It ain't all Rum Punches - PART DEUX!

SNAP!

I am convinced Megan jinxed us.

Posting about our prior issues betrayed the sacred trust we've developed with "Bones" - she must not have been pleased that we embarrassed her by telling about all her pimples and warts!

Why do I think this?  Well ... because we had a very very traumatic experience only a few days after our last post!

We were anchored in Charleston Bay, Canouan, on 10 January.  It was a fairly windy night, with gusts up in the 30knot range.  Charleston Bay is known as a gusty anchorage, but we had out ample chain at 10:1 scope and had dove on our anchor (as we always do) to ensure it was well bedded in.

As with many of the anchorages in the Grenadines, multiple boats on moorings were around us, but we felt like we had enough space and went to sleep.  These winds were not something that we should have had to be worried about ... but ...

I (Mike) was awoken a few times during the night by the howling winds, and then again around 4am by a sharp "jerk".  For whatever reason, my subconscious detected that jerk & the changed motion of the boat and I was up on deck before I was even really awake.

And once on deck, I was fully awake instantly!  We were about 10 feet upwind of the boat that had been moored behind us - bearing down fast.

I shouted for Megan while running to the helm station and starting our engines.  I was just able to get them started in time to spin the bow away from the catamaran (we were drifting side on by this point) - narrowly missing being t-boned by the other catamarans bow!  We were fortunate that neither prop caught on a line, as the mooring ball for that boat was already under our starboard hull!

Once we were clear of the other boat, Megan went up to the bow to start hauling in the anchor.  We thought we had just started dragging very badly - but the shock Megan experience when only chain came up on deck - without any anchor attached - was tremendous!



Thankfully, the "Moorings" charter service had a large fleet of moorings in Charleston Bay, and we were able to motor up to one of them and tie on for the rest of the night.  Naked and freezing (it was raining as well as windy), we both had a cup of coffee & rugged up while trying to get our bearings about us. Needless to say, we didn't get back to sleep.

Anchor dragging is something I am constantly on watch for - but for our anchor chain to have snapped really shocked me.

Once it was light enough, we took the dinghy back over to where we had anchored and I snorkelled around looking for the chain & anchor.  We had been in around 5m of water, and with all the wind it was quite murky from stirred up sediment, but after about 15 minutes I located the anchor & chain.

Once we had tied it off to a fender, I dove to the "broken" end of the chain (opposite from the anchor) and found the culprit:  a "quick-link" type chain connecter!

I managed to recover about half of it (the other half fell away as I rose to the surface).  After that, we pulled up the anchor & remaining chain (there was still 30m attached to the anchor).

We then inspected all of the chain - each and every link - to see the condition.  There were no other connectors like the one that had snapped, but we have decided to either re-galvanize the existing chain or buy new chain when we arrive in Grenada in a week or so.

In the meantime - we spliced the chain back together using allen key shackles.

In hindsight - we got away from this 'scare' about as lucky as we could have.  This could have happened any time we left the boat to go ashore for the day, or it could have happened in a location where we had a lee shore or difficult anchorage to navigate.  So ... we are glad that we got away from what could have been a catastrophic accident without any serious damage to the boat or ourselves.

At least no physical damage to ourselves.  We are both fairly psychologically affected from what seems to be another in a string of mis-haps lately.  Since that night, I have had a lot of trouble sleeping: every time I wake due to a larger than normal wave slapping the hull, or some other noise, I'm on guard and keep finding myself getting up and checking the boat throughout the night.

Even worse is that I have to take responsibility for not making the right call.  I had noticed that the link which snapped was corroded (and in hindsight that it was slightly smaller than the rest of the chain), but had decided that it would hold until we got to Grenada where we were planning on doing a bunch of boat work.

That lapse in judgement is now making me second guess lots of other decisions I've been making - and every little problem on the boat (of which there are always a few things to work on) I'm now going over again to make sure that things that are on the "to fix" list shouldn't be on the "to fix before we do anything else" list.

It's been almost a week since that night as I write this, and we have had some marvellous times in the Grenadines which we will post about soon ... so there are definitely rum punches and good times ... but this adventure is also very very real!

Friends & family, please don't worry too much reading this - we are sharing since it's part of our adventure - but for those thinking that cruising is just one paradise after another, just remember that it is not all rum punches!