After a day of recovering from the night watch, we treat ourselves to an evening outing at a fancy restaurant in a resort on the bay. (The bay, by the way, is called Cook’s Bay, named after the famous British explorer.) The place is beautifully arranged, with a tall, handsome young waiter that Ayelet immediately takes a liking to, tablecloths, and fancy dishes—basically everything we don’t get in the food trucks we visit on the rare occasions we eat off the boat. As usual in these situations, Ayelet is enjoying herself a lot more than I am, because I can’t help grumbling about the prices and the portions that are way too small. We’ve already talked about the generous compromises I make—sorry, I misspoke—the mutual compromises we make… :)
Another day or two of random boat time because it’s pouring rain, and we pop ashore for an afternoon walk. As you can see in the photo, the bay is surrounded by gorgeous, cliff-like mountains—this island, too, is an ancient volcanic crater, which formed the dramatic walls around the “caldera,” the volcano’s “bowl.” Ayelet spots a lone house perched on one of the hills overlooking the bay, and that’s enough of an excuse for us to hike up for the view. The climb is steep, with almost no houses along the way, just jungle. At the top, the view is indeed spectacular, but there’s nowhere to sit because the road ends right at the private driveway of the house. We hear voices from the yard, and Ayelet goes over to ask if we can sit for a bit. In the yard, next to an infinity pool, are a white man around our age, an older local woman, and two or three kids. He welcomes us warmly and shows us the incredible panorama from the house in every direction. He tells us he was born on the island, and that his father owns much of the land in the village below. As a kid, he used to look up at the hilltop and imagine building his home there someday—and that’s exactly what he did. It turns out he’s a building contractor and owns one of the island’s major construction companies. On their land, they grow mahogany and teak; they have a sawmill where they process the wood and use it to build beautiful houses—including his own. The few houses we saw on the way up belong to his children. Later he mentions he also owns a resort in New Zealand. In short—serious money. And yet, the house really doesn’t scream wealth, and he himself is friendly and modest.
The next day, we went on a real hike. In the morning we took a taxi up to a relatively high starting point and continued on a forest trail leading to the “Three Coconuts Pass,” which overlooks our bay and the one next to it on one side, and the lagoon beyond the ridge on the other. Stunning views!
When we started descending, heavy rain began—and unlike the usual
short showers here, this one just kept going for the entire two- to three-hour descent, turning the trail into a mudslide. Not fun. At least on the last five kilometers, a generous French tourist couple stopped and gave us a ride, even though we looked like two drenched mud-creatures. They dropped us off in the town at the end of the bay, where there’s a decent supermarket. We bought a whole roast chicken and devoured it back on the boat.
Now’s the moment to mention a super important app for sailors: noforeignland. The app, created by a cruising couple, is crowd-sourced—sailors keep adding recommendations on everything: anchorage spots, restrictions (depth, obstacles, etc.), restaurants, hikes, shops, repair people, and much more. If you know the old pilot books that used to be essential for all this information, you could say the app pretty much replaces them—especially since it integrates beautifully with great navigation tools.
All this is to say that after a few days in Cook’s Bay, we read on the app about another anchorage on the island that sounded lovely, so we decided to head over. We checked the weather, of course, and set out for what should have been a three-hour trip. For the first hour and a half we sailed along the sheltered side of the island—easy and pleasant. Then we left the island’s wind shadow and got slammed with strong winds and pretty big waves, nothing like what the forecasts had predicted. We tried pushing on toward the anchorage, but quickly realized it wasn’t a good idea. So we turned around, sailed an hour and a half back, and then continued another two hours to a different anchorage—also quite windy and choppy on the final stretch. It felt like a pointless, annoying sailing day. At least, as a consolation prize, when we entered the lagoon toward the anchorage, a pod of ten or more dolphins came to greet us, circling the boat and showing off with high jumps. So cute!
The anchorage is on a very shallow sandy shelf—only about half a meter deeper than the boat—reached by a deep channel. It’s like anchoring on the edge of a cliff. You can’t go far inside because the water becomes extremely shallow. We misjudged the distance and anchored too close to another boat. With the wind direction when we arrived it seemed fine, but overnight the wind shifted and it wasn’t comfortable, so in the morning we moved to a similar spot—still on the “cliff edge,” but with better spacing.
At noon we went snorkeling in the channel, and right next to the boat we immediately saw two Eagle rays—big bat-like creatures—with a small Blacktip shark beside them. A few minutes later we spotted an entire squadron of fifteen Eagle rays gliding slowly in a tight formation, moving elegantly with the light current. A magical sight in crystal-clear water.
A brief note about these “sea bats.” There are three main kinds we encounter: Stingrays, medium-sized, plain-colored and not very pretty, with a long tail and a venomous barb; Manta rays, which grow to enormous, impressive sizes (where size definitely matters); and finally, the most beautiful—the Eagle rays we saw today: black on top with
spots, white bellies, and a dolphin-like head.
We finished snorkeling and returned to the boat to rest. The wind kept rising, with gusts near 30 knots. Suddenly—the anchor alarm went off! I ran outside (false alarms happen often), but this time it was real—the anchor had broken free and we were drifting, with a reef uncomfortably close behind us. I started the engine immediately, called Ayelet—who had been dozing below—we lifted the anchor and prepared to re-anchor. This time we moved farther in, to a spot where we could go a little deeper onto the sandy shelf instead of staying right at the “ledge,” and anchored again. A pretty stressful experience, which probably needs some explanation.
A good anchor set is absolutely essential! You really don’t want to discover in the middle of the night that the wind has picked up, the anchor is dragging, and you’re about to hit another boat—or worse, drift onto a reef or smash against rocks. We invested in what’s considered one of the best anchors out there (Rocna, for the curious), and over time we’ve learned to anchor slowly and thoroughly: giving the anchor time to bite, letting out enough chain, and finishing with a strong reverse to both test the hold and deepen the set. Whenever possible, we also jump in the water with a mask to visually confirm the anchor is well set. And of course, we run an anchor alarm app that uses GPS to alert us if we drift. Because we take it so seriously, it’s been years since we last dragged.
So having it happen now is pretty upsetting and shakes your confidence—especially since we had checked everything. One thing we did learn is that anchoring close to a steep drop-off isn’t ideal; if the anchor pops loose, it won’t re-set the way it might on a flat seabed.
I fear I’ve drifted into a long technical explanation, but it’s important to me to show how critical and consuming this whole anchoring thing is.
And to finish, a small story from Cook’s Bay: one day we noticed a boat that had been anchored not far from us was suddenly much farther out, surrounded by dinghies and sailors. Turns out the boat was unattended, its anchor had torn free, and it started drifting. Sailors in the bay spotted it, climbed aboard, and worked for a long time in strong winds to bring it safely back into the shallower part of the bay. Beautiful to see the mutual support among sailors.
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