Author: Scott
Today I feel like living Jell-O! Last night we spent the night at Revolieu Bay on Epi Island, one of the rolliest anchorages we have experienced on the voyage to date. What makes us appreciate just how awful it was is the contrast from our prior night's calm and peaceful experience at Port Havannah on Efate Island.
Our departure from Efate Island was filled with the anticipation of leaving the comparatively bustling modern life of Efate Island and Port Vila to return again to the traditional island life of villagers outside of "the big city". Our cruising guides told us that on Epi Island we would find kind gentle people and perhaps interactions with sea turtles, and even dugongs (sea cows). A dugong is a large lumbering creature, with a thick body and whale-like tale. They are known to breed and feed in the bays on Epi Island and other cruisers have reported swimming with these immense and gentle friends from the sea. Cool! I want to swim with a dugong!
Our first stop on Epi Island was Revolieu Bay, a large and relatively open bay from the northwest, west, and southwest. Upon entering the bay I could feel the swell gently lifting the boat from the northwest and I wondered to myself, 'could this swell make things a bit unruly?' In short, the answer was a resounding YES!!! We dropped the hook in ten meters of clear blue water with a white sand and crushed coral bottom. The surrounding landscape was lush green with low lying mountains and very little sign of life on shore. There were no other yachts on anchor, and soon it became clear why that was.
I first noticed the roll as I was waiting for the anchor to set, but I figured things would soon settle down. I was wrong. We bounced, we thrashed, we wiggled and jiggled, we bounced, we rolled… Shortly after anchoring Graeme and Rebecca dropped by in their dinghy, which was a bit of a surprise, as they silently slunk up to Starship rowing without a motor. LL's dinghy is easy to deploy off davits, but they have a bigger challenge of transferring their motor to their dinghy, which is mounted on the rail. Therefore, they often will go motorless and paddle if they are just visiting an anchorage for a single night. With our friends on board we caught up on the past two days spent on our respective boats and of course talked about our current amusement park-like anchorage. Beck said when she looked over at Starship she could actually see our keel flash in the roll. They had decided to use their fancy "Flying Fluke" anchor to anchor their stern into the oncoming swell. A "Flying Fluke" is a nifty anchor that is designed to glide through the water upon release and embed itself in the bottom at a distance from a boat, thus eliminating the need to paddle out in a dinghy to set a stern anchor. It sounds too good to be true, but they reported that their "Flying Fluke" did its job and that their stern anchor had calmed their boat somewhat. We also considered deploying our stern anchor in the more conventional fashion, but decided that the roll would soon abate. We were wrong.
Before they departed Starship we agreed with Graeme and Rebecca that if the roll continued, we would head off for Lamen Bay, just another eight miles north. It was also a wide open bay and would be easy to anchor, even if we had to drop the anchor in the dark.
Preparing dinner was a challenge, but the real fun began at dish time. Plates were flying, glasses were skidding across the counter, and cutlery was bouncing around. All I could think about was finishing the dishes so I could rest. We did finally finish the dishes with no casualties, but rest did not come easily. As the boat rolled on through the night, anything not wedged into place jumped and rolled around building to unbelievably loud crescendos of noise. Halyards smacked the mast and Starship serenaded with all her secret squeaks and moans and groans. I was up at least twice in the night to tame objects that had come to life. In the end I was lucky to have managed two hours of sleep. Pam probably had even less with her proclivity for insomnia induced by the slightest noise. Pam's simple description of the night was 'trying to sleep in a torture chamber'.
Dawn finally did come. I know this as I was up to greet the sun. With the new day calm was not restored in the anchorage. We never had a break as we weighed anchor in sloppy swell, eager to move on further north, in search of calm, our sanity, and perhaps a dugong.
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