29 December A Hard Landing in Cayo Levisa

Perhaps our first mistake was to read the cruising guide. Especially when we went aground in 1.8m of water on a recommended route for vessels drawing up to 3.5m and spent the next five hours trying to get off a sand bank.

One of our many cruising guides indicated that approaching the anchorage at Cayo Levisa from the west end of the island would be deeper although longer by a couple of miles. Jackster draws 2.1m, or 7 feet, and we always take the cautious approach when it comes to shallow water. We made the turn from ocean to pass and found fair depths of no less than 4m as we headed toward the mainland. The anchorage at Levisa is on the south side of the island giving good protection from the prevalent north winds in winter. We were following instructions in the latest Waterway Guide for Cuba when coming towards two isolated patches charted as 2.5m and 2.0m, the route between these was recommended for vessels drawing up to 2.5m but to pass to the south of the southern patch was the 'Suggested route for up to 3.5m'. Why not? let's go deeper we thought. What we found out was that the deeper channel no longer existed. It had silted up. At 22 51.75N 83 32.75W we found the bottom in 1.9m of water. David had been moving as slowly as we areable as the depths were getting shallow but we maintained enough impetus to put us up. Amels have wing keels, large flat bottomed pieces of cast iron rather like an old fashioned clothes iron. With a large surface area they can cling to sand like a remora on a whale shark.

The first thing to try was to reverse off. Didn't work. Them we put the dinghy in the water first to measure the depth of water around us to determine which way we should go. Backwards or sidewards? Deepest water was behind the way we had come in. With David in the dinghy and me on helm we tried nudging the bow back and forth and reverse engine. Didn't work. While we considering what to do next we got a call on the radio from Mon Ark who could see us from the anchorage and noted we were stationary. I explained the small hiccup in progress and Chris offered to come out in his dinghy to lend assistance. Now with two dinghies to push we should make be able to move her. Didn't work. Next we tried a kedge anchor. While we were doing this catamaran Aventure came past on their way to the west cape. Captain Jason took a line from our bow to his stern to try and pull us off. This did turn us around but we were still stuck. We needed to be patient and wait for Mother Nature to so her thing with a rise in tide.

We'd gone aground at 1 o'clock and it was now coming towards sunset and the tide was rising, only a 30cm tide difference, but all we needed was 10cm to lift off. Chris helped us lead out our primary anchor to a position ahead of us, as far as it was possible to move heavy anchor and chain, and dump it in the deeper water which was a tantalising 5m ahead of our keel. With nothing else to do but wait we waved goodbye to Aventure as they left for their journey and Chris departed back to the anchorage and his boat. Half and hour later and David and I felt the first stirring of Jackster rocking in the water. The tide was doing it's thing!

Engine on, take up the slack on the anchor chain and power on. It worked! We were free! Free to retrace our course to deeper water where we anchored for the night. Tomorrow morning we would, super cautiously, find the way through the sand banks to the resort anchorage.