It pays to be vigilant even in a marina
02 February 2012 | Vuda Point Marina, Fiji
Still raining with no let up in sight.
It pays to be vigilant even when you are sitting in a marina. Vuda Point Marina out here in Fiji is a set up in a circular fashion with all the boats backed up to the concrete walls that make up the marina. Then lines are led ashore, normally with a length of chain attached that fasten to railroad track that has been driven into the ground behind the walls of the marina. The bow lines are taken forward and while some are attached to a huge circular weight on the bottom with a buoy on the surface, many, like ours and our neighbors boats are tied to lines that come off the center weight instead of being attached straight to the center weight. This afternoon, as the wind and rain howled through the marina, we saw one of our neighbors(two boats over) on the bow of his boat. Apparently, the line that came off the weight that his starboard bow line was attached to broke(for the second time since we have been here)! He only had one line left to hold his boat from crashing into the concrete walls of the marina. It was still blowing and raining as he sat on his bow waiting for the marina foreman to come out in his dingy and straighten out the problem and take another line out to the middle. Not only did the broken line go to his boat, it also went to his neighbors boat, a huge state of the art carbon fiber catamaran that I would hate to guess how much it cost. The folks on the third boat over from us, had one of their crew dive into the water and swim out with a line as soon as one of his lines came loose. Now we had a person swimming in the water in the marina as well as the foreman driving his dingy around trying to get every one fixed. Please keep in mind that this was not a wind of cyclone velocity but a wind of maybe 20 knots! While I'm planning on putting new lines on our bow this next week, I think I'll take my spare anchor chain and rode and attach it to the weight out in the center. This way, should a big cyclone come, I won't have to rely on the marinas lines, most of which have been under water and used by other boats for the last 10+ years. Better safe than sorry should a serious wind crop up.