Squash zone. A squash zone is exactly as it sounds, we are smooched between a high pressure system and a low pressure system. As you can imagine the winds have been high (35-45 knots) and our anchorage a bit bumpy from the white caps; although we are anchored less than 500 feet from shore. While enduring the high winds of these last few days, we have been keeping busy preserving yet another caribou, but a little stir crazy to explore more places. We waited until around noon to see if the winds would settle down and we would poke our noses from our little hiding hole for an afternoon sail.
To pull up anchor we had to use the engine to assist the windless. Sara motored ahead while Wade used the windless to lift the anchor chain and anchor. The wind would sometimes catch the bow, so Sara would give more engine power to keep the bow pointed into the wind and backing off the engine power so we did not drive over the anchor. Just as the anchor was free from the sea floor a large gust came. Sara motored ahead with more engine power and just as she was letting off, we lost all power.
As far as we could tell, we still had about 60 feet of chain hanging from the anchor windless. Wade ran back to the power panel and noticed all lights were off. This was not going to be an easy fix, so he grabbed the emergency windless handle to manually crank the anchor chain and anchor aboard. We could not immediately re-deploy the anchor because the anchorage was really tight and we had drifted to a spot that could be dangerous once drifting aft on anchor. We also couldn’t motor out of our tight anchorage because we could snag a shallow rock with the dangling anchor, so we stayed put. Sara kept motoring into the wind and backing off to drift back while Wade pumped vigorusly to bring the anchor on deck.
Once the anchor was onboard Sara motored out of the tight anchorage to a more deeper and larger area, she proceeded to motor slowly in circles, while Wade found and repaired the source of the issue. As it turns out the main battery on/off was no longer conductive, perhaps due to overloading in the past, but more likely they do not hold up to their rated capacity. The inverter on/off switch did this a couple years ago. He bypassed the main switch to an unused engine start battery switch and power was returned.
Once we started out of our anchorage we quickly realized that Kovurof Bay was a bit of a williwaw anchorage (the winds funneled through the mountains and increased the wind in our anchorage), but the winds are still 25 to 30 out of the southeast and east. At one point we thought to sail offshore just to see if the winds would be calm enough to take the straightest (and fastest) route to our next anchorage; however, after motor sailing in 6 to 8 feet waves that were really close together, we changed course to motor sail as close to the island as possible.
We’re crossing our fingers tomorrow the high pressure system over the east shores of Atka island can keep pushing the low pressure storms to the west just long enough for us to make a sail back to Unalaska (Dutch Harbor). We’re really enjoying Atka but we do believe that we need more summer to explore these western Aleutian islands, so we hope to come back in the future.
Turning into Egg Bay surprisingly with southeast and east winds the williwaws seemed to not change but the wave height was minimal, so we were able to anchor snuggly against the steep grassy cliffs. We hear the wind howl but at least we are not bouncing around.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Egg Bay Anchorage 27 feet Sand 52° 10.266’N, 174° 24.945W
No VHF Weather Signal, Great SSB Signal, We have sent the Iridium No Go off for repairs
To find where Wade, Sara, and SV Just Drifting were at noon, type or copy/paste these coordinates 52.1711,-174.41575 into Google Maps!
