Easter Island—an Adventure for a Yachtsman. How we nearly tore off the bowsprit and tried to wrench out the anchor windlass, but came to our senses in time
So, after a night of bucking around and jerking at the chain, we began hauling up the anchor. .... Our home-grown diver swam down to investigate... He came back.... And then... it was time to realise that we were well and truly stuck...
While it was still dark, the captain had noticed that although we had laid 100 metres of chain on the bottom, we could move only 50 metres around the anchor. He tried to sort it out by following the anchor track. The chain shrieked like the devil and refused to budge in the right direction. The thick tubes on our bowsprit are strong... Only one of them cracked slightly at the weld.... But at least that broke the deadlock, and we had a chance of getting away more easily than our neighbours yesterday.
After the reconnaissance below sea level, the captain gave the order:
“We should be able to get free. Raise the anchor!”
The young sailor and I breathed a sigh of relief, anticipating our imminent release. We began hauling gently. At 35 metres it grew difficult. A grinding noise, a jerk. A little more. Grinding, two jerks. We paid out. Turned. Up! Up! A rain squall swept in, the wind changing before our eyes, and now it was already whistling towards the shore again. Get free and run, quickly. Up! And suddenly the windlass bucked, jerked and stopped. The deck where it joins the anchor locker... cracked slightly.
At this point I sent rays of kindness and positivity to the boat’s designers, who had failed to think of reinforcing the edge of the locker beside the windlass with a steel plate.
We changed tactics. Astern. Ahead.... watching every turn of the chain and steering neatly along it. Thirty minutes of delicate manoeuvring, and the chain began coming up. The mainsail filled with wind, and the engine nudged the yacht forwards.
Anchor clear!
Hurrraaaah!!!
Marina, to the foredeck! Nastya, to the furler! Set the jib!
And Lady Mary bounded cheerfully to windward towards our only chance to visit the village of Hanga Roa, buy provisions and get in touch with the world. It was Andryusha’s mother’s birthday, and it was wonderful that we would be able to talk. And tomorrow—we change location again. It still feels as though we’re on an ocean passage. We sleep little, and the boat pitches badly. Hooray!
It’s stormy; we’re moving to the neighbouring anchorage . Welcome to the main village
We rounded the headland, and the yacht stopped bucking and heeling. Our acquaintances on the catamaran Escapade were also hurrying into the bay from the other side of the island. They had not yet cleared in and had not even set foot ashore on the mysterious island.
“Hey, you sailing yachts! This is Pascua Radio!” The radio station instantly sprang to life and showered us with questions.
“We’re staying here until tomorrow; everything’s OK with us.”
“Very well, Lady Mary.”
“Escapade, answer Pascua Radio!”
We switched to Channel 14 after them. The officer was surprised that the new arrivals intended to leave the island almost the very next day, and asked a sea of questions about the make of their satellite modem and the vessel’s draught. Then he invited them to the office to clear in. Apparently, if you call at Easter Island for only a day or two, the whole clearance team cannot be bothered to come aboard, so they receive the newcomers ashore.
Sodn
Us and Jonathan at that very anchorage . The Sunny Town
Hanga Roa Bay was almost calm and sunny. The rain clouds had flown south. From ashore in the village, you would never guess that just around the corner it was blowing 25 knots, while anchor windlasses were being ripped out in chorus amid two-metre waves.
What was that about Easter Island being dreary? Walking around, we were surprised all over again that Hanga Roa is almost the greenest village we have ever seen :). Jonathan and Jemima were no less surprised by this than we were. They had gone with Andrei to clear in and had yielded to Officer Mauricio’s persuasion to see at least a little of the island instead of leaving the very next day. Delighted, they invited us aboard the catamaran for dinner: mahi-mahi they had caught on the way to Easter Island. Meanwhile, we had a whole evening to go and buy vegetables, fruit, cheese and bread. At dusk, once we were back at the jetty, we discovered that we had forgotten the potatoes and eggs. We went back about a kilometre from the shore to buy them.
And we’ll find a welder next time )).
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Jonathan and Jemima
Our new friends made a delicious dinner of mahi-mahi in Caribbean curry sauce. With rice and white wine—it went down a treat! They laughed when they learned that we had been without a fridge for a year already. We laughed too—it is difficult at first in round-the-clock heat, but then you get used to it. And on Easter Island we do not even remember that fridges were ever invented. It is not hot here anyway.
British passports lay on our catamaran hosts’ table. We were surprised to see that the coat of arms featured a lion and... a unicorn!—Greetings from Harry Potter’s homeland.
Jonathan and his daughter would sail as far as Tahiti, where his wife would fly in. His daughter, meanwhile, might head to Australia or perhaps New Zealand—she had lots of friends there. She did not have a home at all. Nor did she want one. Jemima lives in Travel. Between New Zealand, the Caribbean and Peru, the States and Europe. She sails on yachts and finds casual work. She studied at university, though I forgot to ask what her subject was. Something to talk about next time :). Despite being 30–35, the young woman has no desire to settle down.
“Jemima, if you meet the man of your dreams, will you stay and live with him?”
“I’ll take him with me. I’ll have to meet a dream man with a yacht,” our hostess laughed.
This was not her first time in the Pacific, and when we discussed our crew’s dream voyage—to find out whether Maria Theresa Reef exists on the 37th parallel—she replied that once, on the way from New Zealand to Chile, she had seen that reef on a yacht’s chartplotter. But they had not gone close. So does our Wikipedia lie when it says it does not exist? ... The captain laughed that when we went to check for ourselves, there would be only one route afterwards—to Cape Horn, through the Roaring Forties. The winds would not allow it any other way. Nastya and I were not exactly wildly delighted by that prospect. First we need to fix the heater on the yacht....
Jonathan lives on a British island in the middle of the English Channel. Ever since his teens, he had dreamed of crossing the Atlantic. And when the opportunity arose, so did a gloomy German captain in an old tub with a sail. They crossed the Atlantic with him. Then crossed it again, with a different crew. He sailed around Europe and took part in sailing races, and four years ago he bought a brand-new, French-built, 15-metre catamaran and headed over the horizon. Jonathan and his wife, and sometimes their daughter, spent more than three years in the Caribbean. Their plans for the Pacific were extensive and not particularly constrained by time. The captain would not speculate about dates; he was financially secure.—Jonathan had his own finance company, and perhaps he still does?—Oh, how much we still had not asked them! We needed to get the family up for breakfast and make a joint foray ashore with our neighbours, this time in Anakena Bay. We had just made it through another near-stormy twenty-four hours with a night watch. Calm water had arrived for a whole day ).
It’s stormy; we’re moving to the neighbouring anchorage
The captain looked over the evening forecast and noted the cyclical pattern of the approaching depressions. In five days they were forecasting 40 knots of wind again, and before then we would not be able to sail to the village and rent mopeds there.
“If the forecast promises the same thing again in five days, we’ll leave,” the captain stunned us by admitting. “It looks as though there won’t be a weather window for spending a day riding around the island. Hmmm...”
To be continued!
Us and Jonathan at that very anchorage
It’s stormy; we’re moving to the neighbouring anchorage