Chagos Adventure

After a great deal of thought I decided to leave the text pretty much as originally written, when written, in sequential “log” format…

September 10, 2008

We have safely arrived at Salomon Atoll, Chagos Archipelago, 5 20 S, 72 16E.  We had a bit of excitement when we made our entry into the lagoon across the coral bar.  I was aloft, high in the rat lines conning the entrance when Pam at the helm called the depth 9,8,7,6.5!!!  Exciting moments followed as we came about and went back into deeper water to regroup.  The water was crystal clear and I could easily see every coral head below while aloft but it didn't seem THAT shallow.  Since we draw 6 feet and the pass was supposed to have least depths of 15 feet we had to sort this out.  As it turns out sometime during the last 15 days of getting tossed about one of us had inadvertently brushed against the depth sounder button that changes the readout from feet to fathoms!   Once that was sorted out we came in showing a least depth of 18 feet. 

We are currently in one of the most fantastic anchorages we have ever been in!  We have the whole atoll to ourselves and are completely alone.  For the first two days the weather was calm with lots of sun allowing us to explore the uninhabited islands we are anchored behind.  The water is so clear that I could see the shadow of Rainbow Chaser on the sandy bottom, even making out details of the lifelines and backstay.

September 22, 2008

It is hard to believe we have been here for a little over two weeks now in this special uninhabited atoll right in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  This place has a lot of history as it was once inhabited with a substantial village on one of the motus.  The British apparently cleaned out the entire Archipelago before "renting" Diego Garcia, 117 nautical miles to the south to the USA for a strategic military base used to this day.  There was little regulation on cruising sailboats until recently and this place was a famous cruiser hangout for many years. Some cruisers stayed many months setting up shelters on shore and virtually homesteading amongst the palms.  I believe it was not uncommon to have 50 + boats in the anchorage at times. 

Imagine our surprise when we pulled in and had the whole place to ourselves.  We spent the first five days in splendid isolation exploring the motus, hiking through the jungle and looking at signs from the past being quickly covered by relentless and quick jungle growth.   

It couldn't last forever and all too soon we looked up to see an unusual very large catamaran entering the lagoon.  This home built twin masted, junk rigged cat with a large "house" structure on the stern was skippered by a South African and had three Madagascar crew.  Next arrival was a large commercial workboat painted in solid Arctic Red which was the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Patrol Vessel.  Very courteous British officials came over, boarded us and checked our paperwork.  They then invited us to a beach BBQ put on by the ship where we had a great time with the Captain, Philippino crew and a detachment of Royal British Marine Commandos.  Turns out all the Marines were enjoying a break from tours in Afghanistan.  Cold beer, steak, shrimp, chicken, and pork kept flowing off the grill and a good time was had by all.  It seems our solitude ended with a bang and yet even another sailboat enters the lagoon...

With the company of Giff & Patty on Phoenix we set out to explore the remains of the old settlement on Boddam Island 3 miles to the south of our anchorage.  We found the remains of many structures and it was fun guessing their original purpose.  Each discovery came after tramping through the jungle, machetes at the ready to keep the trails clear. 

Old ruins taken back by the jungle on Boddam Island

The church was still in pretty good shape and even had the cornerstone still in place.  The jail was pretty easy to sort out and reminded us of jail structures seen in Tasmania.  An old cemetery had headstones dated from 1925 to 1952.  Coconut crabs were everywhere.  A citrus tree of some sort was found and two elusive breadfruit trees were ultimately located by Giff & Patty on a subsequent visit.  Nothing found was bearing fruit at this time.   

 The cruising fleet has been arriving and we now have 8 sailboats anchored about the lagoon.  Yesterday we all got together to explore one of the islands and enjoyed the company of other cruisers from America, Norway, Holland and France.

It is now about time to start the next leg of our journey which is a long 1,700+ nautical mile sail to Mayotte, a French possession at the top of the Mozambique Channel.  There may not be much wind for the first part of this voyage so we will have to have lots of patience.  It could easily take 17+ days for this next leg.  If all goes well we should be underway in the next few days.

September 30, 2008

Last Tuesday the 23rd of September we nearly lost Rainbow Chaser at anchor in Chagos Archipelago.  It has now been a week and we are still recovering mentally from the drama.  We had a series of two squalls that came through the anchorage from a bad direction and the second one almost did us in. 

You never know what kind of punch is in the next cloud bank...

