Fuel Dock Debacle

We finally left Barra today, but before leaving the lagoon we visited the fuel dock to take on more diesel. There we had a minor disaster. The fuel dock attendant was a young woman who appeared to be about 16. After we tied our boat to the dock, the attendant handed Claudia the nozzle of the fuel hose. Claudia was about to pass the nozzle across the boat to me so I could insert it in our intake port, when the attendant turned on the high pressure pump. As it turned out, the nozzle was stuck open. It began spraying diesel all over the boat. It was pointing up at the time, so diesel sprayed all over our sails and our dodger. Claudia was taken by surprise and could not get it turned off. Eventually the attendant turned off the pump, but out boat was soaked in diesel. We spent a long time trying to clean it up with soap and water, but it was a big stinking mess. We are not happy. We'll need to be a lot more careful about refueling in the future.

Getting away from the fuel dock was also a problem. An eddy in the tidal current pushed us hard against the dock. As we backed away from the dock, the current pushed us toward the protruding stern of a large motor yacht tied to the other side of the dock We might have hit it but we were cushioned by a small inflatable dinghy that happened to be between us--a bit of good luck. We were glad to get out of there, across the bar, and out to sea again, although we did not go far. We decided to stop in a nearby bay known as "the secret anchorage." More on that later.