Update 4 – Challenges in San Benedicto

Happy Friday Eve!

We had our first experience of having to pull anchor in the middle of the night last night. It was a learning lesson for both of us as we made an error in judgement. But first, let me back up before we get to the juicy gossip of midnight re anchoring! When Brad and I first rolled into the San Benedicto anchorage we were quite tired and struggled to place our anchor in a spot that wasn’t caught in the rocks. The wind was blowing off of the volcano at a steady 20kts which had stirred up the visibility in the water. Finally on our fourth drop we found a place that seemed suitable. But was it really?! The next day we got in the water and dove our anchor and chain to find it mischievously wrapped around several boulders and making several 90 degree turns. It looked like a drunken sailor dropped anchor! Nevertheless, our gear was holding and we weren’t going to go anywhere with how the chain was set. In fact, it was set so well that the it snapped our “snubber” (a line connecting the chain to the boat acting as a shock-absorber) due to the chain wrapped around a rock right under the boat–See attached picture.

Yesterday the wind was low and Brad and I set about fixing our anchor situation once and for all. Brad was at the bow and I was at the helm following his instructions while we tried to get Perspective freed from the tangled mess below. We cautiously pulled forward and our attempts were met with hard yanks from below, pulling Perspective like a toy. This would require another tactic. Cue our amazing boat buddies, Bruce and Alene on Migration. They had just finished doing a dive and were suited up and offered to give us a hand. Alene kindly offered to hop in the water and provide directions to untangle our anchor chain from the surface. When she first had a look at our tangled mess, she gave a good chuckle. Not one to back away from a challenge she said we could do it! Brad and I resumed our stations and Brad followed Alene’s instructions and repeated them to me. Step by step we were able to get our chain free from the rocks below and eventually pulled up our anchor.

Now all we had to do was find a new place to drop the hook and once again Alene provided her snorkeling services. She located some sand between Paseo (another buddy boat) and the shore. We pulled into the spot, dropped the hook and sighed in relief as we knew we would be able to pull anchor in a hurry should an emergency arise. We were pretty close to Paseo, about 200ft or so but felt it was a safe enough distance to stay put. Here’s where we made our mistake. We had asked Paseo how much chain they had out, and we had about 70ft less than they did. Combine that with a change in wind direction and you end up with two boats that are very close together, ready to go bump in the night!

If it weren’t for an annoying squeak on deck that required some on deck investigation, we wouldn’t have known just how close we were to Paseo. Brad being the trooper that he is, went on deck to find the squeak and silence it, but not before calling me up there. Paseo was maybe 35 feet from Perspective! I uncovered our dodger glass, hailed Paseo on the radio to let them know that we were going to pull anchor and to stand by. It was a tense time for all of us as we placed fenders, stowed our flopper stopper and finally pulled the anchor. Once the anchor was up, Brad took the helm and we began the process of finding a new spot to anchor. The moon had yet to rise making the anchorage and the surrounding land quite dark and disorienting. We made several loops and finally it was decided we were going to anchor in another area altogether.

I went to the bow with a flashlight in my hand waiting on instructions to drop the anchor. I had the light shining in the water to see if I could spot rocks below, but all I could see were the curious sharks making their way around our boat. With the bright light shining on them they looked like ghosts as they swam ahead of us. I thought to myself this would not be a good time to fall in the water, and if I did, I’m pretty sure I would be running on the surface! Once Brad found a suitable spot he gave me the command to drop the anchor and let out 100ft of chain. I did exactly that and stuck my foot on the chain to feel for any skipping or dragging. The feedback I received was solid. The chain pulled taut and the boat lurched forward. I dropped more chain until we had 200ft laid out, then another 50ft to finish the job. Words cannot express how thankful I was that we did not get caught up in the rocks below (at least from what I can tell) but that will require some under water investigating later.

Feeling confident in our new spot we radioed our fleet of buddies and gave them our thanks for the offers of help and support. We definitely learned an important lesson and are so glad that we managed to avoid that imminent bump in the night!

The lesson for the day is to ensure our chain is the same length (scope) as our neighbors so that we move *together*…