BACK IN DEEP(ISH) WATER

We had a nice couple days anchored in 7.5ft of water with a sandy bottom completely free of coral (which is a real treat since the anchor chain doesn't grind away all night). But, since we planned to move back around to the west side of Bora Bora to get some fresh provisions and be ready to head west as soon as the weather looked good, we at least had to get back out to deeper water by 2pm on Wednesday or we'd have to wait until Monday when the tides were high enough again to get back across a shallow stretch between us and the deeper water. I'd spent all morning fixing electrical problems on two other boats and by the time we got moving the tide was already falling.

The bottom of Imagine's keel is 6ft under the surface, plus a little (?) more, depending how heavily we're loaded. We read 6.4ft minimum on the depth sounder on the way in, which isn't leaving much wiggle room but we didn't touch bottom. When I'd calibrated the depth sounder last year I didn't figure I'd be relying on it to measure inches, so the actual depth could have been plus or minus 3-4 inches. Since it's a nice flat sandy bottom the absolute worst we'd do is get stuck and have to wait, well, until Tuesday. The tides here are only about 6 inches, so even at low tide we'd still stand upright sitting on the keel. If we did find ourselves aground there are several ways to get oneself unstuck - run the anchor out ahead in the dinghy then use the 2000lb pull anchor windlass to winch us along, or hoist the dinghy full of water off one side of the boat to cause it to lean over, or as a last resort, dump some fresh water (we currently have 3000 pounds of water onboard but it's hard to replace!).

We backtracked along the GPS track that we'd made on our way in, but it seemed the sounder was reading a bit shallower than it had been on the way in, and sure enough with only about 30ft remaining to reach the deep water the depth sounder read 6.4, 6.2, 6.0, finally 5.9 as we bumped and started slowing down. I opened the throttle from idle to full boogie and we just plowed our way through... now I won't have to scrape barnacles off the bottom of the keel for awhile!

Our plans have changed (again), as cruising plans do, and now we've got a hike planned for Friday to the top of the mountain in the center of Bora Bora, so I guess we'll leave Saturday... maybe. -Pete