Monday 5 August Arrival Banda Neira

stern tied to sea wall

After a fast downwind sail with our two headsails flying we arrived at Banda Neira just after dawn. Unfortunately the rain arrived with us and we had rain all the way in and through to lunchtime. Coming up the west side of the island, the volcano side, we had to negotiate the small fishing boats and their floating fish traps before we could turn into the anchorage. First impressions say it all – this is a long, narrow and steep sided anchorage. Even through the rain and fogged up glasses it's impressive. To the west is the island of Gunung Api, a dormant volcano rising 600m and to the east is the small island of Banda Neira with it's shore lined with a profusion of long, blue wooden boats. The water is deep, really, really deep away from the shore. We'd read the preferred option is to locate the two hotels and to aim to stern tie between them. This means backing into position dropping the anchor as you back up and then having a helpful person to run a line from your stern to a solid point on the shore.

Definitely not our best morning as we struggled to get the anchor to set and lines ashore to something strong enough to hold 17 tonnes in a moderate breeze. One line went to a post which I'd been told metal and when it snapped was actually wood. We tried twice before going off to see if we could find somewhere to anchor. There was a spot of 15m which we thought do-able and dropped the anchor. We saw and felt it skipping meaning it wasn't hooking on to anything and then 'wham' it caught so well we knew it was fouled. So it turned out our first dive in Indonesia was to free our anchor! A descent down the chain and we discovered first the sea bed is rock and then our anchor was caught under a ledge. We pulled it clear to be able to lift it free later. While we were in the water it was a good opportunity to check the propeller and hull for growth which might explain why our performance has been slower than expected. Yes, there were some barnacles on the propeller and a fine growth of weed under the keel. Nothing an hour of scraping couldn't put right.

By now the rain had stopped and the wind died completely and we decided to try to stern tie to the wall once more. This time it was a success at first attempt. Our bow anchor held firm in 30m of water and our neighbour, Roger on Equanimity did a big favour of tying our stern line to the jetty. A second line to a large tree, some fine adjustment and the D.R.A.Ts fitted and we were snug.

DRAT is short for Davids Rodent Avoidance Thingymajig, bucket lids with a length of pipe through the middle through which the mooring lines are thread and thus a rat has to balance along a shiny piece of pipe before they are faced with an impossible wall of orange plastic.