Bahamas at last!
After our Gulf Stream Crossing we arrived tired but happy at Mangrove Cay, a small uninhabited island, where we dropped anchor and caught up on our rest. The next day we set off on a long, arduous beat against the wind and chop to Spanish Cay, which we reached three days later. Here, finally we were able to clear customs for a whopping $350 ($50 went to the marina at Spanish Cay just for the priveledge of meeting the customs officer there!). Our first taste of Bahamian prices! Nevertheless we were thrilled to be there, and ready for new adventures.As we were leaving Spanish Cay the next day, a couple on a Hallberg Rassy motored by telling us of "bad weather" coming. "Look for a good anchorage!" said the gentleman. We scratched our heads, and realized shortly thereafter that with a six foot draught many Bahamian anchorages are a no-no, after all, the word "Bahamas" comes from the Spanish "Bajamar" which means shallow sea. A safe anchorage to wait out what turned out to be a week long series of squalls and torrential rains and strong gusty winds??? We studied our charts, and decided that White Sound, at Green Turtle Cay would be our best bet. But we had to time it just right, as the narrow channel that leads into this protected sound is quite shallow, and for us only navigable at high tide. As we arrived outside Green Turtle Cay we came across Irene on Katja! She had just picked up a friend who had flown in from the States, who was there to spend the one week with her in which it rained almost non-stop! We felt sorry for them. Luckily, we made it into White Sound without much trouble, and found a good little spot to anchor, where we would spend a whole week reading and playing scrabble while it poured and winded outside. We cozied up together, as this was the first rest we had
had in a long time. Being close together in a small boat has its charms. I think it was then that we began to really appreciate this gift we had,
the gift of being in our own little world, with time on our hands to be together, to read, to contemplate life. When the weather relented a bit, we took
the dinghy ashore and had long walks on the windward side of the island, along spectacular beaches, and into New Plymouth, the main little town, where we
enjoyed grouper sandwiches for lunch. I delighted in catching rain water in buckets and pots and pans, with which we showered and cooked. It tasted lovely!
We began listening to the "Cruisers Net" on our VHF radio, broadcasting weather and all sorts of information in the early mornings. On our second day of listening we heard someone say "there is a missing vessel - Anam Cara!" We about fell over. Us and missing??? I got on the radio, and said we aren't missing, we are here in Green Turtle Cay! And thence the reply:
"Please call Laurel and close your float plan, they are worried about you!" It turns out we had asked Laurel & Tom
to contact the Coast Guard in the event that we didn't arrive in the Bahamas. Our email to let them know we had arrived safely ended up in their spam box, and so they began
worrying about us, and contacted the cruisers net who run and emergency email service! It was a wonderful feeling to know that we were being looked after by
our friends, although you can imagine the shock we got when we realized we had "gone missing"!
Making Plans for the Summer
While waiting out the bad weather in White Sound, we started reading in our "World Sailing Routes" book, and realized that our intended trip to Panama would probably not happen this year. The myriad of delays we had encountered had put us right at the beginning of the hurricane season, and we wanted to be as far away from hurricanes as possible. Sailing to Panama would put us in the area where early hurricanes are thought to track. However, Atlantic crossings to the Mediterranean via Bermuda and the Azores are usually undertaken in May and June, and so the idea grew in our minds as a viable plan. We could leave the Bahamas and sail straight to Bermuda. The only problem - we had no charts for any of it, but lots of charts and guides for the Caribbean and Panama.Via Great Guana Cay, where we met a sailor we had befriended in Florida (another Dave, with his terrific little dog, Tiger Woods), we made our way south to Marsh Harbour, which is the main town in the Northern Bahamas. If anywhere it would be here we could find charts for our Atlantic soujourn. While Marsh Harbour had a good supermarket, it did not have the kind of marine supplies we were hoping for. However, as fortune would have it, we met a young couple at the dinghy dock about to load up their little red dinghy with food supplies. When we began chatting we found out that they too intended to leave for Bermuda and head to the Med. We liked Ky and Hannah immediately, and soon befriended them, and invited them to dinner on our boat. As we got to know this lovely young couple, we realized that we weren't the only ones whom Neptune had chosed to test during the first year in cruising. On their 32 foot Cape Dory "Beatrice", which they bought and refitted in Annapolis while Ky was still in graduate school,
they had endured horrific engine problems which turned their boat black on the inside from the smoke it emitted.
Being great fans of Lyn & Larry Pardey (my own sailing heros!) they ultimately decided to
take the entire engine out. In it's place they wrote: "The Pardeys are right!" and used the space to stow more gear that they had hardly had room for previously.
Lyn & Larry have cruised around the world for over four decades in their self built wooden boats without an engine and without electronics. Hannah and Ky had
studied all their books, as had we, and had modelled their sailing philosophy off of theirs. They were well prepared for their crossing, and we encouraged them
while admiring their courage to set off without an engine. They also kindly allowed us to copy their charts, which we did at a reasonable cost at a local architects office.
