CRUISE
FEAR & LOGISTICS
We all know the rules for safe diving but they can be difficult to apply when you’re wandering the oceans on a yacht, as PETE ATKINSON explains
Eila anchored at Beveridge Reef. The closest land, Niue, is 125 miles away.
Two humpback whales, part of an underwater spectacle at Moorea; the location was where Pete first saw rough-tooth dolphins bow-riding on the nose of a humpback; the view from Eila's mast after fear had driven him from the water.
ILIVED ON A YACHT in the South Pacific for 20 years. I had access to the incredible places of which I had always dreamed, to extraordinary diving and enchanting animals. And yet I was constrained. Often, far too often, by fear. At other times, by fear of logistical failure.
Imagine you are anchored inside a remote reef, close to the windward reef, where it is calm. You want to dive the pass, two miles downwind to leeward.
What do you do? Take the dinghy two miles downwind and hope it works on the way back against the trade wind?
Having someone else with you in the dinghy won’t help. What will help is if there is someone on the yacht you can call on VHF radio and ask to raise the anchor and come and pick you up.