Maamalni - Suwarrow #7: Sumo wrestling in the dark.

Its kind of like going into the Sumo ring blindfolded when you lay anchor as you have no idea where you are placing your muscle. The Sumo ring is where two very large opponents meet both swathed in loin cloths, perfectly coiffed hair pull back into a French braid and then stomp and stare at each other. Sumo matches are usually one round and ends when one opponent throws the other one out of the ring. This is kind of the way it was with MaaMa versus the Coral Head. A contest of stealth and bulk. To get good holding you want your anchor to dig in, but on the other hand you also want to get it back. When the tide changes, the boat will move around. Add some wind, likely changing direction over the course of a couple of days and you have this heavy chain under the boat seeking out any rock, coral head or other underwater obstruction to wrapped itself around. When we stepped into the ring and weighed anchor the coral had done its stealth thing and had sucked the chain in, but as Suzan had previously studies our own wraps and so directed me as to which way to move the boat. Besides the coral was no real match for MaaMa's heft, all 54,000 lbs. So MaaMa 1, Coral 0. I hate to think what others may have done to this fabulous atoll without mooring buoys and this is one place that we want to return. Knowing that there is only one location permissible for anchoring we can be assured that the remaining 60 miles of the lagoon and its coral will remain untouched.

So it was off into the sunrise as we left the next morning following the track line on the electronic chart plotter - what a marvelous thing these electronic gadgets when they work. If you made it in without hitting anything and just follow that track out, you should make a clean escape. Storyteller left the same time but were headed for Tonga to meet family. We stayed in radio contact for several days just to be sure that all was well and that we had both dodged the weather bullet that was headed
for the rest of the fleet.