Wind shift!

This morning the wind direction has changed! I knew this shift was forecasted, as I had been checking it and hoped to go to the south pass anchorage for some shark diving. The south pass works well in a south and south eastern wind, however in a north and west wind the fetch would be too much in this atoll. Yesterday, because of numerous coral heads all around us and therefore chain was getting hooked in a few places, I decided to move the boat where more sand and less coral heads were present. This meant moving the boat in towards the beach. The boat only draws 4.6 feet below water line so shallow works well for Sarantium.

When I woke up this morning, I could see the bottom clearly, with 4 feet of water under the keel. Hmmmm…. 😳

To move or not to move..

I looked at the chart, calculated the depth and the possible swing radius in case the wind shifted from north to north-west. The forecast predict a north wind only. And tide is already a low tide… I should be fine! However, to be sure I decided to bring a bit of chain in so in case we swing more, we do not move much closer to land. Today I’ll be monitoring the wind and our position along with cleaning, bake bread and organizing my packing for Tahiti, New Zealand and Europe! Wind Shift and Life Shift!

30 minutes after I wrote this… I checked the forecast again and it had changed … now predicting a westerly wind in the middle of the night… so I decided to pull anchor and move. Within 10 minutes of moving a rain cloud appeared and wind direction shifted to a westerly. All boats in the anchor pointed straight west and Sarantium motored away from land! She’s now in a safer spot in 10 metres of water and with less fetch! Never a dull moment!