Royal Charlotte turned out to be a bit disappointing for the diving. Mysteriously almost all the hard corals were dead and we went halfway around the reef to find a dive spot that looked somewhat promising. Near the beacon, the only feature of the reef that is permanently above the water at high tide, we went down between dead coral bommies and sand gullies.
Surprisingly the fish life was not dead. Big, fat, dogtooth tuna came to inspect us and surgeon fishes were fighting to get in the picture. This was dogtooth alley!
On the long way back in the dinghy across the lagoon we figured that crown-of-thorn starfish must be the reason for the poor condition of the hard corals. The reef was infested with them and they can effectively clean out the corals in an entire reef.
Our mother ship 'ALK' was anchored on the N side of Royal Charlotte. When we arrived there was no wind but during the afternoon wind from the NE came up. Very often the wind dies down after sunset but not so this evening. By the time we went to sleep 'ALK' was pitching heavily in the increased waves when we suddenly felt a big jerk. The chain must have gotten stuck between the dead coral and the snubber line snapped. We rigged up a new snubber line but the night was not very peaceful to say the least! For non-sailors, a snubber line is a piece of rope with a hook which is attached to the chain to take the strain of the anchor chain off the anchor winch.
Kevin and Eric sleep in the family size berth in the fore peak and how they managed to get some sleep in the permanent merry-go-round was a mystery to me. The next morning we decided to leave with first light but we wanted to try to retrieve the chain hook. With a sleepy head Kevin put on his dive gear and came back up with the hook 10 min later! While still in the water he guided us to untangle the chain that was wrapped around the coral and once free we were happy get away from this tricky anchorage and get underway to Layang where we should be able to find better protection.
Underway against the waves The waves slowed us down quite a bit but we still managed to arrive in Layang in the afternoon. The lagoon of Layang provides a perfect natural harbour and the whole crew was very happy when we put down the hook in calm waters in front of the dive resort.
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