tough anchorage

Hello all,
Thanks for your prayers to those who Nona called last night about 2 AM our time. My superior(?) sailing skills and your thoughts got us out of a pretty scary predicament. The day started with sun and a really good snorkel around the adjacent reefs. For dinner I barbecued chicken and Nona prepared the corn on the cob and sweet potatoes that a Tongan mother gave us while we were on a walk around the island. As we were walking down the dirt road surrounded by eucalyptus, mango, taro and many other tropical trees a little girl ran out to us holding a plastic sack full bananas. She had a wonderful smile and her mom by the house waived. I gave the little girl a lolly pop. It was a bit windy around 1700 so we bunked down in the main solon where the rocking and rolling is not so noticeable. At 2100 hours the wind picked up to 20 - 30 knots and the boat swung 180 degrees and faced the open seas. We started rocking some and faced south west and that put a reef about 50' behind Corvidae. Earlier in the day when we set the anchor I backed down on it and it bit into something solid. I dove on it and it was snagged on a "bommie", a coral mound, and the chain was snaked over the coral. Not good for the coral but a solid set for the anchor. About 2130 hours a 40 knot blast of wind hit the boat and everything was jumping and making noise. The caternary in the chain straightened out and the chain rubbed on the coral each time we bobbed up with the ocean waves. We were both up in the cockpit watching, wondering and running different scenarios over in our head about what our risks were. Before too long the waves built up pretty good and we were really rocking. The wind would push the bow over and we would be abeam to the seas and we would roll 30 degrees. Nona put a ditch bag together with our personal documents, money, wallets, etc. It was completely dark, no moon, no stars. This goes on until about 0200 hours in the morning when suddenly 40 knots of wind buffets the boat. The rigging was howling and Corvidae was jumping all around the anchor chain was grinding on the coral, we were being thrown all around. The entire pacific ocean was off our bow and the islands reefs were just off our stern. We were pretty tense but rational. All the while the surf was breaking on both side of our boat and occasionally started under our boat. We were in the surf zone and it was noisy. Then I recognized that the reef was about 15' directly behind our boat. That was a shocker. It's edge went 25' straight to the bottom so we had clearance right up to the edge but certainly no further. All this while we had the engine forward idle to ease the anchor chain but then we boosted the RPM to go forward and away from the reef. I went forward with life vest and tether to windlass in some chain to get us further off the reef. This worked but we still swung from side to side and frequently motored away from the reef. Neither of us had any rest all night and we so looked forward to daylight so we could SEE our predicament more clearly. All night our dingy was trying to take wing when the wind blew it's bow vertical. I had two lines on it so it wouldn't pirouette. The motor was tied on. I failed to remove the paddles and lost one. It finally became light enough to see about 0600. About 0800 we decided to try to raise the anchor. We drove side to side front to back and around to try and unwrap the chain and to my amazement we did it. The anchor roller for the anchor was severely bent but still held the anchor. We blasted outta there about 0830 and never looked back. What a night to remember. We were so lucky and grateful to not loose our boat on the reef not to mention what we would have done to make it to the island. We motored 6 hours to another anchorage and some deserved rest. Nona made corned beef and cabbage and biscuits for dinner!! WOW. Our anchor is well set with 5/1 scope and a snubber line to ease the shock load on the windlass and cleats. The wind is 10 knots. Nona was stellar in keeping calm and coming up with good ideas. I did a pretty good job keeping us off the reef and safe.

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