We made it

February 8, 2007

In the Bahamas

We are free, very free from the confines of the Intra Coastal Waterway. We are sailing on the Little Bahama Bank in 14 feet of water on a reach just forward of the beam, watching the shadow of Journey’s sails pace us on the white sand bottom. We’re doing 6.7 knots with 8 knots of wind, pulled by the red, white and blue reaching spinnaker, accompanied by two other boats we met last night at the West End of Grand Bahama Island. It’s 80 degrees. We plan to anchor tonight in the lee of Mangrove Cay. It’s glorious. It’s the pay-off.

Getting Here

Roland B. shipped on last Monday for the Bahamas crossing and drove us about on Tuesday to the marine store to restock oil filters and to provision fresh goods in the now well-working refrigerator. Ran into a diver whose truck had a “Ghost Busters” like sign, “Barnacle Busters”. Wet-suited Danny offered to inspect our zincs and reported he could find none on the propeller shaft, a rather alarming report. Another call to our Maine boat yard revealed that Journey’s zincs are bars bolted to the hull on either side just forward of the propeller. Those were inspected, found to be in good shape. We purchased a spare set to have on board for our own monitoring and replacement if necessary while in the Bahamas. (For non boaters, zinc is used as a sacrificial metal to counter the corroding influences of the combination of electrical currents in the water and sea water. Without zinc offering its life as the least noble metal, things like props, shafts, and valves that let water out and into the boat, rot and fall off. Not a good thing.)

D –Day

Wednesday was D-Day for crossing the Gulf Stream from Palm Beach to West End, Grand Bahama Island, locked in by a consistent forecast over the previous five days of winds of from ten to fifteen from the south, ideal for the due east crossing of the northerly flowing stream to the closest landfall in the Bahamas. Cruising guides say wait for anything but wind from the north, which blows against the current and piles seas into big lumps that have earned the moniker of elephants.

We staged ourselves for an early morning departure by moving from the North Palm Beach Marina to an anchorage nearer to Palm Beach Inlet. We verified NOAA’s forecast of winds 10 to 15 out of the south on the radio at 3:00 AM, in spite of the wind holding more SE and gusting up to 16 or 17. Anchor up at 3:50, steered our way to the South of Peanut Island, ran aground on a tongue of sand extending further than charted, slewed beam-to the current, were washed off by the flood tied, regrouped, motored through the inlet, noting breakers over the sea wall, and began the 54 nautical mile passage.

It was dark and rough, but we anticipated the wind easing and moving more south from southeast. The Gulf Stream flows north, up to two-and-one-half knots. You sail across it like you canoe across the current of the river; the boat must be angled upstream in order to make progress across the river roughly perpendicular to the direction of the current. Journey side-stepped her way for three hours, leaving an irregular easterly trail on the chart plotter, all the while her nose more southeasterly into the current and the wind and waves, that far from diminishing were increasing, blowing steadily 17 to 20 knots, and the waves building from the forecast two to four feet to three to seven feet, stomping, trumpeting and flapping their ears.

We thought the compass was way out of alignment. The chart plotter said we were making a course of 1000, but the compass was showing 120 to 125, and in our now queasy and foggy state it took us awhile to realize the compass was showing the orientation of the boat, the direction the bow was pointing, not our course, while the plotter was showing the course we were making over the ground. The dispiriting reality was that we were already north of the straight line between Palm Beach and the West End and as the hours ground on we would be forced to point the boat ever more southerly into building waves and wind, we decided to turn back.

It is the first time that we’ve sailed into the wind going one direction, reversed course and were sailing into the wind going the opposite direction. Going east the boat crabbed south. Going west the boat crabbed south. The wind moved more southerly, and voila, we’re sailing into the wind.

We again dropped anchor having traveled 41 miles in eight hours, half sailing, half motor sailing to arrive a few hundred yards from where we began. We were wet, tired and a bit irked when the NOAA forecast had now issued small craft warnings. The vee berth was wet at the foot from water coming down the anchor hawse pipe and splashing through the louvered doors of the chain locker. We rinsed the salt off of our clothes, bedding and ourselves, festooned the boat with laundry, ate lunch, drank wine and beer, ate dinner and went dead asleep by 8:00 well fueled for a second 3:00 AM wake-up and a second try.

D-Day 2

We slept like logs. The wind was blowing 12, a bit more southerly when we headed out again, took a slightly longer route to the inlet to avoid the shoal and greeted much quieter seas, but still blowing strong. It blew 15 to 17 all day but more southerly and the seas had significantly subsided. We motored the first half and sailed the second of the nearly 11 hours it took for the boat to travel 72 miles through the water to make a 54 mile, straight-line course. We headed south close to Palm Beach where the current was somewhat less, stayed below the line for most of the day, then gradually fell off the wind for the last third in growing seas that would occasionally break at deck height and sop the helmsperson. We arrived at the West End at 3:00, filled out six pages of forms, cleared customs and immigration, swam in the marina pool, and met the crew of Troubadour who had accompanied us by chance across the Stream, the same crew we met by radio in the St. John River a few weeks ago when both of us headed offshore to avoid the closed bridge south on the ICW.

