Hanging By a Thread in 45 Knot Winds - Anchored for a Storm in the Cook Islands - Episode 127 

We try to show what it is really like out here. Of course, we have some really amazing, magical days but occasionally we have some times when things aren't so ideal. In this case, I was feeling very anxious and not too good about the situation we were in. Thanks for coming along with us all the way from France! Cheers!

Thank you for such a nice comment! We really appreciate it! Happy to hear you are enjoying the vibe on our channel!

Hey Larry! Moorings would be such a nice addition! We would love to see more moorings in the South Pacific. It would be really beneficial for everyone (no more coral heads to destroy, get wrapped around on and they could charge a small fee for the moorings to help with local costs) win/win!

Hey! Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! 🐳

Thank you! Good to know you are enjoying our channel! Cheers~

100%, I call it Sailors Alzheimer's! As soon as we see or experience some place new, we forget about all the crappy days!

Hi there :) Thank you so much for such a nice comment! 59 isn't advanced! Sounds like you are just getting started. 💛 Some of our favorite cruising grounds have been in the Bahamas. We hope to get back there one day! We appreciate you coming along with us on our journey, 💩and all 😅! Cheers!

It was such a bummer to see the plastic so far away from society! Oh well, glad I could pick it up! The whales were just SO COOL!! Thanks for watching :)

Hi John, thank you for sharing your personal experience. We have a family member who is also living with ALS, so this cause is very close to our hearts. We're sending lots of good vibes your way and we will continue to support the fight against ALS.

Hey Danny! Ah, thanks mate! We hope you are having a good week! Glad you are enjoying our channel!

Haha so true! Everything bad happens in the middle of the night!

Thanks, Greg! 💙

Always in the middle of the night, isn't it? 😅 Thanks, Bob! 💙

Hey Scott! Hope you are doing great!

We're glad you enjoy coming along on our journey! Sailing definitely has its ups and downs, but it's all part of the adventure and the lifestyle of self-reliance that we love. Thank you! :)

Ha exactly! Not sure why we even try to plan most of the time!! Thanks, Andrew :)

100% worth it!

Hi there! Ah, thank you! Happy to hear you are enjoying our channel! 💙💙

Thank you! Glad you are enjoying our channel.

Hey Magnus! We would have loved to stop at Palmerston and Beverage reef but unfortunately when we were there Palmerston wasn't allowing boats to stop because the moorings were in disrepair and there was also a rat eradication happening on island. Bad timing for us! Maybe next time.

@@SailingOneLife ah I hear you, maybe for the better, the islands moorings have had issues in the past as well. Hope Brooke got some Coke now when your in NZ. Cheers

Haha I sure did!! I always thing of you when I have a nice cold coke after not having one in so long. Thank you :)

@@SailingOneLife That makes me happy to hear. :)

The whales were so amazing!! Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it :)

It was simply amazing!! 😍🐳

@2QueensAdventures Yeah. They do float their chain. In shallower water around live coral heads. Floating the chain when the end is 70 feet down isn't as easy You need much longer lines to reach the depth. And you can't just use short 10 or 15 foot lines to the floats. They would be dragged down and crushed. The only thing that would work would be open mouthed lifilting bags. And that would require a lengthy dive to do. Not all cruisers are divers either.

Glad you enjoy our channel! We try our best to keep it real! Rick pretty much nailed it with his reply here. Floating the chain is a useful trick in shallower water, but pretty impractical in deeper water. And to safely anchor for a blow, there's no way around having a lot of chain resting on or near the bottom to ensure the anchor is pulled horizontal.

The mom and baby were just amazing!!🐳💙

Thanks, guys!! Hannah will bring some sunshine to our videos! Sending big hugs!! 💙

Thank you! We are happy to hear you are enjoying coming along with us!

Yup it's not the easiest to deploy and remove from the chain sometimes, but it works great! We've "tested" it to 50+ knots. And also good news is that it seems to stay attached if one of the two legs fails. We were worried it would shake off, but it never did.

Hi Rhonda! We really appreciate your comment! We are happy to know you are enjoying our channel! Thanks for coming along with us! 💙🥰

Hey there! Oh wow! Sleepless night for you! Hope your anchor held tight! What boat are you on? We will keep an eye out for ya!

