The Hype of this Oyster Pond entry was worth it. For days and nights, I had been sweating and dreaming of all things that could go wrong on a surf around some reefs. We burned a hell of a lot of diesel on this trip, down to 1/4 tank, kept clearing the port engine fuel filter of grime. One engine tried to be an arc welder, the other running fine. The saildrives, propellers had been working fine, but you never know. Waves and winds just wanted to push us in.
This trip has been about rainbows, instead of sunsets. That means there are often showers, not always upon us, but in the same vicinity.
In the distance, not too distant, we see that RAIN is in the emminent future as we spot the first mark of the reefs. Rain looks aways away. We roll the jib, it was pulling us downwind faster than the motors were running over the big swells anyway. Spot the ‘safe water’ marker out in the sea, and slowly start to pick up the reef markers to stay within 30 feet of. Remind you that Sugar Shack is 25 feet wide, so how close do we really need to be?
Its all good, rolling on in, then a wave/roller picks us up and doubles our speed, and not in the correct direction, as its a roller, its only a few seconds but enough to make you think, PAY ATTENTION, recover and all is good, only a few more surfing down the waves toward the reefs, but with plenty of room to spare.
After the last reef marker, you are supposed to ‘shoot the gap’ but another catamaran was coming out, so if the channel was 30 feet wide, there might be an issue. We slowed for a minute, they kept coming and all was good, we stayed in deep water and they were local, so I’m assuming all was good.
Into a new and strange harbor with rain approaching, we did a slow circle to see what we could, then proceeded slowly into the anchorage. Looking to find a ball or fuel dock to call our contact to find our dock or mooring ball.
I picked an open ball, headed that direction, but there wasn’t anything to attach too, so heck lets drop anchor here, there are no balls in this path. Depth alarms started sounding, looking back we were stirring up mud and sand. You think thats why there are no balls or boats there?
Changed plans, an orange ball looked good. Some twerking and motorring, we picked it up. Tied off, seemed good. Wayne was adjusting the bridle, I was thinking about next steps. Looked up and the line was parting, what was normally 3 braid, was now 1. Engines still running, we go to plan B, pull up the ball till we get good rope, and use our normal bridle on the metal from the dingy. Lots of nasty line and wayne got it sorted out, stinky and dirty no less. Beers for breakfast as a celebration after we were secure, again.
