The lilly pond is a bay with vertical cliffs all round with no landing places. As soon as the anchor left the seabed a current took us in it’s grip and whisked us in towards the cliffs. In a moment of panic I slammed the engine into gear and totally forgot the anchor was still in mid water. The boat ran forward for several yards and then my worse nightmare happened! The engine died with a couple of yards of broken anchor cable wrapped round the prop shaft. More panic! We raised the engine and Jamie held on to my belt as I leaned out of the boat to try to cut the nylon rope free. I glanced up and, even more panic! We were getting pretty close to the cliffs! 20 yards, 15 yards , 10 yards. I looked round for help and spotted a boat about 50 yards away. We waved and shouted until eventually we got the attention of the guys on board and they came over to see what was wrong. With about 10 feet left before we trashed the boat on the rocks we were towed off and round the headland to a landing place where I was able to clear the prop. A near thing!
What would have happened if nobody had been around?
The first thing I did was buy a new anchor plus one spare and more rope. The next thing I did was enrol in a day course in VHF radio held by the Royal Yachting Assoc.which amazingly was being arranged in a room over the Nags Head pub about 2 miles from where I live in Manchester. I realised that if I got into trouble again I might at least be able to call someone if I had a radio and I could listen in to other emergencies and perhaps offer help if I was in the area.
It was a heavy day. 10 sweating blokes trying to cram in everything about:-
GDMSS (Global Marine Distress & Safety System)
EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon
DSC (Digital Selective Calling)
SART (Search And Rescue Transponder)
MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity)
>
My head was bursting at the end of the day but I emerged as the proud owner of a short range certificate for VHF radio! Cost £60. The guy in charge was a real taskmaster and only lacked a cane to complete the image of the old teachers I used to have as a kid!
I invested in an ICOM M3 transportable (official term for a hand held) radio and paid out £20 for a licence to use it.
The next time we went fishing I proudly displayed my radio, mounted on top of the cabin and as we left the beach I reported in to the Coast guard on channel 16 :-
‘ Holyhead Coastguard , Holyhead Coastguard’
‘ This is small pleasure craft Antonia Maria, Antonia Maria – Over’
A pleasant voice came back asking me to switch channels to ch 67 which I remembered was the channel used for conversation leaving the emergency channel 16 free. I changed channels and the voice came back ‘ Antonia Maria,Antonia Maria this is Holyhead Coastguard, Holyhead Coastguard - over’
I reported in that there were two people aboard and we were going out of Trearddur Bay for a couple of hours fishing. ETR (estimated time of return) Trearddur Bay 17.00. and that I would report in on my return. I was thanked for the message, have a good days fishing and keep listening in to channel 16 in case of emergencies. I was also reminded that there was a weather bulletin coming up shortly on channel 70 for my area. I was dead chuffed!
During the afternoon we listened in to one emergency where a pleasure craft with 2 adults and 4 children was sinking about a half mile out from the shore on the other side of the island. The inshore lifeboat was launched but the people were rescued by another craft listening in to the emergency. Everybody helps out on the briny.
We had a pleasant afternoons fishing and reported back as promised at 17.00.