Thank you! We appreciate the positivity and encouragement! You are right, one can never be too careful out here. The whales were pure magic!! 💙🐳

Hi Tammy! Thank you! Happy to hear you are enjoying our videos!

Redundancy is key!

My mom used to tell me this when I stayed out til the wee hours in my college days. Still true today, just applied differently! 😅

Awesome!! So glad you liked them!! We love ours! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, Tammy!

Hi Tom! The whales were just too cool! A bummer about the watermaker but it gave us a good run! Thanks for all the good vibes you send our way! Cheers!

Yup! We didn't show collecting it, but we left Suwarrow with full tanks! 💦😁

haha yup! Thankfully we were able to fill our tanks to the brim with all the rain!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching :)

We will just have to hit them again on our second trip around! 😜

We appreciate this! Thanks for coming along with us and all the nice comments you leave us! 💙

Thanks for watching :)

Thanks! 💩⛵

Oh man, 10 days of 30 knots is a killer! Rum certainly helps! Hopefully your brother had a good time regardless!

Thanks, Don! We really try to keep things real and focus on the genuine challenges we face out here. Glad to hear you found the episode insightful and appreciated the authenticity. See you next episode! 💙

Thanks, Fabio! Hope you guys are doing great! See ya soon, we hope!

Hey Trent! Aw, thank you! 🥰 Gary certainly gave the watermaker all he had with the resources we had available. It had a good run but time to upgrade! Swimming with that mom and baby whale was just so amazing! We are having a Patreon Video call on Thursday! Hope you can make it!

Thank you! 💙📷

Thanks for watching and commenting :)

Thanks, Andre!

Yes, we were feeling pretty worn down in this video but being able to swim with the whales was something we will never forget! Simply amazing!

Thanks, Rick! 💙🐳

We have found the dynamics of a bridle to provide more shock absorption than a snubber of the same length. Seems to reduce yawing and the associated snapping shock. The breakage here was actually due to the slack section of chain rubbing on it as the boat pitched, we need to lengthen our chafe protection near the hook. And yes, it's totally time to upgrade the watermaker. Since we have a generator on board, we plan to go with a 110V system producing much more water per hour. Eventually we will upgrade to a lithium battery bank and we would be able to run it from the inverter if needed.

@@SailingOneLife “Energy recovery” water makers are the newer, more efficient kind. Available from a few manufacturers, but roughly speaking you’re looking at less than half of the energy consumption per gallon of water made, but about twice or more the initial cost to purchase the unit.

Thanks for coming along with us! 💙🐳

Good thing we had lots of rain! Thanks for the love! 💙

Absolutely! We didn't film it but we pretty quickly filled our tanks just by damming behind the deck-fill ports. 😁💦

That's all part of the journey! The whales certainly made up for the crappy weather!

You are so right! We are at the mercy of the weather and sometimes it just plain sucks out here! Hope you guys are doing amazing!!

@@SailingOneLife We're learning quickly that other people/cruisers are also a big factor in enjoying a place 😅 It's so lonely out here sometimes!

Thanks, Jorge! The whales were just 😍😍

All good! Just a rough few days!

Hey Russ! Just sent you a message over on FB! See you soon!

Thanks for sending us love from Mexico!💙

Or USB them some wine.

😅 drone drop us some rum

We should have discussed it in the video but yes we do float the anchor chain at times. It's not really feasible in 60 feet of water with 275 feet of chain out. There needs to be a significant amount of chain laying close to the bottom to ensure the anchor is pulled horizontally. Since the anchor has to be on the bottom, and the chains connected to it, there's no real way to totally avoid chain being on the bottom especially at this depth. The Katadyn Survivor manual pump would be a great addition to our ditch bag and emergency situations, thanks for that! We will look into one.

It wasn't ideal but the whales made up for the weather! We are having a Patreon video call on Thursday if you can make it!

We keep lots of vinegar onboard, unfortunately vinegar didn't do the trick in this case.

