11/07/09 - HELEN'S BLOG
When we arrived in the Soloman Atoll we had headed to the furthest of the
two anchorages available. The Boddam anchorage has had a number of mooring
buoys added over the years meaning that anchoring becomes unnecessary and
that the boats are pretty well secured to the moorings by chains wrapped
round large coral heads. We had made sure that we were well tied on with
several ropes attached to not one but two chains. All good, but we had been
told that this particular anchorage tends to be less sheltered during the
South West monsoon as it is now. The consequence of this is that there was
a constant wind blowing that seldom dropped below 15 knots and reached 30 on
a particularly blustery night. This wind typically whipped up the sea in
anchorage making the area around the boat fairly "choppy". Each time we
headed out on the dinghy we would get soaked as the spray washed over the
boat - particularly if you are seated at the front of the dinghy as I tend
to be.
After nearly 2 weeks at the Boddam anchorage, we had two fairly unsettled
nights with choppy seas and high-ish winds, so we decided to move the boat
to the other end of the atoll, close to the Fouquet Island (Ile Fouquet).
Only one boat was remaining in the Boddam end, with another 5 anchored at
Fouquet so we were getting good reports that this anchorage was more
sheltered from the wind and the sea more settled. Yesterday (10th July), we
unshackled ourselves from our many lines (better safe than sorry) and set
off in 17 knots of wind the 3 miles to the new spot. Literally as soon as
we got in the shelter of the island, the wind eased considerably. We had a
quick circle around the potential anchorage spots before dropping the
anchor, in reasonably deep water (20 metres). Bryan had to don his scuba
gear again, as he had to unshackle the lines at the other end, and dived
down onto the anchor and check all was good and secure and to attach a buoy
that would ensure the end of the chain attached to the additional 30 metres
of rope was lifted off the sea bed and more importantly away from any risk
of chafing on coral heads.
We decided to celebrate our safe anchoring and achievement of the 3 mile
"passage" with a bottle of pretty decent "bubbly" - shared with Martha and
Bryce who are our neighbours again. The last bubbles we had were for the
four day passage from Gan to Chagos, so you can see our reasons for
celebrating are beginning to move down the scale somewhat!
Our first night at Fouquet (pronounced "Fookay" though I am sure some of you
can work out a slightly less polite version!) passed quietly. It is
definitely much smoother here. The early hours of the morning bought with
it a thunderstorm and some much needed rain to help top up the water tanks a
little. Today is still a little overcast, but it is quite pleasant as the
temperature is a few degrees lower. The weather is allowing us to work on
some of the boat chores, such as writing the blog, and mounting a jigsaw
picture that we completed a few days back. We have several "doing things"
on board, the jigsaws included. The first we have completed was a 500 piece
3D image of birds. Whereas a few months back, I would be stressing about
trying to prove the market existed for master planned cities the size of
Hong Kong (um??? Think recent history has provided the answer to that
one!!), now my biggest stress is completing a 500 piece jigsaw!! I think
the word "shallow" comes to mind! Looks like we may be in for a culture
shock when we get back to civilisation and discover that we need to wear
shoes (and underwear...) again and remember that there are more things in
life to worry about. Thankfully, returning to civilisation is still a few
months away......
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