We spent many hot sweltering days in Marsh Harbour preparing our boats together, discussing strategies, weather, provisions, and our fears about what would be our
very first ocean crossing. Hannah and Ky were ahead of us in their preparations, as the Mediteranean had been their goal all along. So after a couple of weeks of
comraderie, encouraging and helping each other, the time came to say "see you in the Med!" and we watched them sailing off in their small boat, and prayed for them to have a safe journey.
Little did either of us know what was to come!
Our own preparations came to a bit of a standstill when we realized that the storm sail we had bought was useless to us in as much as we could not pull it up. Our new strong track went too far down the mast to allow us to pull out the mainsail cars and slide in the storm sail ones. It was our own fault that we had not tried it out earlier, and now we had to deal with the issue in the Bahamas, where supplies are very difficult to come by. We took Anam Cara to the island of Man-O-War to find the only sailmaker in the Abacos. Jay seemed quite enthusiastic at first to help us out, but after days of waiting around he came up with nothing that we thought would be a good solution, and he soon lost interest in trying to help us. We spent hours at a local cafe that provided wi-fi, and belonged to a young gay man who shared with us that he had lost 350lbs by going to Brazil and have gastric by-pass surgery, followed by cosmetic surgery to remove excess skin (proudly showing us some of his 15 feet of scars). He said the medical care in Brazil was outstanding, and the price for all this was about the same as what we paid for my appendix surgery! Should have had appendicitis in Brazil! The story was also extraordinary because Man-O-War is a very religious island, no alcohol allowed, and we thought that it must have been quite difficult for a young gay man to grow up on such a small, conservative island. All this aside, we did not get too far with our storm sail issue despite all our phone calls and emails, so we decided to try to jury rig it ourselves, and see if we could find a temporary solution should we need it. We realized through this type of experience, that
we had allowed other people to make decisions for us against our own better judgement, and having felt very green at the time, regreted some of the decisions we had made.
We sailed back to Marsh Harbour, and tried our idea, which worked well enough to give us the confidence to go through with our plan. We also needed to make sure we knew how to
deploy our sea anchor, which we had never used, as well as our self steering windvane. These were all projects that took time and effort, and weeks went by just doing one
project after another, all the while worrying that it would be too late to go by the time we were ready. To assuage our fears, we called a weather guru several times, Chris Parker,
and asked him for advice. As long as we left in June, he assured us, we should be fairly safe from hurricanes. And so, by the third week in June, we finally felt ready, about ten days
after we had watched Ky and Hannah sail out of the Man-O-War cut. We didn't know it then, but Ky and Hannah would eventually have to abandon their own crossing
due to losing their mast. After 27 days at sea they would finally make it to Bermuda, a trip that normally would take 5-7 days! They did admirably well considering
the obstacles they encountered, and managed to pull their rig back onto the boat, jury rig a shorter mast, and sail contrary to the wind all the way to Bermuda.
In our book they are heros! You can read about their ordeal on their blog at Ky & Hannah .
Lightning strike
Chris Parker had advised us of a decent weather window in which to leave, and all we needed to do was buy some more fresh food and clear out of the country at the customs office in Marsh Harbour. On June 22nd we looked out of our portholes and saw the sky dark and ominous. We decided to wait another day. The cruisers net forecasted some very strong winds. Glad to be safely tucked into the anchorage at Marsh Harbour, where the holding was good. Next to us was a new friend, Todd on "Zyzyxy", an ex-ER doctor from Maine, who single-handed on his Sabre 32. It started to blow, and rain for a while. Then, while the sun peeked out, we decided to go ashore to the internet cafe, and make some last calls, and do some more research on the weather. While dinghying ashore I commented to Dave that I had never heard the growling in the sky like that day. It was a low, almost continuous thunder. We disappeared into the internet cafe, and were lost in cyberspace when we started to hear the staff there lined up at the door exclaim: "Wow, it's like a bloody hurricane out there!" I got up and walked around to the door. The palm trees were almost bent to the ground, the rain was falling in bulk filling the street up like a torrential river. Lightning was dancing across the sky. A knot formed in my stomach,
and all I could do was say a prayer that our boat, and all the others would be safe at anchor. An hour later the rain eased up, and
we waded up to our knees back to the dinghy to bail it out prior to going back onto our boat. We were most relieved to see it in its place as well as all the other boats
in the anchorage. We radioed Todd: "Zyzyxy, Zyzyxy, this is Anam Cara". No answer. Was he ok? Eventually we got a very faint response. Todd was fine. He said the
wind had clocked above 60 knots. An hour later, the storm hit again from the opposite direction. Everything went white. The boats heeled over. One boat near us
dragged anchor. Visibility was close to zero. Sea spray mixed with rain. Our life raft started moving across the deck. People's biminis started to rip. Dinghies
capsized behind their motherships. It was quite something to behold, and feeling safe at anchor, I quite enjoyed witnessing nature's immense power!
