Anchoring in 2.000 meters waterdepth
09 April 2012 | 15 57.392'N:79 54.755'W, Cayo Serranilla
Peter via Satphone
We left Jamaica a day and a half ago, first with some winds, but during the night and today no winds. Absolutely nothing. So motoring the whole night and today. Fed up with that, we were looking at the charts what to do. There are several shallow spots to navigate around on your way from Jamaica (West side) to Isla de Providencia. Most of them steep mountains rising up from the sea bottom, from 2.000 meter water depth to perhaps just below the sea level, about 10 meters water depth. Here and there a rock protrudes above the sea level, something you really want to stay far away from normally. Well we just arrived on the banks (sea mountain top) of Cayo Serranilla. According the charts water depths range here in the 10 to 20 meters range. On the East side of this bank some reefs just below sea level and one lonely rock with a light on top sticking above the sea level. Studying the charts we noticed a tiny little �"anchor�", meaning suitable for anchoring, behind that ro ck. That is where we are heading for right now and should arrive in the next 2 hours. You can only do this when the weather and seas are settled, as today. We are going to try this and see if we can anchor here out for the night in 15 meters of water. A quite night without that engine running. The trick is to find the rock at night, as it is now 18:00 and we still have two hours (10Nm) to go, so it will be dark when we get there. I do not trust the chart so much, so it will be imperative to find the light and then locate it on the radar, so we know the true location. If we are unable to find the light, then we pass on it and move on. Great feeling to anchor out here in the middle of 2.000 meters water depths, on top of a sea mountain not larger then 20Nm around. Our fishing is still no success. We lost another two lures to whatever is out there. It is spam and omelets again. What a terrible fisherman I am. I really think there is little fish out there nowadays. We will let you know if we were able to anchor out here.