Having a much bigger boat, what could possibly go wrong this time..
So the idea was, after purchasing IRResistable, that we could fix up the most important things and then to baptize her in the Gummert fashion sail her to our favorite Pandan Island for Christmas and New Year. After several attempts we had done the same with Magayon II several years back, which had ended up being ship wrecked on the Pandan Island hours reef during a tropical storm and then Miriam staying 3 months on the island to take care of the boat until weather had improved. Now we have a bigger boat with a more powerful engine, so what could go wrong this time?
Martin went to Puerto Galera one week before Christmas to continue working on the electrics and to get three basic functions reactivated: Navigation lights, the anchor winch and the depth gauge. Joel had reinforced the starboard deck where the winches are located and sealed all the bolts with through hole fittings. Just the evening before the scheduled departure the depth gauge was running, the navigation lights that had been lost in the Lazada delivery chain located, retrieved and installed, and the anchor winch was installed and working. When testing the anchor it became clear that the clutch of the winch was broken. Schwamm drüber, who needs an anchor winch anyway with strong crew on board.
Puerto Galera to Pandan Island
Miriam came by bus on December 21, the night before we were planning to set sail. I still had not bought supplies and fuel, so the next morning was filled with errands, including parking the car with some of the tools inside at a local mechanics workshop to keep it safe over the extended time.
We raised anchor exactly at noontime of December 22, raised the Genua immediately and the Main with 1 reef once we had cleared the Manila Channel.
Amihan was blowing from the back and we quickly passed White Beach and then Abra de Ilog. We decided against anchoring at Abra because the wind and waves were onshore and anchoring did not sound save. Instead we planned to go around Calavite point and anchor somewhere in beach sheltered from the wind by Calavite, expecting to be able to drop anchor around 22:00. This meant sailing at night, but in that area there is very little fishing gear in the water and visibility was reasonable OK with no clouds in the sky. As a concession to safety we lowered the sails and were running with motor so that we could maneuver quickly should it be needed.
Around midnight we tried one spot that looked favorable on the cMaps chart, but it was very close to a rock wall with the sea ground getting deep quickly. It did not appear save. A quick discussion and we decided to proceed and motor overnight.
In the morning we set sail again, but lowered the Genua, hauled in the main sheets close and motored again, the wind was very erratic with changing direction all the time, we would not have arrived the same day on Pandan Island.
Almost exaclty 24 hours later, at noontime, we reached Pandan Island. Alix had told us to use Rainbow’s End’s mooring, Miriam did, as always, the perfect coil up to the mooring and soon we had our welcome drinks at the Pandan Island beach bar.