Careening K'Gari style

Before heading south for the summer, I finally bit the bullet and did what countless other stub keel catamarans do , put K'Gari on a sand bank deliberately, to change the anodes.

Having spent my entire working life actively trying to avoid this very scenario- grounding a vessel, this was a foreign  scenario for me .

I stalked over a couple of near by sand banks at low tide, sort local opinion, decided on the tide that I would try it and finally that day arrived.

Positioned the boat and waited for the tide to start to drop, then having judged that an hour to an hour and half of ebb would suffice I nosed my way towards my selected sand bank.

In the end I touched out about 10m short of where I intended, and then began the wait for the tide to drop.

According to Jo, it was like being imprisoned with an agitated meerkat , as I was continually up and looking to see how the tide was dropping.

We did sink a few degrees by the head as the water receded - something I hadn't quite expected but the sand I had touched down on wasn't as hard as i expected being about 10m short of my spot.

Anodes were changed and then the wait for the tide to flood back in.

Having touched out at 0840 , we refloated about 1640, the actual anode changing taking about an hour.

All done and here comes the tide.