying, wondering if we ought to have moved. The winds shifted when the front came through and then calmed down during the day but, now, 24 hours later, have picked up again and big, very big, waves are coming straight at us from out at sea and so the bay, which protected us before, no longer does. The boat’s motion resembles more than anything else a bucking bronco. It is restrained by its anchor and feels it. As each wave hits, WHAM, the bow of the boat seems to hesitate for a second before shuddering violently and then lifting way up, and I mean WAY UP, causing the anchor chain to rattle with a loud clattering that is deep enough it resembles thunder, then plunging back down again, then THUD swhish, the wave passes below and the boat fishtails and rocks dramatically from side to side and finally, WOOOOOSH SPLASH crash, the stern itself splashes spectacularly through the end of the wave. Over this plays the sharp thwang of stays being stresses and released as they restrain the mast which is whipping over and back as the boat rocks, a deep deep BOOM like a Buddhist gong from who knows what, the constant wash splash rush of water past the hull, and a gazillion random loud clanks and rattles and other assorted noises from shackles that have worked their way a little loose or things not lashed down tightly enough or the contents of cupboards not quite full. So I’d crawled out of my bunk and gone up to the pilot house to see what I could see (stars flung across the sky above and the moon rising to the east and the old volcano landscape behind the boat, very dark against the less dark sky, looking like the Little Prince’s snake who had swallowed an elephant) and all the motions of the boat and their associated noises were louder and more dramatic and I found myself thinking exactly the same thing I’d been thinking exactly 24 hours ago, “Man, I’m glad we’re not out to sea (and what kind of sissy sailor ever thinks that)!”
Yep, just another day at anchor.
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| A (wee part) of the view from our second anchorage... |
We have been sitting anchored around the wrong side of the island for a couple of days waiting for a front to go through because the current wind makes it impossible to anchor elsewhere. (It is the wrong side of the island in the sense that it’s a wee isolated bay far from anywhere - the right side of the island being beside the one and only town, the place you can land your dingy and set off exploring from.) About thirty sailboats visit Easter Island every year and all three that are here right now are anchored in the same bay as us waiting for the weather. One, owned by a Canadian who single-handed from Panama, has checked out already and is just waiting for weather to sail on west, the other, owned by an Australian who single-handed from Costa Rica, is, like us, waiting for a chance to go to the harbour by the town and so to visit the island. (Yesterday evening we had the other two over for a drink, a totally enjoyable time.)
My ‘day’ began at 4 am when the cold front we had been waiting for went through. Holy shit batman! The commotion woke me up and I went up to sit in the pilot house so I could have a good view in all round (I could see blackness in every direction for anyone who cares), listen to the wind and the rain, and, of course, worry a bit. I expected the captain to get up and check on the situation too but apparently he was chilling in his bunk less worried than me. Mostly, I can tell you, I am thrilled that we were not at sea. The front was like a wall. BAM. Three things happened at once: the wind changed direction, its speed went UP, and the hammering rain arrived. Since we are at anchor and all the weather instruments are turned off I can’t tell you exactly what the wind speed was but I can say this, it was howling - a technical term which means freakishly fast – and the rain was beating down as if being ejected from a high pressure hose. Sven’s custom rig, as one calls a made-to-order boat, cost about 3 million to have built (yeah, wow) but for some reason, although he has a large wonderfully enclosed pilot house and a large well-protected cockpit, he didn’t get the halyards and reefing lines led back so every time you want to adjust the main sail, put it up, take in a reef, take it down, etc, you have to do up along the exposed deck at the side of the boat to where the mast is and do the work right there being, if it is very windy, blown about by gusts and drenched in waves sea water, and, if it is raining, rained on. (Even the wee boat Geoff and I bought had lines led back so you could do work safely from the cockpit.) So at 4 am I was listening to the crashing of the waves, the clanging of the rigging, the drumming of the rain, and frankly, as I mentioned above, was thinking how thrilled I was that we were not out at sea. What kind of sailor am I anyway?
Eventually the others got up and the weather settled down to more gentle winds, low nondescript grey clouds, and that steady sort of rain that gives the impression it will go on all day. It felt like a Saturday. We lingered over breakfast, had a second cup of coffee, and then slowly, without any undue stress, started a couple of inside chores. (The captain repaired the grey water pump, Lisa pulled out her sewing machine and made a new clothes peg bag to replace the one that I had let fall over board the day before, and I emptied and cleaned a couple of lockers we had somehow missed before we left whose back walls were growing mold.) Lisa prepared squid for lunch. The Australian, who had left his jacket last night by mistake, came by in his dingy. In the afternoon the captain and I both downloaded our photos to our computers and worked on our respective journals then sat in the pilot house reading for a bit. I had a nap, we all sat together and sipped a glass of wine and watched the sunset, I made supper, we ate, we watched a movie and, finally, we all moseyed off to bed.
At some point in the late afternoon the coast guard had phoned on the VHF radio saying that it was still no good at the anchorage by the town but recommending that we move to a third different anchorage even further round the island. Sven decided not to go so 4 am finds me up again, sitting in the pilot house, and worrying, wondering if we ought to have moved. The winds shifted when the front came through and then calmed down during the day but, now, 24 hours later, have picked up again and big, very big, waves are coming straight at us from out at sea and so the bay, which protected us before, no longer does. The boat’s motion resembles more than anything else a bucking bronco. It is restrained by its anchor and feels it. As each wave hits, WHAM, the bow of the boat seems to hesitate for a second before shuddering violently and then lifting way up, and I mean WAY UP, causing the anchor chain to rattle with a loud clattering that is deep enough it resembles thunder, then plunging back down again, then THUD swhish, the wave passes below and the boat fishtails and rocks dramatically from side to side and finally, WOOOOOSH SPLASH crash, the stern itself splashes spectacularly through the end of the wave. Over this plays the sharp thwang of stays being stresses and released as they restrain the mast which is whipping over and back as the boat rocks, a deep deep BOOM like a Buddhist gong from who knows what, the constant wash splash rush of water past the hull, and a gazillion random loud clanks and rattles and other assorted noises from shackles that have worked their way a little loose or things not lashed down tightly enough or the contents of cupboards not quite full. So I’d crawled out of my bunk and gone up to the pilot house to see what I could see (stars flung across the sky above and the moon rising to the east and the old volcano landscape behind the boat, very dark against the less dark sky, looking like the Little Prince’s snake who had swallowed an elephant) and all the motions of the boat and their associated noises were louder and more dramatic and I found myself thinking exactly the same thing I’d been thinking exactly 24 hours ago, “Man, I’m glad we’re not out to sea (and what kind of sissy sailor ever thinks that)!”
Yep, just another day at anchor.