I was ashore burning our trash as it was just about the last thing on our list before securing everything for sea.  Pam was aboard as the first squall came through harder than expected and with an unusual wind direction putting Rainbow Chaser on a lee shore.  Not to worry as we have a huge 60 lb CQR anchor for our size boat and have never really dragged, especially in 13 feet, sand bottom with 125 feet of chain out.  The second squall coming did not look as bad as the first so I kept stoking the fire going for the complete burn of the trash.

The first sign of trouble was when all the chairs, stools & buckets around the cruiser gathering area ashore got picked up by the gusts and tumbled into the jungle.  I ran to the waters edge where there was zero visibility and driving rain that felt like bullets.  Not seeing ANY of the 6 boats at anchor through the rain I ran down the beach to try and sight Rainbow Chaser as it seemed way to rough to attempt to launch the dinghy and return.  When I got to the end of the Island I counted the masts and saw that everyone was where they were supposed to be but Rainbow Chaser was pitching wildly in short steep six foot seas. I saw her shear off hard to port so I started running for the dinghy thinking of Pam aboard by herself. I some how managed to launch the dinghy and worked my way out through breaking surf to where I thought Rainbow Chaser was.  MISSING!!!  She was not there!  I looked towards the shore expecting to see her on her side pounding in the surf but NOT THERE EITHER!

When things started getting nasty Pam started up the motor on Rainbow Chaser as the Norwegian vessel Villvind had swung close off our bow.  Still at anchor and wildly plunging she heard a noise and ran up to the bow just in time to see the anchor chain deploying wildly over the windlass wildcat overcoming its brake.  Both chain snubbers had broken and the stop cog that dropped into the wildcat on the windlass had been ripped away.  The bitter end of the chain flew off the wildcat and the keeper line attached to the end broke like a piece of string.  PAM WAS NOW UNDERWAY SINGLE HANDED.  As she raced down the side deck back towards the helm she slipped and bashed her knee hard.  Though injured, she continued to claw her way back to the cockpit.  Taking up the helm, coming hard to starboard and flooring the engine to RPMs rarely ever experienced, Rainbow Chaser slowly came up into the wind fighting for her life in about six feet of water.  Pam thought she felt the rudder bouncing on the bottom.  At the last second the bow came up barely missing the 50 foot American vessel Phoenix which was under our lee.  Pam fought to keep the bow into sustained winds of 48 knots and started to work her way out into the lagoon infested with coral heads in poor visibility. 

Seeing Rainbow Chaser's mast out in the lagoon, I pushed the dinghy as hard as I could over breaking waves hoping to make it out there before something broke or I ran out of gas for the outboard.  It took two attempts to board as the seas were still huge and Rainbow Chaser was still pitching like a wild horse.  On the second attempt Pam laid Rainbow Chaser sideways to the wind to create a lee for my boarding.  I finally passed the dinghy line to Pam and kept the dinghy ramming into Rainbow Chaser while she secured the line, then I jumped for the arch on our stern. 

Next began HOURS of careful conning through the lagoon.  We pushed the engine to maximum RPMs making only 1 - 1.5 knots.  We saw coral heads only as we came up on them, spinning off and trying again, picking our way carefully into the lee of an island on the far side of the lagoon. 

On the radio we heard the distress "mayday" calls from the steel French vessel Isis back in the anchorage.  She had drug her anchor and gone up on the reef, taking on water.  David, on the American vessel Jipcho, risked his life in those breaking seas and shallow coral to take the couple off the pounding boat into his dinghy.  He then had to work back through breaking surf to his own plunging boat still at anchor.  We finally found a spot to drop our #2 anchor on the far side of the lagoon.  The area was infested with coral and had to dive on the anchor and buoy the nylon road to avoid chafe that could cause us to lose our second anchor. 

The next day, with conditions subsided, we returned to pick up our #1 anchor and set out to help re-float Isis which was by now full of water.  Several days of effort ensued with all cruisers helping in the effort.  The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) patrol vessel was called and they showed up with a salvage pump, more men and equipment.  In the end the owner called off efforts to re-float the vessel and gave it up as a total loss.  They then went to the military base at Diego Garcia with the BIOT vessel...

New permanent locatoin for the abandoned French vessel Isis

  This was a sad way for us to say good bye to such a wild and remote place.  The drama that fills in between the lines of this short summary may be easy for the mariners out there to imagine.  It sends a shutter down the spine for all.  Pam saved Rainbow Chaser.  There could have been two boats lost... 

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