Saturday May 12, 2012
At 5:00 am we were hailed on the radio. S/V Wind Dancer was in trouble. They lost their anchor, all their 300 feet of anchor chain and along with their windlass on deck. The winds were wicked all night with huge sea swells. They were drifting around under motor to stay clear of Casa Mare’ and Wind Quest. The were concerned because they could not see Wind Quest because their anchor light went out and didn't want to run into them. They could see Casa Mare’. There was nothing anyone could do until daylight and none of us had a grapple hook to try to retrieve their anchor or chain. I was glad the snubber was on ours, preventing the chain from going all the way out. At daylight we saw something no sailor wants to see, our dinghy, half inflated. The hole was huge. The winds were treacherous at 30 knots and rubbed a hole in the dink when the stern light tore off the pole and the remains ripped slashes in the side of the dink causing the port chamber to deflate. This is going to be a major patching job if at all possible. It is still on the davits and the outboard hanging off the side of Casa Mare’ thank goodness. Nothing we could do about that right now as our focus of concern was to give Al and Sue room to look for their chain. We started to pull anchor to clear the way for Al and Sue to use another anchor on a line to try to find theirs. Then we ran into trouble. Our windlass was acting up, with the wind and seas pulling our chain all the way out while we were trying to wind it in. All 150 feet of it, only to get the end caught up at the gypsy. I was glad we didn’t lose our anchor and chain also although the winds were ripping and it was raining and miserable. Fred tried to fix the windlass, thinking it actually blew a fuse. Then our engine overheated. Mercy, everything was shutting down one by one. Blessings of abundance though...still floating, coffee, plenty of food and neither of us were hurt. At worse, we could just stay out here in the middle of nowhere and wait for calmer weather to pull the chain in. We do have a spare life raft on deck in a container that self inflates in case of an emergency and an epirb, that sends off our location signals to be rescued if need be. All set! Slow deep breaths and lots of prayers! Wind Quest had a 3:00 high tide deadline to make in order to get to his destination and I got on the radio and suggested to go on ahead, we would be fine. Wind Dancer needed to get to a marina so they headed to Cat Cay. There we were floating all alone and brainstorming on how in the world we were going to get our anchor up. The windlass was not working either by then. I kept humming the Gilligan's Island three hour tour tune, staying as positive as possible! The anchor was stuck on something. Something big. Nothing seemed to work, backing up, moving forward, circling, nothing. Hand pulling it was not going to help because the seas were too strong and the wind too brisk. The engine again overheated. Fred pulled out a line and attached it to the chain and snubbing it at the bow of the boat. He ran the line to the back wench and I started winching it in, inch by inch. We had 150 feet to pull in, running the engine again over the chain to make it easier to wench in. 4 hours & 45 minutes later, we saw the anchor dangling in the water. What a site for sore eyes. Finally got it up, stuffed the anchor chain into the anchor locker and we were under sail. Well, it didn’t go exactly that smoothly. There were a few words, nice but firm words, to each other each ready to throw the other overboard, but, at the end, we laughed. “All part of the adventure” said Fred. ‘Yes, all part of this wonderful adventure’ I thought to myself, completely out of breath and ready to collapse. He took the first two hour watch. I slept since I didn’t get any sleep last night but I sure learned what the word levitation means and feels like. I did that all night in the v-berth. Fred was the smart one, he slept on the settee. I went to the other settee after 5 am and picked up about an hours sleep then. Lesson, when the seas are that rough, get yourself as close to the center of the boat as possible. I am a slow learner but know that secret now! The rest of the day was under motor sail. When we arrived at Bimini, Fred ran below to see if he could get Internet to check the weather so a decision could be made as to what to do tomorrow, stay in a slip or anchor out and leave for the United States. He asked me what I thought about a few options. ‘Options?’ I thought, ‘what do I know about wind and seas and gulf streams and which is the better day.?’ “You’re the Captain” I replied, “you make that decision”. “We take a slip”. “Yeah” I said, “good decision, that would give us time to try to fix the dink”. “Oh, that’s something else we need to think about” he said, as our brains were obviously in shut down mode by then. He slowed the boat down and did some more thinking. “We need to get to Stuart and get the dink fixed. If we stay here, we could be here for another week.” That didn’t bother me but he’s the Captain.
“We are going to anchor outside Bimini and pull anchor in the early morning.” “Anchor? You are going to let all the anchor chain out and we have to pull it in again????” I was clear I wasn’t going to be a part of that again, well...the thinking about it wasn’t going to but I knew if that’s what we had to do, I was in. Boy oh boy I was not looking forward to that again. I took the helm and he went to the bow, got that dreaded chain out and off it went, following that anchor all the way down. My heart sunk, holding my breath, hoping that he would just let out just enough chain, no more, no less. At this point I would have kept going all night till we hit somewhere on the East coast of the good ole United States of America. I saw my last Island sunset tonight off Bimini. It was a red sunset, sailors delight. Yep, we are still having fun! God got us here safe and in one piece. Attitude of Gratitude.
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