Thursday, April 16, 2009

Day 212

I woke up this morning and was immediately excited. Today I get to snorkel Thunder ball cave. This is the cave that 007’s Thunder ball was filmed in and is one of the best snorkelling-must-see’s in the Bahamas. We decided (well Karen called on the VHF to inform us) that we should go at slack tide around 9:45.

When we got there we found some people already snorkelling and feeding the fish. If you bring bread crumbs with you the fish literally swarm you and in looking for food nip at your hands. I went back to the dingy and got my gloves. The inside of the caves looked like the caves we visited in Long Island...but with 6-12’ of water and a big air pocket at the top with what we called sky lights (holes in the roof that let in the sun).

When we had had enough of Thunder ball we went back and snorkelled the beach where we were anchored. It was a cute reef and had everything. I collected some shells and ended up staying in the water until 1 lol.

Once I got out of the water we started to move to a spot where we would be protected from the west wind we’re suppose to have tomorrow. Unfortunately since we had had no wind our anchor road (the rope attached to our anchor) wrapped around the keel. Luckily it was an easy fix and with me hopping in the dingy and pushing the stern around we were able to un foul the line and all was good =].

Southern Cross led the way and anchored just north of Foul Cay. We tried to anchor and dragged it and then pulled it up and tried again. We dragged it. We tried to find a sandy spot and dropped the anchor. What do you think it did? It dragged. Then finally it set!...and we were in the channel and in no way protected from the west wind. So we hauled it up. We wanted to put out the Fortress but since it is our back up anchor it only has 30’ of chain on it and a lot of what hold the boat is not actually the anchor but the chain. So we again tried the Delta. I could keep typing that we tried it again and again but this would be the longest post in history, so I’ll just say we eventually thought we had it hooked. I wanted off of the boat and went for a swim.

Notice how in the last paragraph I said we thought we had the delta set. As I was swimming I realized that the Delta was not set but actually laying on the bottom on its side. I hollered at Papa and gave him the news. I told him that I would stay in the water and I would dive on it hoping to persuade it to set.

I dove on it setting it upright and started to pull it in and then signalled Grama to back down slowly. It dragged and I dove on it again and again and again. Eventually we thought we got it set. That idiotic idea only lasted a few minutes because I wasn’t completely convinced it was set and just asked Grama to back hard on it one more time to make me happy...and we dragged it. I climbed back onboard no one knew what to do now.

Papa got his tools and went forward. No one was really speaking but we knew what he was going to do. He spent a while on the bow changing the main anchor to the Fortress. When Papa had the Fortress attached to our 100’ of chain and we dropped it, it bit immediately. We were set for the night.

Everyone was kinda snappy so I wanted off of the boat so I took the dingy, went to Southern Cross and picked up Karen and headed around the Cay to watch the sun set on the water.

Niki

1 comment:

Sammeh said...

wow.
that anchor sucks bawls D:
Dx
get a fat girl to set your boat for you :]
she'd be good at it xD might kill you
but anyways.