From the name “coral heads,” which were sprinkled in various spots on the charts, I expected them to be interesting and very pretty round colored balls of coral in varying sizes that we would find in the water where our chart said “watch for coral heads.” I was pretty interested, and yes even excited, to see these coral heads for the first time. I was really pleased that our charts were giving us some kind of “things you must see and do while here” advice. As we entered the area, we kept a sharp lookout for them, but all we kept seeing were black areas in the water. You can probably see where this is going.…
Yes, friends, coral heads are very bad. They are areas of coral, ranging in size from a car to about a basketball court, where the coral is just below the surface of the water. If we hit one of these, it would probably be the end of our trip! When they are close to the surface, they look like giant melanomas — irregular black menacing things lurking with the intent of causing great harm.
They are pretty easy to see in midday light when the sun is high overhead, but in the morning and afternoon, they are really hard to detect because of the glare on the water. Waves also make them harder to see.
Now that we understood what coral heads really were and what they could do to our boat, we decided one of us needed to be up on the bow to have the best chance of seeing them, and that person would direct the other who would be on the helm and steer the boat around them. Remember, our engine remains unreliable, so we are sailing through these areas, and therefore our maneuverability is much more limited than it would be in a power boat. We cannot sail toward the wind (closer to the wind — your nautical term of the day) than about a 45-degree angle.
At one point, we were completely hemmed in by these giant “melanomas,” as we had come to call them after several hours of winding our way through them. We started the engine and slowly threaded our way through, passing within inches of some of them. We finally got through the dense areas and could relax a little, but we still had to keep a pretty close watch since we were still seeing some.
I learned this day that most coral is ugly! Whoever thought of the name “coral heads” and thereby gave these horrid things a romantic aura should be forced to sail through some of these areas for days on end.
We did make it safely to our anchorage at Ship Channel Cay, but, lest we relax and savor the moment, nature had placed several coral heads within sight of our anchorage to keep us uneasy about what we might face the next day (see the picture).
I do have to confess that when we looked again at our charts, we did notice the following, but failed to grasp the import of this sentence written in very small print at the edge of the chart:
VPR (Visual Piloting Rules) apply in areas covered by this chart. Good weather, sunlight, bottom reading, and piloting skills required.
Upon reflection, I did remember that, but the only part that had stuck was bottom reading. Given the attractive nature of my shipmate I had vowed to myself to keep a close watch on her bottom. I guess that’s not really what they meant.
Here’s a picture of a couple of the coral heads near our anchorage. They don’t look nearly as ominous nestled close to shore, but you get the idea.
