Lost

Lost

 

Paul and Laura and Jim and Martine have left for the Tuomotos and Tahiti, and Brian wants to stay in Taiohae Bay for a bit and work on his boat.  Tilikum flew out this weekend for Hawaii to make some money, leaving Laurabelle on anchor in Taiohae Bay indefinitely.  So the fellowship is sundered.

Herb and I have been anxious to start moving again, having been in T-bay for a week maybe, though the passage of time has become somewhat unnoticed.  Brian, for instance, has never changed his clocks.  For the crossing he set them to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and refuses to use local time (or is to lazy to do so).  It doesn’t really matter.

 

Before heading to Tahiti, Herb and I figured we needed to see more of the Marquesas.  The more I see of Nuku Hiva the more I realize that this is one of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen.  The spectrum of greens and the rise of the mountains and ridges from the water, the rocky crags, the coconut trees walking high up the hillside.

The villages are the cleanest kept I’ve ever seen.  The horses and chickens are great landscapers—not a motorized lawnmower anywhere—and perfect grass.

 

So we decided to sail out to Controleur Bay and then to Anaho Bay (reputed as being “one of the prettiest bays in the world”).  I wanted to get back in that feel of moving.  Sailing, anchoring, staying a few days, then sailing on again to the next spot.  This was how the San Juans were in Washington, short sails between hundreds of islands.

The sail from Taiohae to Controleur is only six miles, from Controleur to Anaho is fifteen to twenty.

 

Because I don’t have an engine it is best if I can catch the end of the nightly land breeze that blows out to sea.  This makes it easier to sail out.  (In the afternoons there is a sea breeze.)  So I woke up at 4:30 and prepped the boat and was pulling chain by six.  The wind was faint and it took nearly an hour to get out of the bay.

But luckily I was rewarded by a good wind on the outside.  I reefed down the sail for comfort’s sake and tacked far out for the upwind passage to Controleur which was only one bay over, but upwind.

Because of the short distance I unfortunately decided it best to tow my dinghy behind the boat.  This is only ever prudent for short passages as bad things can occur: swamped dink, broken painter (bow line), lost dink, or dink ramming the stern—I don’t know what else, but it is a bit of a liability.  And today it would certainly become so.

 

The sail was great.  I took some good photos of Bamboo (Herb’s boat) and was rather enjoying the sail, wishing it were a bit longer.   But after anchoring we were going to hike up to another waterfall for the afternoon.

At some point I glance back toward the dinghy.  I keep my head there, looking, waiting, assuming that it is behind the windvane or the stern, just waiting to bob back to this side of the boat where I can see it.  Waiting.  And then I see the cleat where the dink had been tied.  Nothing.  No line.  Nothing.  Perhaps, I thought, I didn’t tie the dink to the stern after all, maybe it’s on deck and I hallucinated the whole thing.  This thought passed quickly, but the period of doubt lasted longer than one would think. 

The dink was gone!

 

Because the painter was gone I knew that it had become untied and not sunk or otherwise destroyed.  This was truly poor form on my part: not making something fast properly, especially the dink, such an important and necessary part of sailing life (not to mention expensive).  It is easy to underestimate the power of the swell constantly jerking the dink around.

My cleats are difficult to describe; they aren’t normal horn cleats; they are more like mini-bollards between which I wrap a line in a figure-eight.  On a smarter day I would have done this then tied the bitter end to a stanchion as last defense.  But perhaps the early morning, the fact that I wanted as long a painter as possible, something left me with too short a line and I left it as a satisfactory job.

And now, as I looked back over an empty sea, the dink has departed.

 

The fortunate part of the story thus far is the predictability of the dink.  Being an inflatable, it will drift with the wind, not the current.  Sense it hasn’t been more than an hour I have a good general idea of where it is.  However, the misery is that it is grey and will therefore be nearly invisible in the seas and swell.  Not to mention that I can’t see past my nose.

I hailed Herb on the VHF and appraised him of my situation and he offered to turn around and help in the search.  This was a blessing, because I am aware that I can’t see.  His eyes would be the key.

 

I was strangely confident, because of the proximity factor I think, and I didn’t feel like it was real.  This was an adventure:  The race to save the dink!

So Herb flanked me closer to shore and we scanned, running downwind the way which we had come back toward Taiohae Bay.  I put out an “all vessels alert” on channel 16 and heard back from one British yacht coming in from the south.  They said they’d gladly be on the lookout.

We searched and searched and it slowly dawned on me that the odds were bad, very bad.  It is rare to find a lost dink, especially out in open water.  But the wind seemed to be pushing the dink back against Nuku Hiva so maybe Herb would spot it near shore.

Then a ray of hope:

The British vessel  had recently bisected our paths as they made for T-Bay and then they came on the VHF and said they spotted something they thought may be my dink near a cave toward the mouth of Taiohae Bay.  I jibed and said I’d follow. 

But five minutes later they said they’d lost it and said no more.  Herb was now passing that spot and saw nothing.  We waited.

After five to ten minutes I called again and asked if they thought it had been a false alarm.        Nothing.

Then I notice them change course: they turned hard to starboard, away from T-Bay and toward where I thought they had sighted the dink.  My heart picked up a notch. Then I saw a man reaching down into the waves……and I saw it.  There it was, the dink, my dink, floating along side their boat—totally invisible.

It must have passed right in between Herb and me and we totally missed it—even when we had already been warned.  And somehow these strangers had seen it, seen it twice, and had taken it upon themselves to track it down and pick it up.  Amazing, but there you go.  That is the world out here.

I had other boats in Controleur that asked to come out and help us but I declined them.  I didn’t know what more could be done.  A man I had met the day before had come out unasked from Taiohae Bay and was searching with his nice motor dinghy.  And then these strangers found it.

 

I hove-to and they came along side and made a hand off of sorts.  (they actually nearly t-boned my boat—off-shore boat engagement is very risky business.)  But that was it.  The dink was back. 

I tied her on. . . properly, and headed up and set course, again, for Controleur.  I got what I wanted in the sense of a longer sail—we made three laps—and it was a gorgeous day.  And the dink returned against all odds.

And what is almost better:  Herbert abstained from mocking me heavily.  I brought over a bottle of rum which seemed to be well earned and we drank a couple of glasses.  

 

 

-------

 

Since then, Herb has lost his speargun and found it (see, "Snorkel land") and just now, had his flip-flops stollen, then found a kid wearing them.  So funny.

Lots of lost and found.