Travel Reference
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apprehensive. It was with a dry mouth, a heavily thumping heart, and the engine barely
ticking over, that I nosed Déjà vu into this perilous channel. We were now in the straight
and easy part, sighting the markers up on a bank straight ahead. I saw how the channel sud-
denly turned south and, as we rounded into this elbow I noticed a slight tug at the boat's
keel, obviously what little tide there was here was running out. The engine decided to quit
at this very point and died in a cloud of greasy, black smoke. I tried in vain to start the
battered and bitten old girl, but start she would not. The silence was horrible. I yelled out
to Gavin, “Get the deck anchor ready for casting off; I'm going to try to call somebody up
on the radio.”
“You'd better hurry then; we are drifting towards the reef!” he yelled back, white in the
face.
I literally fell down the steps in my haste, grabbed the VHF microphone, and yelled, “May-
day, mayday, does anybody copy? This is yacht Déjà vu; our engine has just died in the
channel outside the entrance! We are drifting onto a reef! Come
in please somebody!
Over!”
Silence and suspension prevailed as the radio crackled occasionally through the ether, then
suddenly, “Déjà vu, Déjà vu, this is Neptune's Chariot, do you read me? We are sending
help.” A calm male voice eased soothingly through the radio speaker.
“Oh Neptune's Chariot, thank you so much. We are drifting onto a reef, please hurry!”
“Roger, Déjà vu, we are on our way.”
I had hardly hung up the mic when we heard the sound of an engine whining its way down
the channel towards us. Soon, a well appointed navy blue and brightly varnished teak-
trimmed motor launch pulled up alongside, and a crew of handsome young men smilingly
handed us their painter. “Quick, tie this on the bow; we will tow you to the anchorage,”
said one of the blonde, young men excitedly. The line was tied just moments before we ex-
pected to hear the crunch under Déjà vu's keel.
We were very relieved at our fortunate turn of events and thanked the young men profusely
when they slowed down and dropped the towing line in the lagoon. Waving with wide
grins, they roared off to a huge motor yacht squatting majestically on the east side of the
lagoon that we now found ourselves in.
I had laid out two anchors in readiness, and as we slowed to a standstill, I let the large
Danforth snake out ahead; with a rattle of its chain, it sank down to the seabed. Gavin had
untied the dinghy's belaying lines, and we soon had the little tender over the side. I took
out the second anchor and dropped it ahead and away from the first; we could now breathe
