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| Rain starts and it seems it will never end |
After 24 hours of non stop heavy rain pouring on top of us we started loosing our good mood. Another 24 hours of the same and the nightmare started. The first day we had kind of fun, filling up buckets of water, topping up our water tanks, showering on deck, all the dust collected in the marina gone, our deck never looked so clean with so little effort, fun. When the night came and the rain continued we started to get moody, then a festival of lightning started and we knew our 'sleep soundly' night was gone, as we started to get concerned. We've never been in so much rain for so long. When daylight came on the second day and we saw the transformation of that place from a quiet green calm waters anchorage into a red muddy disturbed waters full of debris passing by we started to get really worried. As we were pondering what to do, we heard the noise of our chain moving and next thing we know we are riding down the current dragging chain and anchor at about 2 knots. Not need to say what a nightmare it was, try to control Zenitude, stop the ride, raise the anchor, and try to figure out what the hell had just happened. At that moment the sky decided to throw also thunders to add a bit more drama to our situation. At least it was daylight. We really thought about leaving the place but instead came back to try to re-anchor, not knowing which other place would be better. And then we saw it and understood, we've been anchored exactly in the spot where the main part of the rain water was trying to leave the place while the tide was changing.
Our new friends, the 2 French boats that came together with us from Bonne Anse were absolutely fantastic helping us to choose the right place as they'd been there many times. Later they said they'd been there more than 40 times and never saw anything like it. Once we found the spot where the current was little and the depth good enough we finally re-anchor. Eventually the rain started to diminish and by sunset was over. We left the place the next day, covered in red mud that will be another nightmare to clean up. Baie de Carenage is at the heart of the nickel mining area and the bottom is a deep red mud. By bringing up and down our anchor 3 times we collected probably about 3 or 4 tons of this red mud that was evenly distributed all over the boat by the wind. A lovely place indeed but we doubt that we'll ever return.
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| 'Absolutelly Georgeous', our new friends in the reddish waters |
G & O
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