THE ANDAMAN ROCK

This is our second visit to the Andaman Islands and we chose a different itinerary than we did 3 years ago. Making stops in new places can be quite a challenge, especially with the charts we are using. Our charts are all photocopies, in some cases, copies of copies. We wanted to go more north this time, but didn't have a decent scale chart for doing that. Luckily, we were able to borrow 2 charts from the Harbor Master in Port Blair and get the pertinent sections copied for use in navigating to the northern areas. We couldn't find a large copy machine in Port Blair, but the cut and paste job of smaller copied sections works reasonably well.

We had a nice sail into the little port town of Rangat, on Middle Andaman Island. The breakwater, light structures, and inner pier were not shown on our chart. We soon sorted all that out and dropped our anchor, reported our position to the Port Control, and went ashore to have a look around and a bite to eat. It's a good thing we returned to the boat after lunch, as the tide was rapidly dropping, and the dinghy--and ourselves--would have been marooned in a field of rocks all afternoon! No matter; we had a ringside seat for the arrival of the daily ferry which produced a bustle of activity along the pier as well as a flood of passengers.

Our next stop was 34 miles to weather. The winds have been steadily from the north, but of varying strengths. Tack, tack, tack, or motor, motor, motor. Whatever the day had in store for us, we needed an early start to achieve our goal. The Andamans have a peculiar time zone. Whereas Thailand is +7 hours from GMT, only 400 miles away the Andamans are + 5.5 hours off GMT. That means it is daylight at just past 5 o'clock in the morning! We lifted the anchor about 5:45, raised the mainsail, and headed out around the breakwater.

There is a shoal patch shown on the chart. Our chart might be a cut and paste composite of copied sections, but the reef patch shown just outside the Rangat Bay headland is clear enough for me to have marked it with yellow highlighter pen as an obstacle to avoid. Al was driving. I had gone below--I don't remember for what now. Maybe to get suncream and my hat. Anyway, all of a sudden Al slowed down the engine. By the time he said, "It's getting shallow," I was in the cockpit with him. We managed to hit those rocks dead on! We bounced very hard, were free, bounced a few times more from the lift of the swell, and in what seemed like an eternity of time, drifted clear into shallow, but unobstructed water again.

What the hell happened? Al feels really, really bad about hurting our faithful SUNFLOWER. After we calmed down, and got to deeper water, and were on our way again, we talked it over. We had made these mistakes.

#1 Al didn't look at the chart that morning before leaving port. Both of us normally do a pre-departure study so that we have a good idea of where to go and what is facing us. I had looked at the chart however; I knew that reef patch was there.

#2 Definitely my fault for not saying anything to Al when he turned north. From the chart, I knew we would have to go directly east about a mile past the breakwater before turning north. I should have told him that I thought it was too soon, that he might be too close to the patch.

#3 Why didn't we turn around when we saw the depth sounder going less than 8 feet? Al could easily have done a 180 turn long before we hit the rocks. Why didn't he at least put it in reverse? Even in neutral, we have a pretty long carry through of speed. Back peddling was definitely in order!

#4 But most of all, why did we BOTH just stand there staring at the depth sounder readings getting shallower and shallower? We were totally transfixed--like a deer caught in a hunter's light beam. We still can't believe it--that we did NOTHING about the fact that the water was getting so shallow. Where were our heads that morning? What were we thinking? Had we learned nothing from all our years of sailing and coastal cruising?

#5 Role reversal as a possible cause of the calamity. I usually drive when leaving port. Al has done the anchor stowage and probably had to sluice the deck to clean the mud off. He usually either goes to the chart table, looks at the GPS, and gives me a course, or comes into the cockpit with the chart and any input I would need as driver. So I am usually there to watch depths and slow or change course as necessary.

Well, who knows. The fact is, we were both at fault. We both should have reacted to the danger of shallow water. We should NEVER have hit those rocks!

POST SCRIPT As our destination was in an estuary type area, the water was not clear enough to dive and inspect the keel. A few days later we were anchored in beautiful clear water again. Inspection showed that the rock we hit chewed up the front edge of the keel pretty badly. The keel hit just at about the same place it did when we crunched on the sunken wreck back in 2001. A lot of the epoxy fix-it filler was broken away. We have a major haul out scheduled for this year anyhow, but didn't really need further complications. Of course, it could have been worse...