Maamalni - Suwarrow #6: Oops - got caught! Coral Bommies and 2-part Harmony

The day had come for the fleet to weigh anchor and sail off into the sunset. It had been decided that instead of having an official sailing start across an imaginary line in a really tight passage that it might be wise to have a start of "Gentlemen, Raise your anchors". So at precisely 10AM the gentlemen of the fleet hit the up button on their windlasses, that lovely piece of motorized equipment that saves shoulders and muscles the world over, and raised anchor. We looked over and watch Harmonie, a US boat making repeated attempts to get under way. Don would move the boat forward and it would spring back. He would go to side and then rev the engine in reverse and be jerked back, with no give and no take. Twenty minutes of this and you knew that they were firmly affixed to a bommie. Bommie? you ask. That is the Australian name for an underwater pinnacle and is derived from the aboriginal word bombora, meaning dangerous or submerged reef. In this case the bommies were knarlly and conical shaped, decreasing in thickness as they descended. In other words, the perfect anchor grabber. Hhhhhmmm. What to do? Suzan put her mask and fins on and tried to dive down the chain to see in what direction the chain was wrapped. Harmonie was in 80 feet of water and unfortunately the waters had turned a bit turbid or cloudy as a result of incoming swell activity in the previous day so the bottom was not visible. She was only able to dive down about 20 feet before being forced up due to pressure in the ears so really couldn't get a clear look at the anchor. So Larry and I used the nifty "seeing" bucket and Suzan swam up and down and we were able to direct Ann and Don on how to move the boat so as to unwrapped them from the first bommie but then realized that there was a second one - and we were at an impasse. Fortunately John, the caretaker of the island came out to help. As he knew the lay of the land ... or the coral heads, he was able to dive deep enough (again free diving) to figure out which way the boat needed to move. So another 15 minutes and Harmonie was free to head to Nuie, the world's smallest island nation.

When reviewing the charts of the area prior to leaving Suwarrow we spied that American
Samoa was due west of Suwarrow and technically not really out of way. So our option - go to Nuie where the weather report was grime, prices high and required "commando style landings" to get on shore or to Paga Pago which is the Pacific's finest natural harbor. Tough choice. After a crew conference and review of ship's store (we were definitely low on gin), it was decided that our destination would be American Samoa where a dollar was still worth a dollar and cheap liquor could be had. So with that decision, we surveyed the fleet and took drink orders. Generally orders fell along national lines. The Brits wanted gin with 50% preferring Gordon's and the other 50% Bombay Sapphire. The French and Italians wanted Pastis and Rum. And all boats wanted beer. So with orders confirmed (we realizing that MaaMa would need some significant reconfiguration to handle the truck load of booze requested) we raised our cocktail shaker in salute to the fleet and bid them fair winds to Nuie. We elected to stay one more night (why rush a good thing) and invited the Aussies from Storyteller for dinner.

Prior to leaving we ask Veronica, John's wife if there was anything that she needed or had forgotten to bring with her to the island for their stay for the next 6 months. She lamented that she had forgotten cooking oil. So we dug into stores and found a liter of olive oil, some school supplies for the boys and a couple of other useful items and bid our adieu to this lovely bit of paradise.