Low tide on the lagoon side of the eastern islands.

How wrong can a chart be? The wide entrance shown half way down the west side of Erikub is charted to have a 30 foot depth. It could be a ship entrance. But even from a distance, the light turquoise of shallow water over sand and darker shadings of hard coral showed the chart to differ from reality. We cautiously moved the bow of Brick House into the "pass". The depth finder quickly ascended to 15 feet. We could clearly see the different forms of yellow and maroon corals below our keel. It seemed highly likely there would be no way to cross the remaining 75 yards of shallows without crunching our 6 foot keel on hard stuff. We did a 180 degree turn back to deep blue ocean water and followed the reef line south.

From a distance we could see a biblical scene of long waves building and crashing onto the reef but in the middle they were parted by a dark blue finger of calm water. That lagoon entrance is certainly not on the chart but located at 09degrees 06'.720 N, 169degrees 59'.520 E . Heading 20 degrees M gets you through the reef and continues into the lagoon through some long shoals, but once inside the barrier reef, there is a second deep finger heading 90 degrees M. 32 feet was the shallowest water we saw in this entrance. We later found a second deep entrance into the lagoon at 09 degrees 02'.635 N by 107 degrees 01'.592E This second entrance which is close to the island of Erikub tracks 20 degrees M into the lagoon then takes a hard right.

The water depths inside the lagoon are around 150 feet but there are spots of coral heads which rise to the surface and are easy to see in noon light.

We followed what little information we had on this atoll and anchored off of Erikub Island. Erikub and the adjacent island are large long islands full of coconut palms. The problem is this is the far leeward end of the atoll so waves build up and make this a miserable place to anchor. Plus, for anchoring, the rise from the deep lagoon to shallow reef is so abrupt we had to put the hook on the steep underwater cliff then settle back just short of allowing the rudder to hit coral. It had become too late in the day to move on, to what would seem, the more prudent and protected east side of the atoll behind a few small islets.

For now though, for Rebecca and me, there was relief not to be in a capsule moving forward, 8 feet up, 8 feet down, bash to the right, roll to the left and having to constantly tend to the sailing of this boat, although we were still rocking and rolling in this miserable anchorage. Here we could wring out our sheets and cushions and fix real food to eat.