Wed 26 Sep and Thu 27 Sep – Capsizing the dinghy!

Excuse the lack of photos for this post – read on to find out what happened. 🙁

On Wednesday we had rather a late start, and in the afternoon walked into Lipari. We had a nice time walking around the old medieval part of town which due to the time of year was spookily deserted. A highlight was ice-cream in a brioche bun – delicious!

Usually when you spend the night in a marina it’s like sleeping on land, the water is completely flat and the boat doesn’t move. Not so in Lipari. Although we were well protected from the NE winds by the tall hillside, on Wednesday the swell came bowling around the sides of the bay, ignored the harbour wall completely and piled straight into the marina. You may remember we were squished in between our neighbours, well this meant that all night our fenders were squeezed within millimetres of their bursting limit, squeaking loudly as they acted as the last line of defence between us and the other two boats.

Although the wind wasn’t as strong as predicted it’d blown up quite a rough sea so we decided to leave sailing to Volcano until later in the afternoon. In the morning we took a walk up onto the hillside, whose 250m incline took us past the bay where we’d almost anchored a few nights before. The wind and waves were blowing right in, and thankfully we didn’t see a single boat in there trying to ride it out. We got back to Bini, who was still rocking around in the swell and quickly got her ready to sail the short distance to what we hoped would be a protected anchorage on the next island. We filled up the tank and noticed about half way that the water coming out of the hose looked rather murky. Given the amount of boats there we’d assumed the water would be clean, but in reality it tasted far too salty so we emptied out what we’d filled and had to hope our other tank would last until we could fill up elsewhere.

With the help of the marina’s boat we released Bini and were soon on our way across the bay. There was a big swell and a bit of wind off the beam so we got the jib out and headed towards Volcano, the island just south of Lipari. We expected the wind to build as we left the confines of bay but not quite as much as it did. Within literally seconds we had a 3m swell behind us and 20 knot of wind which had us surfing down the waves at over 9 knots. Now I love a sporty sail but this was a bit too rich even for me! We had to navigate through a narrow channel between the islands which built up the water even more. To add to the excitement the rudder felt rather “sticky” and there was a huge ferry passing us to starboard – not what we needed! Within about ten minutes we were through the gap and the water settled down a bit. We gybed the jib and headed towards the anchorage (far faster than we’d anticipated!) then furled it away and motored in to find a spot. It was absolutely rammed so we opted for a space a little further out. Tom dived on the anchor which wasn’t properly dug in so I gave it a few more revs backwards on the engine which did the trick. It’s sometimes a bit of a faff having to dive on the anchor (and from experience most people don’t bother) but situations like this prove it’s totally worth the extra effort.

At around 18:00 Sharon and Debs came into the bay and anchored just ahead of us so we got Bob ready and went over to join them, then in the evening we all went in search of somewhere to eat. Armed with torches we wandered along a few dusty roads and found a restaurant, who on our second attempt were convinced to sit our group of 16. Although the place was huge they didn’t seem used to seating so many, as each of them in turn had their photo taken next to the 16 plates of food the chef had prepared. After cleaning them completely of tiramisu we headed back to the dinghies and back to the boats.

This is when it all went very wrong. Tom and I, plus three others got safely into Bob and motored back to their boat. We paid no real attention to where we were sitting in the dinghy, which was all fine until we started to get out. One of the girls got out which left three on one side, and just one on the other. Again, all fine until the lone person clambered over to get off. Now all four of us were on one side which quickly had the dinghy tilted over at a 50 degree angle and us leaning precariously over the side. We seemed to hang like this for ages (but which in reality must have been seconds) then with one almighty splash we all ended up in the water as the dinghy capsized. As we fell in thankfully Tom had the presence of mind to yank the kill cord off the engine which cut out it instantly. We all shouted to one another to make sure we were all OK, which we were, and one by one climbed, soaking wet, onto the boat. With Tom on the transom and me in the water we managed to right the dinghy, whose outboard engine by now had been submerged for several minutes – very likely its kiss of death.

It was also only then that I come to the realisation that our two iPhones and my bag had ended up in the water with us. CRAP!!! With one final check that we were all OK, Tom and I rowed back to Bini absolutely freezing cold. We washed off the phones and buried them in rice (the thing to do apparently), Tom gave the outboard a quick rinse, then we had a warm shower and went to bed. Of course we couldn’t sleep, which wasn’t helped by the boat rocking like an absolute mofo so we lay awake hoping the others weren’t shaken up and pondered the chances of being able to revive the engine and our phones. It wasn’t so much the phones themselves which was the concern, it was the fact that we haven’t backed them up for months, so all of the photos from our trip are stored locally, save for a few which we’ve been publishing on the blog. It’d be awful to have lost all those.

We were also feeling horrified at the though of what might have happened had the engine had kept running. The reality doesn’t bear thinking about; it would certainly have sent the dinghy spinning in circles and the rotating prop could easily have severed limbs. We always always wear the kill cord attached to our wrists but have read many stories of when it’d just left hanging off the handle. Our experience is living proof of why attaching it to your limbs is vital.