I was not a happy camper when the bridge called me in the early morning. During the night it had been raining heavily in the distance, with a few good showers coming over the ship as well; and at sunrise it blew hard. Well over 30 knots with long ocean rollers coming in from the south. That was not what the weather forecast had been predicting. The weather charts were however quite good in showing what was currently going on. A large storm system moving from West to East along the edge of Antarctica had been intensifying and had pushed the counter flow of air, between the screaming fifties area as they call it and the normally less windy Bora Bora area higher up. So far up that this flow lay fully over the islands itself with 25 knots of winds, gusting to 30 and lots of rain coming with it. Luckily the anchorage area inside is fairly sheltered so I was not too worried about getting in, but it was not going to be a”silent south sea” day for the guests, let alone a sunny one.
The pilot was right on time and came out in a sort of speed boat, bouncing over waves that where about twice as high as the boat. He came nearly 3 miles out, which was a mean feat in itself and there was good reason for it. He did not want me closer to the port before he was safely on the bridge. When he arrived the reason was quickly explained, you did not approach the port by following the information in the sailing directions. The leading lights were still there, but now too close to the shallows on the north side, so the new approach was to stay well south of the line until the current running in front of the entrance diminished, and once past, angle around the entrance buoys.
A yawning ship all day. Wind pushing on one side until the anchor chain comes taut and pulls the ship back. Wind pushing at the other side under the anchor chain comes taut………….. etc. etc. A pendulum motion all day long.
We did so accordingly and by 09.15 we were at the anchorage. Not as close to the landing stage of Vaitape port as we would have been but further to the south where there was more room to swing behind the anchor. And swinging behind the anchor the Statendam did. Every time the wind gusted up, she veered from one side to the other side of the anchor with an arc of nearly 180 degrees. But she remained perfectly in position, while we conducted our tender service through rain squall after rain squall.
Best anchor location possible. As much in the shelter of the mountain as possible and as deep in the bay as possible.
I have a radar display next to my desk in my office and while I was doing my administration I could keep a good eye on the ships movement without having to run to the bridge every five minutes. But with nearly 200 meter of chain + anchor on the bottom of the bay (that is 23 tons or 48,000 pounds of steel) the ship was held in position quite nicely.
That was about the only happy thing that I could say about today.
Otemanu mountain which dominates Bora Bora and which can be found on almost every postcard, never came out of the clouds.
The rain was warm but there was a lot of it especially in the evening and the top of mountain Otemanu never came out of the clouds. I hope that it will be better tomorrow but the weather forecast, both the local French one and my English long range one predicts that the rain will stay at least until the morning and that the wind will keep blowing. The good news is that the wind is to change from the East to the North West and that is preferable for our next ports.
During previous calls everybody was back on board by 10 pm although a very few stayed overnight on the island. Most of them being crew though, who had received permission from their supervisors to stay a night away. As long as I have enough crew on board for emergencies and they are all back on time for work, I have no problems with that. For the guests I will find out tomorrow evening if they all will have made it back to the ship on time. If not then they have to take the airplane to Raiatea, to catch up with the ship.
Keeping my fingers crossed for better weather than forecasted.
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