We anchored off Montgomery Reef around 3.30am and had a bit of time to kill before the tide was right for us to move closer to the reef around 5am. I offered to take the anchor watch for the rest of the morning since we were in unsurveyed territory. The previous watch weren’t quick to move so I exclaimed if they wanted to stay up then I’d go back to bed. That got them moving, and the deck was cleared in record time. As I was sitting up waiting for the time to pass I heard the whooshing sound of a whale’s blow hole near by! I shone the spotlight in it’s direction and to my delight a humpback whale calf came closer to the boat to say hello.

As Silver Fern had anchored closer to the mainland we waited for them to catch up and motored closer to the reef together. As mentioned some of this was unsurveyed territory so we naturally let Silver Fern be the sacrificial lambs and go first.

We deployed the tender and motored in convoy closer to the reef so we could see the spectacular waterfalls that run off the reef at 2 hours either side of low tide. The water was teeming with sea life as we spotted several crocs, turtles, many fish and even dugongs! I can imagine as the water quickly runs off the reef the sea life that scrambles to get into deeper water provides a smorgasbord of treats for sea creatures of all size.

We then departed the reef around 11am to head towards the Horizontal Falls for the evening. We had calm conditions yet again so had a 5 hour motor ahead of us. Along the way we spotted a pod of whales and another seagull riding a turtle!(not me…..I slept through this again of course.) We witnessed more of the beautiful Kimberly Coastline throughout the day and were in awe of the scenery as we entered the entrance to the Horizontal Falls.

The tidal range at the falls is a whopping 9m and as we timed our entrance a little poorly we started to punch through a significant amount of tide through a fairly narrow channel of 300m. At this point our speed over ground slowed to 1.6kts as we started pushing 4.8kts of tidal current in full flow. Then, with impeccable timing from the engine, it all started to go pear shaped…….

Turns out our fuel sensors which had been calibrated in Cairns had not been calibrated properly and the tank we were running off had run completely dry even though the sensor was reading 27%. Unbeknownst to us we’d been slowly sucking air into the engine instead of fuel. Our engine promptly cut out in the middle of the channel and we had to act fast. As I was downstairs trying to find inspiration to write this blog (of which I have more than enough now) I heard the engine groan to a stop. I launched myself out of my seat and up the stairs as Matt was calling for the anchor to be let go. We were close to the shore but the current was keeping us somewhat in the channel as the boat was lurched around in the swirls of eddies. As we were in over 40m of water I tried to let out 80m of chain to begin with (we only have 110m). As the chain grabbed on what felt like rocks the immense pressure on the anchor in the current was too much. The brake started to slip and what was left of the anchor chain started to let go. At this point the boat swung around in an eddie and as the bow slammed down the rest of the chain jumped off the windlass. Those who were helping me quickly moved back from danger as we helplessly watched the chain let itself out to the end. The end of the chain is tied on with a thick piece of dyneema which is tied to a strong point on the boat. The dyneema snapped as it hit the end and the anchor and chain were lost overboard.

Luckily Matt had radioed Silver Fern for assistance and they hurried back to help. David the mechanical engineer and Barry the electrical engineer jumped at the chance to help Matt troubleshoot the fault with the engine.

In the meantime Silver Fern had impressively managed to drive alongside in trying conditions and tied themselves alongside us so they could tow us to a safe anchorage. The team below worked together to solve the issue and we had a fully working engine by the time we made it to anchor. We rafted up to Silver Fern for the night in calm conditions and kept an anchor watch between both crews for the night in case Silver Fern drifted with the extra weight.

We have a spare ‘lunchtime anchor’ which only has 40m of chain attached to a bunch of warp. Thankfully Dave had a spare anchor and chain onboard and we planned to wake early the next morning to swap it over.

With no one hurt and nothing that couldn’t eventually be fixed we were grateful to be able to carry on with no major damage to the boat that would put a halt to our planned adventures.

Let’s hope that tomorrow will be much less eventful!

Tune in to find out.

Jess :)