Thursday 30th May 2013
Well the face worked we can now stay on the Dutch side, for the cost of the French side...hahaha
So the fun begins, now I don't think I had said on here how good we were at bringing up the anchor and setting it.
This was a major concern on my part, as The Captain and I have never done it by ourselves.
When we left Bermuda, it all went like clock work, the Captain at the Bow lifting and Bringing up the anchor chain, me at the helm, steering, both with two ways so The Captain can tell me what to do.
For those who do not know, the boat has to be at a certain angle to bring it up and also we have what you call a snubber, tied to the chain this helps with the strain, so you need to get the chain to a certain height than unclip that and keep bringing it in.
As you can imagine the boat is swinging all the time, so my job is to try and keep it in the right direction, it's not that easy, I'm at the helm he is giving instructions, go port, go starboard, put it in idle, put in reverse, and so on, all the while trying not to swing to close to other boats.
So back to Bermuda, well it worked like clockwork we were very chuffed with ourselves, then it was time to anchor in Sait Maarten same kind of deal but this is more stressful, as you have to make sure you have just the right amount of chain down, and then put it hard in reverse to see if it holds and really, really try hard not to hit the 20 odd boats around, and of cause its great entertainment for all the other boaties as well.
I'm sure most are just worried that you may run into them.
Well we did it like we have been doing it all our lives, first go and all, went perfect, so we are walking around chest puffed out so proud of ourselves...hahaha
So getting back to today, I was not too worried about doing this ad we have done it, perfect before, well I should of been worried...haha
First we had to get the anchor up real quick, as the bridge was opening in about 8 minutes time, if we missed this opening, we would of had to wait another 6 hours to go through.
So all is going well then the chain jams, it's like a mountain of chain piled on top of each other, so desperately going to port and starboard forwards, reverse with 3 boats very close to us, I,m panicking and telling The Captain we are getting to close to this one and that, he has his head down, fighting with the Chain, the others are on their boats watching, I'm sure ready to fend us off if we got to close.
But we managed to get it up finally, so much for pros, and look at the time we have about 30 seconds to get over to the channel to go through the bridge, far out.
But we made it just.
Then come into the lagoon, now we have been told some parts are shallow, so we put on the nav thingy, and yeap does not give much depth, so watch the depth sounder instead.
There is only a few boats anchored here but behind us are some really big yachts and mega yachts, we so can't afford to run into them.
We still were not too worried, as we have done this before right?
So we pick our spot The Captain goes forward, me at the helm walkie talkies, he goes to put the anchor down, I look at the depth, 0.1 meters depth, OMG, me yelling at The Captain, through the Two way, him not answering try several times, than realise I need to push the talk button in first...hahah
So he yells out to put it in reverse, and nothing I'm thinking man we are grounded, he comes racing back, but we eventually start to move, it is also very windy.
So take 3 or 4 we keep trying every time we just kept getting into shallow water, than a guy pops up on deck from a boat close by and tells us it's way to shallow on that side anchor behind him, so we try that, take I think 6 by now, this was more stressful than the first few try's as not only did we get way to close to him several times, but beside us was a very expensive yacht and man we got close to it a lot, by this time we are in such a panic mode, we are half yelling out, and half using the two ways, The Captain running back and forth cause the damn boat won't move, at one stage the wind picked up so hard we were just spinning in circles, oh and also there was a great big barge dredging the area as well.
The big problem was that the anchor would not take, there is a lot of weed around and the anchor just rolls over the top if it.
But finally after about god knows how many tries we got it, two very stressed out, sweating cruisers gave a big sigh of relief, and went hunting for a stiff drink...hahaha just joking its only 10am, but we sure wanted too.
I did some cleaning up around here, washed some clothes, while the Captain went to talk to the riggers, they came out in the afternoon, and it looks like, three more of the shrouds for the mast have to be fixed, man are we ever going to get this boat right.
I guess it's good that we found out now and not be in the middle of the ocean when they let go.
Well tomorrow is another day.