Off we go! It is early in the morning and our destination is Nagannu island.
Everything goes perfectly as we dip our way across the East China Sea to an uninhabited sub tropical island. What could be better? It is 28 degrees, bright, sunny and the water is warm. We are sailing a lovingly restored Norfolk Gypsy, who behaves immaculately; breeding don’t you know.
We anchor just off the island using my brand-new, tailor-made, coral anchor. https://thequietripple.com/2019/06/23/now/
We snorkel over the amazing coral. Jeremy sees a White Tipped Shark!
Oh dear, time to head home. Oh dear, things start to go wrong. We raise the anchor, in fact we raise the rode and chain as the anchor has mysteriously detached itself ! Jeremy dives in and heroically rescues it. I would have been very sad to lose my beautiful anchor on the first time I used it.
The chain was attached to the anchor with a stainless steel carabiner, which I thought would do the job nicely. Obviously not.
Anyway off we go, expecting a pleasant broad reach back to Okinawa. It is indeed very pleasant until we get close enough to recognize buildings. I do not recognize any. I then realize that I had not lowered the center plate when we left the beach and therefore the boat had been drifting south at about the same speed as we were sailing east. I felt very stupid. We now had to beat back up against the wind for about 15 kms. This she did valiantly but time ran out and we had to motor the last 5 or so as the sun went down behind us. God bless the mighty Yanmar 1GM.
We finally got back to the marina in the dark and I completed the display of incompetence by crashing into our mooring pontoon. Could not see anything.
Here is a video:
On the way back the apartment, much blasted by sun and wind, we stopped off to celebrate the opening of ‘The Bacon Bar’. This is an business started by 2 young people from OIST who are going to make bacon and all kinds of charcuterie. There is no tradition of charcuterie on an island that is obsessed with pork. Strange. Go there!
The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond 
Terrible time for you two, but as I read I couldn’t help but LAUGH OUT LOUD…plus (here comes another cliche) all’s well that ends well!
Thanks Rachel
Any trip that ends with dinner, is a successful one. Acquisition of a hand held GPS, that allows the use of waypoints recommended. Or a chart plotter package for iPad -they even show tidal streams these days.
I have a great app on my phone but er forgot to look at it!
Well done, Jeremy! Saved the day/bacon or at least the anchor. Many years ago, on a pot-holing trip, we made the same error with a non-locking caribiner on a safety rope. Crawling through a tight squeeze somehow disengaged it – luckily the person attached noticed that the rope had gone all floppy before she applied her weight to it going over an edge. She’d had the bad luck to pick up the only non-locking caribiner from the pot that day. Nobody dead.
What’s the Husky Meow beer like? Like the name!
Keep the stories coming – wouldn’t be the same without some near-disaster though!
Hi Alan, Thanks for comment. Take a look at latest post, plenty of near-disaster. What is Husky Meow beer?
Husky Meow beer is apparently on sale at the Bacon Bar – It would have been Margie’s 99th birthday yesterday and I bet she’d have had a sip, cat freak that she was. Raised another brand to her instead.
Yes, the new post is splendidly disastrous keep it coming! Have you thought of keeping Jeremy on as permanent crew?