Another anchorage. Rather than a bay, this was in the lee of a couple of little rocky islands in the middle of nowhere.
I am a very conservative
skipper, but believe with the best
anchoring gear (and that includes over sizing the best anchor) there are many beautiful and deserted
anchorages that can be safely utilised. We find many of these just on
Google Earth, but this one did rate a mention in Wiki, although not in any of the pilot
books or
cruising guides. Wiki said " not suitable for overnight". Perfect for us
.
Unfortunately, when we arrived there was more west in the
wind than predicted which meant there was little protection from the small islands and lots of wave action. There are no
charts for
anchorages like this so the wave action was of some concern as it obscures the bottom details.
Anyway, with a slow approach we dropped the big
Mantus. After after a gradual increase to 1800 revs the anchor suddenly let go with a very rapid drag. My mermaid (who was at the helm) immediately cut the
power, but after a few metres the anchor grabbed very abruptly again. A great proof load test for the anchor and G7 chain
This sort of behaviour is very characteristic of rock (with either the chain or anchor catching), so despite the anchor now holding we elected to pick up and try again in a different spot. The second drop was completely conventional. 10m @3.5:1
This was the second drop:
You can see the
Mantus has set perfectly. Not quite in its customary couple of feet, but it was only just over a metre. The fluke is completely buried along with most of the shank. There is no heaping up. A great result. The substrate was more gravel than sand.
I went looking for the initial drop point. The reason for the anchor behaviour was easy to see.
There were large areas of smooth sheet rock and with no sand over the top at all. Unfortunatly this sort of rock looks like sand from the
boat.
This
photo was taken from the surface (in about 8m) so this substrate is covering large areas. The dark line is a fissure in the rock:
Maybe Wiki was right. Oh, and ImaginaryNumber in post #974 who suggested that he wanted to see the results of the Mantus on rock: You jinxed me