We set off on Monday for Dickenson’s Bay where we anchored up overnight along with Lucy Alice. It was a lovely bay but we decided to pick up our anchor at 11.15 am the next day and head for Parham on the north of the island. Rather than motor we thought we would sail to the Boon Channel. We were soon flying along doing 7 knots when we needed to put a tack in and realised the self-tacker was tied down. I turned Jackamy in to wind whilst Paul went forward to untie it. By this time we were steaming along! Back on the helm, Paul said “coming about” just as the boat started juddering and then came to a sudden stop! WE HAD HIT A REEF and we were stuck hard! We tried to free ourselves, motoring backwards and forwards with the boat doing over 4000 revs, but to no avail! We put a call out to Lucy Alice, on channel 72 on the VHF, who were still anchored in Dickenson Bay. This was also picked up by Miss Tippy who were anchored two bays away who offered their assistance.

We were rocking about violently and the noise of Jackamy being scraped on the reef was very frightening! Luckily the dinghy was blown up, and putting the outboard engine on and launching it from the bow which normally takes us a good 10 minutes was achieved in a matter of seconds – it’s amazing how much adrenalin is pumping through your system when in a situation like this! Paul then took out the kedge anchor with 125 metres of Panama warp and dropped it, we winched this tight and it seemed to steady us a bit. The biggest worry were the coral heads that were above the water, as if we’d have hit one of them it would have put a hole in the hull and it would’ve been game over!

Lucy Alice appeared and dropped their anchor close by. They decided to wait for Miss Tippy, who radioed to say they were 10 minutes away. It seemed like an eternity, all we could do was wait and watch them getting closer on the horizon! Miss Tippy was able to get quite close to us, so they attached one of their Panama warps to a cleat and Paul went over to them in the dinghy.  Freddie, Brian and Sheila’s 10 year old son jumped in the dinghy with Paul and they attached one of our warps to theirs. And so, with 250 metres of line they managed to drag us off!

In the mean time, we had lost our kedge anchor and warp and Lucy Alice had fouled their anchor on the reef and could only free themselves by letting go of 60 metres of chain and anchor! We all motored back to Deep Bay and anchored up where Brian dived down to assess the damage, which he said wasn’t too bad considering we had spent 2 hours on a reef!

That evening Miss Tippy, Lucy Alice and Bionic, another BWR boat that was in the bay, came over for supper and drinks. Then early the next morning Brian and Paul went back to the reef with Ian on Lucy Alice to try and recover the anchors. A GPS mark had been taken so they were pretty confident they would find them. Brian dived down but couldn’t find Lucy Alice’s anchor. Ours was found pretty quickly and after a second attempt with Brian running out of air, Lucy Alice’s anchor was also found. It then took another hour to get 60 metres of chain and anchor back on the boat!

We stayed in Deep Bay again that evening and were entertained by Miss Tippy. We can’t thank Lucy Alice and Miss Tippy enough, especially Brian, for coming to our rescue! This is what the BWR is all about, looking out for one another!

We are now back in Jolly Harbour, where Jackamy is having repairs done to her keel and rudder, we hope to be back in the water Monday 21^st!