Hey Craig! So glad you enjoyed the small segment about Tom Neale. We also read the book and agree that we thought the island would have been much smaller. We were quite bummed we couldn't have explored more but the weather just wasn't cooperating. The rangers did tell us that in the last 10 years there have been about 1,000 yachts to visit the park. To answer your question about the watermaker: Yes, we did research to see if/how/where we could have a new one shipped. Ideally in this part of the world the easiest and quickest option would be to have a watermaker shipped in from NZ or Australia but since our boat is 110v, we are limited to getting the new watermaker from the US (unless we do some electrical work, install a transformer, etc which we aren't keen on) which adds quite a bit of lead time probably a month or more for shipping and along with steep customs import fees. This would also mean staying in one place (Samoa/Tonga) for longer than we wanted, especially with cyclone season and needing to continue to make miles. So we opted to tough it out until New Zealand, where we would have time, could save money on shipping and import fees as well as it being more easily shipped from the US direct to NZ. No, our Hannah is not Hannah G! We love her too but we think you'll enjoy 'One Life' Hannah too!

Hi there :) We should have showed it in the video but we didn't get any footage of it! Our tanks were completely full after these rain storms! Despite the weather being blah we were very thankful for the rain! Yes, our Starlink is great for being able to troubleshoot and research things like our water maker. Due to the logistics, lead times on shipping and customs issues, we made the choice to wait until New Zealand to receive the water maker.

Thank you! :)

Hi Lois! Swimming with the whales was such a beautiful experience! Yeah, that's just the way it goes sometimes with weather!

Thanks, Cindy! 💙

Thanks, Stan!

Haha yeah living in a small space has it's downfalls but we seem to live pretty well like this. Thanks for the love from Alabama!

@@SailingOneLife you are welcome. Stay safe .

Thanks! Yeah, most people don't like American Samoa but everyone who stops at Western Samoa seems to enjoy it!

@SailingOneLife Excellent point!! I'm anxious to watch! Fair winds ⛵️

Thank you! 🥰🥰🦅🦅

Hey John! The whales were just so cool! We've decided to go with a new water maker.....but yes, lots of salt water showers and rain water rinses until then!

The thought of cannibalizing some other equipment to make it run did cross my mind. But the combination of multiple issues with the watermaker made me accept it was time to move on. And we got plenty of rain to fill our tanks there. 😂

Ok it might have been a wrench, but same idea.😂

We of course considered this, but it's not really practical in 60 feet of water with 275 feet of chain out. There needs to be a significant amount of chain laying close to the bottom to ensure the anchor is pulled horizontally. And in 40 knots the chain is just about pulled tight in a straight line anyway (actually a catenary curve if you want to be technical.) When possible we do float the chain in shallower water around live corals.

hey there :) 💙🐳🌎

exactly, WHALES! 🐳💙

Haha yup sure did and still do!

And the funny thing is, even after all the tough days, we still want it! Maybe we're crazy?!?!? 😂

Home sweet home 💙

Each design of anchor has its strengths and weaknesses. It is rather impractical to carry an assortment for all conditions. Their chain worked fine. So did the anchor.

@@captainjimolchs my delta never failed me. Saw all kinds of conditions. While other boats dragged ours held fast. You’re not beating a delta anchor in my humble opinion.

Still searching!

Thanks, Colin! We appreciate the good vibes!

Indeed, they weren't perfect but were still spinning free and smooth, so not the problem keeping it from running. We have been overdue to upgrade to a higher capacity watermaker anyway.

Yeah a bummer for sure! Our water tank fill is on our port side so when it rains we just swing the boom over to port which leans the boat over just enough for the water to run right into the fill! Pretty basic but it works great!

Good question, we should have discussed it in the video! Yes we do float the anchor chain at times. It's not really feasible in 60 feet of water with 275 feet of chain out. There needs to be a significant amount of chain laying close to the bottom to ensure the anchor is pulled horizontally. Since the anchor has to be on the bottom, and the chains connected to it, there's no real way to totally avoid chain being on the bottom.

Hey there :) Unfortunately our videos are far behind real time. We never stopped at American Samoa but we really enjoyed Western Samoa - what did you think of it? Where are you headed next? Maybe we will see ya somewhere?

Thanks for responding guys. We are still in Apia. We will probably be going to Fiji in a month or so. I figured your videos were behind but was hoping. I do hope we cross paths someday. We’re on Sailing Vessel Mig. Be safe.

Ah cool, hopefully we will see you in Fiji then sounds like we will be there around the same time! We will keep an eye out for you!

You are right....time seems to move so slow in situations like these! We didn't film it but yes, we were able to fill our tanks to the brim with all the rain! Lucky for us!