September 2, Hunkered down, doing maintenance and paperwork

2 September 2012  from Barry:  It is blowing like stink today!  The wind has shifted to the South-southeast.  Cooler, sub-tropical air.  We are no longer in the lee of Anchorage Island, the motu to the east of us.  Hence, the fetch of the wind chop hitting Sunrise is developing all the way across from the other side of the lagoon about 5 miles away.  At least the reef on the other side of the atoll blocks the ocean swells, which must be pretty significant in this wind.  Directly behind us about 200 yards is the reef on the north side of the atoll.  So our back is toward the wall, so to speak.  We would prefer to be anchored on the other side of the atoll, but the rules say this is the only place we can anchor.  Our anchor is in 70 feet of water, but with 200 feet of chain out, Sunrise is over 100 feet of water.  That means that the anchor is being pulled up by the boat but has to hold on to a bottom going down hill.  If the anchor drags, we will be on the reef behind us within a minute or two.  We are in a tenuous position and are paying a lot of attention to our situation.  If all goes well, will have more days to explorer this fabled place.  If disaster strikes, everyone will  say that we should have left Suwarrow as soon as the wind direction and speed made things dangerous.  It's a gamble!  We will probably never get another chance to be at Suwarrow.  Last night, as the wind varied in speed and direction, Sunrise moved forward and back as the curve of the chain straightened and sagged, and also moved from side to side.  Since the bottom is uneven, the depth of the water under the boat kept changing.  Hence, the alarm on our depth sounder went off repeatedly.  We also have a boundary circle set around the boat's GPS position on our computer's chart program.    Set at a 100 foot radius, that alarm also went off repeatedly.  After I set the boundary radius at 200 feet, that alarm was much less active, but would have been slower to respond if our anchor dragged.  I must have gotten out bed 10 times to silence the alarms and check our position.  Therefore, a very short night!  The couple on our closest neighbor boat have been at the bow of their boat repeatedly all day.  They say that their anchor chain is wrapped around a coral head sticking up from the bottom.  How that will resolve itself remains to be seen.  We could be wrapped also.  We may not find out until we try to pull up the anchor to leave.  We have gotten snagged before and have always managed to get free relatively easily.  Even with the clear water, it is probably too deep to see the bottom while snorkeling on the surface.  Sometimes, I can free dive deep enough to see the situation on the bottom.  We have one SCUBA tank that we carry just for such an emergency.  So today, we are hunkered down, doing maintenance and paperwork.

We are under a stationary front and it is cloudy.  Occasionally, it spits a few rain drops.  We have our clothes lines covered with salty bedding and we are hoping for a downpour to rinse out the salt.  What we do not want is a pile of wet salty bedding.  So the covered clothes lines are now down in the lee of the dodger.  That means that if the downpour comes, we will be out in it while putting up the clothes lines.  It makes us appreciate the washing machine and dryer at home.  Bigger boats (45 feet and up) often have washers, but very few our size have them.  Why?  The volume inside a boat goes up as the cube of the length, that's why!  You not only need room for the washer, but a 110 VAC generator to power it and enough water tankage or desalinator capacity to supply all the water.  Hey, we are doing good  just having a manual wringer!