Isle de Clipperton

Our position:  10°18 N, 109°14 W

 
 

 

 

 

The Sail to Clipperton

We leave Socorro on a port jibe light air reach for the 520 nautical mile sail to Clipperton.  The wind steadily builds and goes forward on us as we sail into what is left of the seasons easterly storm tracks.  Again, we arrive at dawn in very rough conditions and proceed around to the southwest of the island looking for the lee.  To our astonishment, the area designated on the chart as a "landing area"  is actually a suicide area bashed with huge breakers on exposed coral heads.  We actually have to plant the anchors at the edge of this reef and have the trade winds hold us off over the deeper water.  We had found the only possible anchorage on this island.  Un fortunately, it was far too rough to go ashore so we launched the dinghy and went around terrifying ourselves, huge waves above us, hammerhead sharks below.  We decide to go back to the boat and pick on something our own size, the birds.

 

 

This is one end of the atoll - a clump of palm trees:

We were in fact only about 100 yards from the shore, although it looks further.  The atoll is surrounded by coral reef, and we were unable to get ashore during our stay because of the rough seas and breaking surf.

  

This is the other - the high point - a rock!!  In between is a long stretch of sand with another smaller clump of palm trees
 


We were greeted by the usual dolphins, but also by numerous brown boobies, and this was fine at first but the joy did not last because the entire island community of boobies decided our boat was THE place to visit - not only did they love the spinnaker pole, but they were all over the dinghy, still on the forward deck, and the boom was rather attractive too!  They are a little weird in that their eyes are close together and looking straight forward so now you see them looking you straight in the eye yet they don't seem to notice that your an alive animal!  You can go up to them and sit down next to them so close you have to nudge them, and they act as if you were only something that has washed up on the beach next to them!  They will try to land on your arm, that you are waving to shoo them off!

We spent an awful lot of time with the hose trying to discourage them, to no avail!!

Having spent much time anchoring, we set a stern anchor, and started to relax; we had slowed the boat down in order to arrive in daylight.  A few hours later the anchorage seemed to get more and more rough and we realised  to our horror that the stern line had gone slack.  We had lost the anchor. 

But Dave being the resourceful and determined person he is was not going to be defeated.  First we went for a swim, and he took off towards the beach, coming back triumphant with news that he had located said anchor.  Then we climbed into the dinghy with line and zinc, masks etc . and went fishing.  It was in about 35ft of clear water, we could see the bottom, coral and sand, but it took many attempts to locate and anchor over it.  I am happy to report that we did recover the anchor.  Only afterwards did Dave tell me about the big hammerhead shark he saw under the dinghy while we were trying to capture the anchor.

Our next disaster was the flopper stopper.  The birds were driving Dave crazy, we had run a line along the length of the pole to try to stop them landing, but somehow either a bird tripped it or Dave released it, either way the flopper stopper disappeared. It was very rough.   The after guy, which was Kevlar, attached to the end of the pole also broke. 

Not a good day!

We left Clipperton on Tuesday November 26th as we had arrived, minus flopper stopper, with two reefs in the main and mule jib.  Our luck has to change!