AJ finds his anchor at Basalt Island - 10 August 2004
This report starts in fact the week before the Dive Trip, when a peaceful Sunday sailing and snorkeling at Basalt Island came to an unexpected end with the anchor of AJ's sail boat "Solitaire" getting wedged between rocks and refusing to move. We thought we had sailed around it and juggled it free as the chain slowly clanked back on board until the broken end came up over the bow on its own and disappeared down into the bilges.
And so it happened that AJ, Carolyn and baby Sophia pitched up unexpectedly for the dive trip the next Sunday - the first sighting of them on the dive boat that year. This alone should have alerted DM - Tristan - that something was going on, but AJ's unbounded enthusiasm for "let's go to Basalt it will be really interesting" really should have given the game away. And so we arrived at Basalt, and while the rest of the small group dived as normal, Tristan and AJ planned a search and recovery dive - my first ever - to get the anchor back. We positioned ourselves on the spot where Solitaire had been the week before as best we could, using the compass bearing and GPS fix hastily taken at the time last week. Trouble was, as we found out on the bottom, knowing where the boat was is not the same as knowing where the anchor was, away out on the end on 25m of chain. We dropped down and started a circular search pattern using Tristan's SMB line, moving out 1m each time we had completed a full circle - or so we thought. Vis was pretty poor at 1-2m, worse as we kicked up the silty bottom, and the line kept tangling up on rocks as we circled round.
Deciding that was going nowhere after about 25 mins, we switched to swimming across the bay on the 14m depth contour, then moving up to 13m and coming back and so on. This also proved fruitless, and harder than it sounds on an uneven rocky bottom. Then suddenly, about to surface and give up after 55 mins odd, and with certainly less than the regulatory 50 bar, the prize loomed up through the murk. Hooray - and in the excitement air consumption rate went back to complete novice levels. But now how to get a 35lbs anchor back to the dive boat? We attached two delayed SMBs to it and inflated - these just about gave lift off until the strap of one broke - I guess they are not really designed for this. Fortunately AJ carried a spare - the Mrs's - so back with two "lift bags" the anchor came gently towards the surface, suspended about 2m down on the end of Tristan's SMB line. We slowly swam and dragged it back to the dive boat, where eager hands awaited to haul it aboard. Next came the beaming photo of success. Thanks Tristan!
Andrew Jeffries
12 July 2005