Bahamas Bound

After stating vehemently that we would never check out on a weekend again, we checked out of Turks and Caicos on a Sunday (April 22nd)….and paid the extra $30 overtime fees for the pleasure of doing so: $15 to immigration; $15 to customs!! On top of that, our $30 fee included waiting for them pretty much all of Sunday, and when they finally arrived at 3:30pm, a storm was brewing. We were checked out and ready to leave around 4:30pm, when we cast off the dock of South Side Marina, out into the Caicos Bank, nervously eyeing the increasingly darkening skies. It turns out that there are not too many anchorages in the Turks and Caicos, but we had checked the charts and motored just a little way to Saporilla Bay, a few miles north of the marina. We dropped anchor, in about 5 feet of water, together with 3 other boats anchored there, just as the storm came rolling through. Knowing we had a good hold on the anchor, we had an early night, and a good night’s sleep, ready for the next morning’s early departure.

Storm Clouds at Sunset:  Sapodilla Bay, Provodentiales, Turks and Caicos Islands

It was still dark when we pulled up that anchor at about 5:30am that Monday morning, but having had a few early mornings in recent days, we knew it wouldn’t be long before the sun rose and it would be light enough to see. We followed our track out of the anchorage, and carefully watched the depth sounder as we made our way about 10 miles across the Caicos Bank. Soon it was light enough to see, and the depths, although still shallow, were nowhere near “danger level” and Dave and I hoisted the spinnaker and enjoyed the sail, while the kids slept in. As we crossed over the bank, there was a clear, distinguishing line where the depths went from the 10’s to the 100’s to the 1000’s of feet.

Hard to catch on camera, but there is a distinct line where the depths drop off

We started on our course, heading towards Mayaguana, the closest of the Bahamian islands, and the Plana Cays, a few uninhabited islands further west than Mayaguana. We had decided on this route, giving ourselves the option of stopping at either of the two places if we wanted to, or continuing if so desired. However, the wind did not play along with our plans, and in order to keep the spinnaker up, and make some decent speeds, (and have a more comfortable ride), the better route to take was a more southerly course, taking us south of Acklins and Crooked Islands (instead of north of them), and then on the lee of Long Island to Georgetown. Committing to this course, meant committing to an overnight sail, but both Dave and I agreed that we just wanted to get to Georgetown in the Exhumas. So we changed course, and immediately you could feel the difference. It was smooth sailing, with the wind behind us, and the waves a little less from the side.

On the way, we raised the Bahamian courtesy flag, and raised our yellow Q flag

Sadly though, the wind died throughout the day, and we realized that at the speeds we were doing, we would not make Georgetown in daylight hours the following day. We continued anyway, waiting to see what the next day, Tuesday, would bring. At about 1:30am, we reached the turn at the southern point of Acklins, and needed to change course. The wind was still out of the east, (we had hoped that it would switch to a more of a south east direction as we made the turn, as it had been predicted to, but didn’t). We were at too much of a tight reach for the spinnaker, and had to take it down. Out came the troops at 1:30am, Ben at the helm and tasked with letting out the spinnaker sheet, Gaby at the winch, winching in the spinnaker guy rope, and Dave and I pulling the sock down over the massive sail. It was a first for us, taking down big blue in the middle of the night, but it all went smoothly. We raised the mainsail and let out the jib, and continued on our course.

When Dave took over the shift at around 6:00am, we waited another 30 or so minutes, and then made another sail change. Main came down, jib was rolled up, and the spinnaker raised once again. About 2 and a half hours later, it was time for a change again…

I had gone for a nap, when Dave woke me, and said, “We need to drop the spinnaker”. I got up, a little disorientated, having just fallen fast asleep! Our original plan had been to go through the shallow, leeward side of Long Island, and then through a cut called Hogs Cay, and then on to Georgetown. He said he’d been reading the cruising guide and studying the charts, and read that the cut that we had planned to take was “hard bottom”. We knew it was going to be shallow, but the theory had always been if you run aground, it was sand, and you just wait for the tide to come up and float you out. Having the cut be hard bottom, meant you could run aground, and possibly do damage to the bottom of the boat. Plus the tides were not working too well in our favor, and the thought of having to maybe turn around if we couldn’t make it through the cut, was just too much to contemplate, so we made a last minute decision and changed course yet again.

Our tracker shows our two course changes

We doused the spinnaker and began motoring, thinking we could raise it again as we came around the corner of Long Island. But the winds had other intentions, and as we made our way up Long Island, the wind just got lighter and lighter, at times as little as 3 or 4 knots. So we motored, making speeds of around 5.5 to 6 knots, just not quite fast enough to get us to the top of the island in time for sunset, at 7:30pm. We then still had to go a few miles around the corner, and negotiate a few reefs into an anchorage. At one stage, when the wind looked like it might come up a little, we put up “Puff” our trusty Code Zero/Gennaker, and that helped boost our speeds to the 7 knot range. Arrival time was looking to be around 7:00pm, which was all we needed. And then the wind died again. When this happened, we fired up the second engine, and although really loath to burn the extra diesel, we needed just that extra knot of speed that the second engine could bring, to get us there before sunset.

White cliffs at Santa Maria at the top of Long Island, as we came around the corner before anchoring.  There is a statue on top of the hill, that is hard to see in this picture, commemorating Christopher Columbus

Just after 7:00pm, with one crew member at each bow (Ben and Gaby), and me on the roof spotting coral heads and shallow patches, we rounded the top of Long Island and carefully picked our way into the anchorage, which didn’t have a name on our charts! There were 3 other boats anchored there, so we figured it should be OK. We dropped our anchor in about 6 feet of crystal clear water: there was no need to dive on the anchor to check it, we could see it well dug in from the boat!  30 minutes later, just before 8:00pm, we were sitting on the deck in our bean bags, enjoying the last of the sun’s rays…safe at anchor, safe in the Bahamas!

Bahama arrival:  Gaby catches the sunset
(photo by Gaby)