Today’s glorious sail ended at anchorage off of Mangrove Cay with Troubadour, a 42 foot Tashiba, and Sea Duck, a lovingly restored 32 foot Grand Banks Trawler from New Brunswick with a four foot draft that led us deeper draft vessels through a shoal, unmarked channel at the start of the day. We snorkeled around the boat, scrubbed some of the Brunswick scum off of the water line, pulled ourselves down the anchor rode to peer at the amazing Rocna achor dug into the sand of the bottom. There’s little apparent life in the sea. The primary clue to creatures beneath are volcano like mounds of sand that must hide something.

February 9, 2008

Accompanied by Sea Duck and Troubadour we set sail in light southerlies from Mangrove Cay to Great Sale (sic) Cay, a better place to weather the predicted “norther” cold front expected that night that promised heavy winds and rain. Another day of very light winds, with the reaching spinnaker carrying us along about a knot and a half slower than the breeze, until with a sigh it sagged in the lack of air and we motored to anchorage in a snug harbor protected from all but the south. Another boat coming into the harbor pointed and yelled for us to look in a direction we feared was an unseen reef, but instead was a loggerhead turtle cruising on the surface.

Steve and Sally on Sea Duck sent an invitation to Ed and Nancy on Troubadour and our crew for refreshments at 5:00. We had become a flotilla of mutual support for crews all experiencing their Bahamas for the first time.

The wind had shifted to the north from the south west, still a breeze, when we arrived back at the boat and Roland wisely suggested that we back down again on the anchor with the engine to reset it. It would likely reset on its own, but a good idea that seemed a great idea when in the middle of the night the rain poured, wind howled (probably thirty to forty knots, lightning flashed and thunder boomed and we held fast.

February10, 2008

Clear, fresh, northwest winds, and a boat salt free. We sailed on a close reach in winds that built to a steady 20 to 25 knots to Hawksbill Cay, which offers a lee from the strong north winds. It’s just off Fox Town, the northern-most settlement of Little Abaco Island which nearly touches Great Abaco Island, and a place that offered a chance for Roland to get to an airport for his return and to find gas and a gas can for our dinghy outboard. Our can was lashed to the deck, clearly not well enough, for it was lost the first day of trying to cross the Gulf Stream. On the second day out we said we joked that we should look for it, a fool’s errand in those seas and current.
Set anchor and the riding sail that M. crafted last summer from a kit. It rides on the back stay with a sheet forward. Keeps the boat from swinging its sides into the wind and thus reduces the pull on the anchor. At the end of the day Journey and we are grainy with salt, again. Aargh!

February 11, 2008

The evolving weather was going to make Journey’s progress mighty slow south and east along the Abacos towards Treasure Cay, so with regret by all hands Roland and his duffle, M and I dropped into a bouncing dinghy in the hard blowing northeast wind and headed the mile or so to Fox Town, maybe thirty pastel painted buildings stretched along the highway, landed at the government pier, walked to the highway, stuck out thumbs that stopped the first passing car, asked about transportation to the Airport on Great Abaco, the driver said he’d take care of it, walked up the hill to the one-pump shell station, bar and pool hall. A few minutes later a car and driver arrived. Roland negotiated a price. The proprietess of the gas station took a picture of three of us, we hugged and said good-bye to one of the finest persons and crewman in the land. Thanks, good friend. (This is an inside aside to some of you who might read this: M. beat Roland in Bananagrams which we think precipitated his departure.)

We asked at two groceries and the gas station about a gas can. None to be found in town, but another proprietess at a small store assured us plastic water bottles would hold gas and gave us an empty. We bought about a half gallon from the other gas station in town, topped off the dinghy tank and gave the remainder to a lobster fisherman, as we noted the gas was eating the bottle cap. They fish lobster from 18 foot Boston Whalers and none were going out today. He said the bottle holds gas forever, not the cap, and he’d use the gas to mow his lawn.

The flotilla of three determined that Hawksbill Cay was not the place to ride out predicted gale force winds from the south east so we headed to a marina about 12 miles away on Spanish Cay, a slow motor almost directly into the wind. Journey and we are now again crusted with salt, but with water costing 40-cents a gallon, we’ll wait for the rain at least for Journey. And rain and wind it will do. Ed of Troubadour is our weather guru and the various forecast sources predict a gale out of the southeast tonight and tomorrow. Journey is laced to pilings on both sides of the slip. She’s rolling and will roll a lot more.