June 11, Georgetown, Bahamas
Well, the trip from Bimini to the Chub Cay took,
as I said, 28 1/2 hours tacking slowly upwind. Chub Cay is a privately
owned island and they don't seem to welcome cruisers much. We thought
we could get some fuel there but nope, no fuel. If you want to get a
slip there it is about $180 per day. Kind of like going to a nice
hotel and bringing your own room, bedding, etc. No thanks. We
snuck into the almost empty resort which had an infinity pool and swim up
bar. We were good for about an hour until Christine noticed our dinghy
floating off into the sea (I had pulled it completely out of the water and
left it on the beach). I had to jump up and swim hard to Gypsy Cat
to rescue it - luckily, another sailboat was going in that direction and
picked it up for me when they were coming in. After retrieving it I
went back to shore with the recovered dinghy to pick up Christine and was
met with security. They want a $100 "landing fee" to park your dinghy
and step foot on the beach. No thanks to that either. The
security guard and the "boss lady" aka resident owner, aka snitch, watched
us with binoculars engaged in animated conversation about us pointing and
looking the whole time while we dinghyed back to our boat. They were
still there 5 minutes after we got aboard, just to be sure. How dare
us get near their private island. I just
picked up Christine and we enjoyed our stay our own way.
I couldn't clean the tank there as there was no fuel to be had (they were out), so off we went tacking upwind with no working motor to Nassau. 18 hours later we are about to enter Nassau harbor. The wind was less than 10 knots most of the way and it was slowly dying out. We had to tack (turn upwind) five times in the entrance (in the dark) as we had only a slight headwind and a slight tidal current pushing us out, as well. We made it, of course, but barely. Christine is really getting good handling the jib sheets. When I told her so, she said "Of course! My life depends on it!" It is a rocky entrance. When I dropped anchor, my wind speed indicator was showing 3 knots!
The next few days were spent in Nassau doing
repairs and hanging out
.
I got the fuel tank emptied and cleaned
and the motor was running smooth, but it was running a bit hot. I
noticed that the water pump was not pumping very much water. Luckily,
it turned out to be that the raw water intake strainer was full of seaweed -
an easy fix. Now it runs great!
Nassau is one of those places where some
people come and the days turn into years and they don't leave. Great
people. It was fun
but, hey it's a harbor. There are beaches here, but the Atlantis Hotel
blocks the better northern beaches on "Paradise" Island (formerly known as
"Hog Island") for their guests only . So, what's to do? Off to
Rose Island we go. Ahhhhhh, now this is what we came for...
It was so beautiful, I just had to laugh. Stunning. Offshore, in
the background you can see "Gilligan's Island", which was the island shown
in the opening sequence of the 60's Gilligan's Island t.v. show.
The next morning, we left early to head for
the Exuma Islands. Of course, there was a headwind but now we had a
motor so we motored upwind. Now, it got pretty choppy and we are
heavily loaded so we were pounding into these steep 3-5 foot waves and
taking water over the deck with all of the bouncing. In hindsight, we could
have waited a day or so for the seas to settle (it was blowing hard the
previous days). I knew we were taking on water through the hatches
(they don't just leak, they welcome water with open arms and scoop it inside - it's on my list of things to fix) but I didn't have any
idea until I checked a few hours later - oops, we had about 60-70 gallons of
water in the bilges. No exaggeration. We emptied about 15
5-gallon buckets. Also, I noticed that a washcloth rag had got stuck
in the drain up on deck in the anchor locker. It was a swimming pool up
there - totally full of water. I thought we were a little heavy up
there. Anyways, close to the north end of the Exumas it got a little
smoother and we angled off the wind and were about ready to sail.
Nope. The mainsail halyard was dangling at the top of the mast.
Hmmm. Seems the clasp either broke or unscrewed. We just motored
to Norman Cay, caught a nice big conch and had dinner.
