The Voyage of Spectacle

Yesterday evening, we pulled up anchor and left Hiva Oa for the quick overnight sail northwest to Nuku Hiva.  Unfortunately, the stern anchor proved extremely ornery to pick up.  As I mentioned before, Tahauku Bay is famous for bad holding, eating anchors, and a population of small, but occasionally aggressive, sharks.  We had already heard two separate stories of lost anchors in the bay’s murky waters and cluttered muddy bottom.  The people on one boat suited up with scuba gear to find their lost anchor, and it was so murky and cluttered on the bottom, they couldn’t even locate it much less retrieve it.

Anyway, we tried everything to dislodge the anchor including asking another boat, who anchored too closely behind us, to move in case their anchor line was fouling ours (but it wasn’t).  Finally, against our better judgment, we decided to use the boat’s engine to strong-arm it.  This strategy can be ill advised as the opportunity to rip a cleat clean out of the deck of the boat is quite high, and that’s an extremely inconvenient boat injury … far worse than merely losing an anchor.  Nonetheless, we were out of options and losing the daylight necessary to exit the channel.  And it worked like a charm!  On closer inspection, a rock was deeply wedged in the swivel, so it dug in harder when we pulled on it instead of swiveling flat and releasing the ocean bed.

At that point, I took my position on the bow and began to take in the primary anchor.  The anchor was about twenty feet from the surface when the windlass started to malfunction.  It suddenly couldn’t handle the weight, reversed direction, and let the anchor freefall to the bottom while letting out chain lightening fast.  Now, this may not seem that scary, but the windlass system can be quite dangerous … the weight of the anchor, plus the weight of the some eighty feet of chain, plus the resistance of the twenty ton boat, plus the strength of the ocean current all combines to a very robust system that could easily chew up a finger or a foot.  Knowing this fact and quite startled, I let out a fairly blood curdling scream as I stepped safe distance from the malfunction.  The entire anchorage heard the scream, as well as the recognizable rumble of chain rapidly paying out, and immediately thought the worst.  Luckily, the chain stopped, and with a quick tightening turn of the windlass, it was back to its old self.  I, however, was not back to my old self for several hours.    

As we left the bay and turned west, an incredible full moon was rising behind us over Fatu Hiva in the distance, and a truly amazing sunset was finishing over the western cliffs of Hiva Oa.  It was so beautiful, we couldn’t make up our minds which way to look.