SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

Last night I took a shower on the swim step. It was dark, but I could hear the sharks circling behind the boat. They have a way of swishing the water. It's very distinctive. I was unnerved enough that during the shower I stood on the box that holds the dinghy gas instead of the actual swim step. Remember, it's dark and the boat moves even at anchor. I could lose my balance and fall in. At a potluck on the beach we filleted a fish and threw the carcus into the sea. Sharks came into less than an inch deep water to eat it. Big sharks. I didn't know they could/would do that.

I have an anchor that is in the water and not set properly. I talked to Bruce on Adventure Bound about it and he indicated we would have great difficulty leaving and that we really needed to get it set properly. For that we would need a swimmer giving directions. After watching the sharks feed, who is going to do that? We needed to get the anchor back up and then move to a position where we could place it into the sand. I didn't want to do it at night. Better to die drifting than being eaten by sharks.

Well, this afternoon Bruce swam over to the boat. Swam....not a typo. He said our anchor was laying flukes up in a bed of coral and the chain was laying on top of multiple coral bommies. Unsafe in any wind. But he volunteered to guide us in getting it up and getting it reset. We, of course, took him up on his offer and we are now safely re-anchored. I THINK we have also learned that the sharks will not eat us instantly if we put our toes into the water. Good news, I would say.

Karen is doing the laundry. I've finished my book and was taking a nap until Bruce came over. Karen and I found out where to go to swim with the manta ray's.

The rangers came aboard and checked us in. They said the sharks are mostly black tips, white tips, and nurse sharks. Outside the reef there are tiger sharks and hammerheads. I hope they know that they should stay outside. We have about 2 weeks before we have to leave. There are 6 boats in the anchorage with us and most of them are new to us. We have coral reefs to explore, islands to walk about, manta rays to swim with. I'm thinking this will be a good story and hopefully no one gets bitten.