agility @ sea

From Jer:

I’m writing this while sitting at anchor outside of Port Denerau, Fiji, although it feels as though we are out at sea. The weather the past few days has been interesting.
We had fabulous weather during my mom and Carol’s visit. The only possible complaint would have been too little wind, but given our agenda that wasn’t a problem. Sunday night Mom and Carol treated us to a wonderful birthday dinner (Tim’s birthday is the 18th) with champagne and cheesecake and a little bit of rain. We woke up Monday to steady rain, left the marina and anchored out about a mile outside of town. Our biggest concern was getting Mom and Carol and luggage into the marina on the dinghy without things getting too terribly soaked. After lunch and standing around staring at each other for awhile we decided to play some cards. The weather was picking up, but we were in decent holding and I, for one, was trying to ignore the weather because I didn’t want our guests to be concerned about getting to the airport. Between games, Tim got up to take a look around while our anchor alarm simultaneously went off. The wind was steady in the 30’s at that point and had started to gust into the 40’s. We both went out to figure out whether to put out more anchor road or leave. After glancing to our starboard rear and seeing a large power boat dragging very quickly into a neighboring beautiful old Wharram catamaran, Tim said “we need to get out of here – quickly.” We pulled up anchor. It was more complicated than you may imagine due to extreme wind (getting up into 50’s now), driving rain, and having a line tied off onto the anchor line that was all tangled up and caused a short delay. Fortunately, I was able to observe the Wharram and was incredibly relieved to see a huge puff of black exhaust come out of the large power yacht. I estimate it was at the most 5 yards away from crashing into the Wharram. After the anchor was up, I was in charge of looking around us and it was a mess. Lots of boats pulling up anchor or motoring around, but we quickly became clear of the action. Due to the unexpected nature of the storm, our biminis were both up, and the cabin was not prepared for motoring around in big swells and wind. The biminis were making so much racket and also preventing us from being able to see the aft mast foil. Agility was not responding as expected with both engines on high rpm’s so Tim asked me to check out the rear mast foil to make sure it was facing forward. I go back there, remove the velcro patch in the aft bimini to see that the mast foil was sideways. I struggled with unlocking it, finally got it, had to run back up front to winch it into place, Tim had to hold the winch handle while I ran back to lock it again (unfortunately, not tightly enough as we discovered a bit later), and then back to my spot in the cockpit with Tim. At that point, we both noticed the fenders that had been left out on the trampoline to dry prior to being stowed back in the locker were flying around. I was able to save all but one. We appeared to be somewhat in control so I went in to check on Mom and Carol. They were amazing! Hanging out, had rescued 4 bottles of tonic that had been flying around the kitchen and locked the kitchen drawers. I decided I better check out the rest of the interior. Starboard side was okay. One bottle of wine rolling around, bathroom garbage knocked over and a few drawers open, but I quickly remedied those issues. Port side was a surprise! First I locked some doors, but noticed the floor was wet. Oh no – we had opened the escape hatch earlier for ventilation and it was taking on a lot of sea water. Ugh. Fortunately, the hatch is in the shower so after closing it, I pumped out the accumulation in the shower, checked to make sure the bilge alarms were on, and since they were and no sound was being made, felt assured that all was okay there. A mess, but okay. I went back outside where Tim was getting absolutely hammered by rain and sea water in the eyes. We realize we need to get some goggles. I heard some beeping, went back into the cabin to troubleshoot and the port side engine was overheating. Tim slowed it down, had me turn on the fan, and it cooled down so okay there. I then realized that we still had the fresh water cap open because we had hooked the hose up to the bimini to collect rain. I pulled the hose out, closed the cap, hoped we didn’t collect too much sea water, and put the hose into the cockpit where it whipped around like mad and kept slapping into me. Got the screwdriver, removed it, and stowed it inside. We headed to the lee of a spit of land and after awhile decided to anchor. That was challenging and little scary too. Got it down, went inside, made some tea and tried to dry off and rest a tad. We were 90 minutes into it and at the time that Mom and Carol had earlier decided to head to the airport. They mentioned that they didn’t need to get there quite so early after all and we had a good laugh. After about 20 minutes of rest, things started to calm down and we decided it was safe enough to head into the harbor and we would attempt to tie up to the fuel dock or find some space in the marina and tie up for the airport drop off. I was concerned about that. As we headed in, things continued to calm down and the old anchorage wasn’t looking bad. We changed our minds, headed back to anchor and I popped my head into the cabin to tell Mom and Carol what we were doing and that when we got the anchor down they needed to be ready to go. As it turned out, they got into the marina safe and dry, and it was no big deal. I stayed with the boat in case there was more action, cleaned up a tad, and started dinner. Tim and I ate, showered, and went to bed. Yesterday afternoon we had a mini repeat of Monday’s storm and again this morning. We haven’t left Agility and probably won’t until we’re assured that things have calmed down. We do have to check out of Fiji, do some provisioning, and a couple of other town needs, but will get that done when we can. Right now, we are considering leaving in 3 days for NZ.
As usual, our adventure was also a learning experience and we hope to do it better next time. Those biminis will be coming down a lot sooner in the future. Fenders and lines will be stowed (even if they are wet) if winds are supposed to pick up. I understand how to cleat the anchor line off properly now, and will also be more aggressive with locking the mast foils. What we are really looking forward to is receiving our order of more anchor chain.