It wasn't until the next morning, when we couldn't get the cruisers net on the VHF that it dawned on us that something was wrong with our radio. Dave looked up the mast, and to our horror the VHF antenna and our wind-indicator were no longer there. Then we tested out our electronics. Our hearts sank as we realized that our GPS, autopilot, VHF, regulator, anchor light, and AM/FM radio were no longer functioning. Anam Cara had been hit by lightning! The strike had blown our VHF antenna right off the mast. Our plans to sail across the Atlantic disintegrated right in front of us. Any hopes we had of going to the Med to visit our families vanished. Was there a reason for this or was it coincidence? Perhaps we weren't ready, or we were being spared a worse fate?? We wouldn't know, but had no choice but to accept the facts. We could no longer charge our batteries, which meant no electricity to run navigation lights, instruments, lights or refrigeration. Not something we could even get back to the US without. And we felt we at least needed a working VHF radio. So we limped to the dock at the Jib Room in Marsh Harbour, and paid extravagant sums of money to have spare parts flown in to fix the essential equipment so we could make it back "home" to the US. We struggled with ourselves not to fall into a funk, and to keep our spirits up. Going back to the States seemed almost like giving up on our dream!
Final days in the Bahamas
To our surprise and delight, once we accepted the cards we had been dealt, and started making our way back north, we began to really enjoy ourselves. For the first time we weren't getting the boat "ready" for anything, just ourselves for the journey back to the US. We had some glorious sailing days with perfect wind, and got to really test out our self steering windvane. Now that our autopilot was inoperational, we were dependent on it to steer for us, and it worked beautifully. We stopped to rest at Coopers Town, and the weather deteriorated, so we hung out for a few days, waiting out squalls, making pancakes with the limited food supplies we had left, and enjoying each others company. We kept calling Chris Parker, our weather guru, to advise us on when to sail back, and he kept telling us to wait a bit longer. Wait out this low pressure system and this front,
and so we kept getting the gift of more time to enjoy swimming in the blue waters of the Bahamas, and actually do some of the
things we went there for in the first place! We slowly kept going north, to the more remote areas of the Bahamas, and the weather kept bringing us squalls with viscious
winds, thunder and rainfall. We finally found ourselves at Great Sales Cay, the "jump off" island to cross the Banks. It is an long narrow, uninhabited island with many mosquitos
and no-see-ums. Anchored off the northwest beaches we enjoyed our solitude and freedom, that is until the next 50 knot squall hit and with it the seas built quickly,
making the anchorage extremely uncomfortable. I was amazed that our anchor held! After this experience we decided to find a more protected anchorage to wait
out the next series of squalls that were predicted. So we sailed on to Carters Cay.
Dragging anchors
The small, sheltered anchorage at Carters Cay lies in front of a dilapidated small fishing town, which has a small dock, a couple of restaurants and a few grocery stores with mostly empty shelves. The front yards are scattered with old refrigerators and other antiques that one might call garbage if one where so inclined. But on the other side of the cays one can find beautiful beaches, reefs, crystal clear waters and great fishing. This draws fishermen and tourists to the area, but not too many sailors. So we were pleased to see another sailing boat come into the narrow channel into the bay in which we were anchored under sail alone. A small Lyle Hess design boat - it immediately grabbed my attention, as it was the same boat Lyn & Larry Pardey have! "Sea Pig" was crewed by father and son, both young men, who, as we later found out, had recently lost their engine while trying to maneuver through another narrow channel into Walkers Cay. Their anchor had dragged the night before, so they decided to come into a more shelterd place. What an adventure that turned out to be for all of us!As darkness fell we watched the sky to the west turn dark, and lightning threatened in the far distance. We had just gone to bed, when suddenly the boat heeled over and the wind howled and screetched above us. We quickly got up to shut all our ports and hatches before the rain began, and then went outside to keep an anchor watch. To our horror "Sea Pig" was obviously
dragging her two anchors, and headed towards us. "Jeremy, are you ok?" Dave shouted across to him.
"NO! I don't know what to do!" he cried, for without an engine there wasn't much he could do. Quickly we made loose one of our spare Danforth anchors, and Dave
dinghied it over to him while I turned on our engine in case we needed to take evasive action. Luckily one of Jeremy's (now three) anchors dug in and held him
off the sharp coral rocks that lay behind us. Yikes! I offered up a prayer of gratitude that all had ended well, and watched Jeremy pull his matress up
onto the deck to sleep there, just in case.
