The wind is light underneath a blue sky. There are three yachts left at Christmas Island. At two pm we drop the mooring line and motor out. 'Captain's Fansea' and 'Pangaea' would follow the next day. The trip from Christmas to Cocos seems short, only 520 miles, hardly a weeks sail. The voyage turns out uneventful, the usual roll of the swell and all downwind.
We miss our daytime arrival and start approaching Cocos lagoon at 8pm. I turn on my lap top and look at the lagoon entrance on the C-map. The swell is big and we've had five days of heavy rolling. It would be nice to stop the motion. I decide to do a night entrance.
Me and Paula hanging out in Direction Island. It's not a bad place to hang out, you know.
The lagoon is full of flashing lights. If I didn't have a GPS and the C-map, I would think that I have just arrived in a lobby of a shopping mall in the middle of the Christmas sales. Reds, Greens, Yellows and whites are all firing off at different intervals. Nothing makes sense but the dot on the screen of my laptop. The depth comes up from 1500 meters to 20 meters in a matter of one minute. The swell disappears. We turn to left, for shallower water but the GPS suddenly shows no speed and we seem to be stuck. I push the engine harder and we start moving at half a knot. Something's wrong.
Something's caught in the propeller? Maybe there's a strong current against us. Lights everywhere. Reefs everywhere. Paula suggests we turn out to sea and try again in daylight. We are a good mile into the lagoon. I can only see grey shapes of dark. We're somewhere, probably exactly where the c-map shows us to be. But suddenly the dangers seem so close.
The sounder shows seven meters and we drop the anchor, followed by 30 meters of chain. Aliisa seems secure. Paula falls asleep in one minute. I stay up for another hour. Next day we make sense of what we see. The bottom is coral and we were lucky enough to drop anchor on a sandy patch. Late morning we move to the calm waters of Direction Island, only a 15 minute drive. Final approach at night would be stupid. There is a shallow line of coral which every yacht must go over to enter the sandy shelter of Direction Island.
Prison island is the best spot, hands down, clothes off. A tiny islet, perfect for a beach BBQ and a sleep under the stars.
