Bummer of a Bommie

What's a bommie? It's an underwater colony of coral that can be the size of a Volkswagen or the size of the Volkswagen factory. They maybe visible from the surface or they may not be. Our Mal Island bommie was 30' below the surface, about 25' tall and 6' around and undetectable by the normal means; that is to observe a change in the color of the water.

When we arrived at Mal Island in the Ninigo Group of Papua New Guinea, we dropped our anchor in a spot previously occupied by another sailboat. Such waypoints are usually reliable. This one seemed to be, the bottom looked smooth and sandy, and we fell back, backed down on the anchor to ensure a good set and went about our business for over two weeks. If, and this is a big if, we hadn't had a front come through last week giving us northerly and then westerly winds, we may have been fine. But...

this morning we were stuck. Stuck isn't even a good term, chained to the bottom. Chained to the bommie, which over millennia has been glued to the bottom. We tried our usual methods of motoring up while cranking in and letting Carina bounce in the swell. She did not bounce. Her bow dipped and stayed there. The chain was frighteningly taut, threatening fingers and toes. We let out chain and tried again, again, again, again and just for good measure, again.

Finally, we shut off the engine and our hero came to the rescue...in a bathing suit, fins, mask and snorkel. Down he went, four times...down the chain until his ears nearly burst. The conclusion: it was a big bommie - not just our chain wedged in a crevice - and we were wrapped and wrapped solidly. Probably counterclockwise.

Back aboard, we started the engine again, let out a whole bunch of chain and motored not once, but twice in a wide circle around the bommie, clockwise. We could read the depths and contours on our fishfinder to know when we were outside of it. With alacrity Philip cranked in on the anchored chain, came up short, Carina bowed and then "blam" her bow came up and Leslie motored due east into deeper water as we both wished our chain to be free. And it was.

So, an hour and a half of grunting, groaning, stress, worry, diving, consulting...we were free of the bommie. And finally underway...


At 8/25/2016 and 6:17 UTC (GMT) our position was: 01°17.06'S / 144°20.57'E.
We were traveling degrees true at knots.

olon



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