The next day saw five other sailboats make their way into Carters Cay. They had probably all had enough of the squalls in the area, and were, like us, looking for refuge. Unfortunately the bottom of the anchorage was mostly grass, and as I watched them drop their anchors, I said to Dave: "in the next squall they are going to drag!" Thanks to my years of sailing with my parents, I was well trained in the art of anchoring, and ALWAYS made sure our anchor was well set, and usually dove on it several times, even digging it in by hand if necessary.
By nightfall again the sky darkened, and it wasn't long before the wind started gusting. Keeping a sharp lookout, we were absolutely mortified to see a sailboat literally FLYING towards Jeremy's "Sea Pig". Jeremey screamed: " Is anybody there???!!! HELP! HELP!" as the boat came hurtling towards his bowsprit and almost impaled itself on it. "Fend him off, Jeremy!" we called to him, and with the superhuman strength that comes to us in those moments, he pushed the boat off his own and we stared helplessly as it slammed into the rocks behind us. Scraping along the sharp coral rocks for half a mile, we were amazed that it kept floating! The owners were obviously not on board, but Dave honked our safety horn, and that along with much shouting and commotion brought attention to what was happening. Soon, a motor skiff appeared to help the boat off the rocks, and take it back to its anchorage. Over and over they tried to set their anchor in vain, eventually getting a tow to the dock. Early next morning the boat had left, so we never got to see how much damage it had sustained.
Poor Jeremy and his son Nick had been picked upon three days in a row. They too were in their beginning stages of cruising, and we comforted them by telling them that they too had to withstand Neptune's testing ground. We invited them over for pancakes the next morning, and got to share stories. Jeremy, another Pardey afficionado, shared his story with us. He had wanted to live on a sailboat and go cruising for some time, and was saving money to buy a small Triton. He worked on an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, working towards obtaining his Coast Guard license, when he was hit by a car and knocked off his motorcycle. The accident destroyed one of his knees, and he spent many months healing from the injury. The resulting stiff leg meant that he would no longer be able to enter the Coast Guard. But, as he pointed out, the bright side was that the accident brought him the good fortune of paying for his boat and allowing him to go cruising sooner than he thought he would! Wow, what a great way to make the best out of what could be considered a great misfortune. We liked Jeremy and his unusual view of the world. Like us, he hopes to go far in his boat, and spend time in parts of the world that have a different rythm and life-style.
Journey back to the US
Handsteering for twenty-four hours due our broken auto-pilot and a complete lack of wind let us know very quickly how tiring that is. We crossed the Bahamian
Banks, and tried our hand at fishing. We caught a barracuda with big sharp teeth. Unfortunately they are not considered edible in the Bahamas due to
cuigaterra fish poisoning, so we had to throw him back without getting our fingers nipped off.
By evening we approached the Gulf Stream, and with that, a band of squalls coming off of Florida. I turned on NOAAs weather report on the radio, and found out that these squalls were strong enough to engender a special emergency broadcast. The thick streaks of lightning we could see a few miles away made my knees knock. For a while we tried altering course to avoid them, but after circling around like carussell until we realized we would have to face the music. A few prayers later, we prepared ourselves for the gale force winds, lightning and rain. Our prayers were definitely heard! We spent over two hours in the center of a squall and the air remained eerily quiet, and although lightning strikes were in the thousands, we were never threatened. The only problem was that the seas became very confused, with the result that I immediately started throwing up, and could do no more than lay down in a pile of misery. Poor Dave had the arduous job of steering through the night, as every time I tried to relieve him I would get sick. By dawn I managed to get out of the sea-berth and allow Dave to catch up on some much needed sleep. I did not know until then that I could sleep standing up! As I steered the boat into nine foot swells I would find myself fading into a dream state, and then jolt myself awake suddenly. Finally the wind picked up and we were able to set sail and use our steering vane! What a relief! Finally we could sit back and enjoy the solitude, the beauty all around us, and watch in amazement how fast we were flying north in the Gulf Stream - up to 11 knots! (We usually do 4-6!)
The beauty of sailing through the second night made everything worth while. Without the engine - silence! I watched the moon rise and the dawn approach, and was welcomed by scores of dolphins, as well as large turtles that surfaced to breathe. Dave heard a whale breathing close to Anam Cara for an hour while he was on watch.
And what's more, we finally had some rest, the waves settled down, and I could have sailed on like this forever and ever. Those moments are
the reason we do this, and in spite of all the hardships I felt deeply satisfied and happy.
Landfall
After about 50 hours of travelling we arrived in Fernandina Beach where we cleared customs (the next morning - it was Sunday when we arrived and the customs guy wasn't to be found!), had a lovely italian lunch, and slept like the dead that night before heading to our second home away from home - St. Marys! On our way into the anchorage we were welcomed by Irene and other friends we had made there back in February. And there we were, back in sweet St. Marys, ready to regroup our lives and fix our boat!