We awoke at 0600 after a restless night. The closely set anchor alarm had gone off a few times in the night due to movement around the anchor. We were quite securely anchored! With wind and movement of the chain we did get closer to the 7 foot deep coral, but never got right over it.

We had decided to go SCUBA diving down together to check out the anchor and see if we could free it from the wreckage. Eric wanted to wait until the sun was higher in the sky and the visibility was good, so we nervously sat for three hours, too on edge to do anything else. At 0900, put on our SCUBA gear and jumped in. Christi was having a hard time on two fronts. One, she was sinking too fast, and then would float back up to the top without inflating the buoyancy compensator (inflatable vest). We couldn’t get the amount of weight set properly to get her down normally and keep her down. The up and down was wreaking havoc with her ears. So, Eric wound up going down alone, with Christi monitoring him from the surface.

The visibility was much better than the day before and we could see everything quite clearly. We saw the anchor was set in sand, which was a huge relief. Had it been on the boat or in coral, our problems would have been compounded. Also, the wrecked boat was now on it’s side. When Christi had seen it, the boat was upright. We must have pulled the boat up by the mast when we raised anchor, which explains why the windlass struggled so much to get the chain up. When we let the anchor down, the boat must have laid back down on it’s side.

Seeing the boat freaked Eric out as much as it had freaked Christi out. We agree it looked haunted. It wasn’t a brand new wreck since it had some marine growth, but it wasn’t an old wreck either, since there wasn’t a lot of growth. The fact that it was a newer wreck made it seem even scarier. That meant the imagined bodies inside weren’t decomposed yet. The boat’s name is “Spaghetti” and she is roughly 30 feet long sailboat with a fiberglass hull. We did not see her hailing port. She is located at 15.18.349S by 146.22.863W. On your next trip to Apataki, make sure you don’t anchor near that spot.

Eric couldn’t look at Spaghetti. He just focused on getting to the bottom of the chain and cutting the rope that bound the mast to our anchor. Once he was down there he saw the problem was much worse than originally anticipated. Yes, the rope was there and he quickly cut it with his dive knife. But, in addition to the nylon rope was 3/8 inch steel cable that was wrapped around the anchor in a big bunch. Obviously, the steel cable could not be cut. Eric had to actually untangle the cable from the anchor, which meant lifting the 88 pound anchor up several times to get the cable out from under it. He was standing on the ground using his full force to manhandle the anchor. He was at the bottom for 12 minutes and he was down 51 feet. He was sucking air like it was going out of style and came close to using up all his air. We are both very proud of him. Eric didn’t feel he was ready yet to go in without a professional around, and certainly not by himself. There was no one there to help fend off an attacking monster! The main fear, of course, was the creature from the Black Lagoon coming out of the haunted boat, riding a great white shark and holding the severed heads of the crew. However, it was a time of need, so Eric bravely faced his fears and saved the day.

Once Eric was out of the water, we pulled up anchor as quickly as we could. We were still fearful of drifting into the reef behind us, and now we did not have the Spaghetti anchor deployed. Our normal “Delta” anchor came up just fine. We moved to a new location, and by 1030, we were safely anchored in a new spot.

We both want to say a huge thank you to Michael Timm from the Dive California Shop in San Diego who SCUBA certified Eric. Had you not been such a good teacher, Eric would never have had the confidence to do this. We are now sold on the idea of having SCUBA gear aboard. You never know when you will hit Spaghetti.

Also, we were wondering if someone could do a little internet searching for more info on Spaghetti. Perhaps there is a report of her sinking somewhere.