The next day, we had a beautiful sail
to Warderick Wells Cay. Ok, so it can't get any better than Rose
Island, or could it? Whoa. This looks like a good spot.
Our own private beach cove. All the other boats had to stay way out in
deeper water. We were able to pull right up to shore and beach
ourselves a bit as we were going to leave in the morning higher tide.
Reluctant to leave, we pulled out in the morning and
headed for Staniel Cay. This is where Thunderball Grotto is, where the
old James Bond movie was filmed.
When we went to shore in our dinghy, I got out and jumped in the water to
rinse off. Christine yells, "shark!" and I swim back to shore.
Seems a 5 footer was a bit curious and came over to check me out.
The grotto was spectacular. It is a natural underwater cave where you swim under the rocks and pop up in the middle of the grotto where there is a natural "sunroof" opening, and another entrance on the other side. Tons of hungry fish come to greet you, sometimes nibbling on you until they realize you have no food. Then they leave, only to come back when they notice someone new coming.
The next day we went to Blackpoint settlement, an old traditional Bahamian town and then, later, found another nice private beach a few miles south and anchored near shore. As we pulled up there were 3 small sharks swimming. Very cool, but I had to swim with a boat hook for comfort.
The next day we motored to Georgetown (only 3
knots of wind) while doing laundry and more airing out of the boat.
This is the first picture, EVER, of Christine doing laundry.
Now, she is obsessed with "R2D2" aka "Wonder Wash". Now she wants to
wash everything. If you were sailing near us, this is what you would
have seen...
Georgetown has the moniker
"Chicken Town" as most of the cruisers never venture further than this.
This is the last waypoint for most. We have to wait a couple days for
propane here, otherwise we'd be off. Yes, I know we are moving fast but I
want to get close to Venezuela during the peak hurricane period. I'm
well aware of "Island Time", and things moving slowly. But, jeez.
So, everywhere we've been, so far in the Bahamas - they run on propane.
And, most cruisers need it. Should be easy to get, right? Well,
in Nassau you have to "arrange" to get it, involving middlemen and leaving
your tank(s). In Georgetown, they've been out for a week or so, and
the last boat that was supposed to bring it didn't, so they are hoping to
get some sometime soon. I went to the tourist office (they are very
nice) and they had to make several calls to find out who to go to to arrange
it.
The next day we went to get fuel. No fuel at the dock, of course, so I had to jerry can trip after trip back and forth. That and getting some water took 4 hours. So, we're just waiting on propane now and then we are headed south and east. The cruisers are thinning out as we head south.
June 12, Georgetown, Bahamas
We are all cleaned up, serviced, topped up, etc. just waiting on propane. We just found out that there is no propane and no sign of any, ever, I think. We could wait out the season here before knowing when or how to get the propane, so we are just going to head out without any. Our next stop will be Long Island or Conception Island, then Rum Cay. Hopefully, Turks and Caicos will have propane - we should be there in about 5 days.
June 23, Provodenciales ("Provo"), Turks and Caicos
Back in Georgetown, the wind picked up overnight (to 18 knots SE - right on our nose for our next course.) in the lee of the Stocking Island (so more wind out beyond it). We decided to wait another day for propane and let the weather settle a bit. Instead, in the early afternoon the wind eased and we headed off to Long Island. Next morning, we went to Rum Cay. Surprisingly, there was another boat there - it was the last one we saw in the Bahamas.
Next stop, Attwood, Acklins Island. One of our guidebooks says, "Attwood is not a good spot in northeast wind and a deathtrap in anything more northerly." Our other guidebook says to use it, "only in an emergency". When we arrived, I had to laugh. It was great. And empty, of course.
Now, there was a lot of electrical activity far off on the horizon that
evening. At least three separate storms. Lightning about every
couple seconds or so. It was clear and mild where we were, though, and
the barometer was steady. We planned for a 2AM departure.
So, I'm up on deck just before 2, scanning the horizon looking for
anything and don't see any ominous cloud formations or anything - just haze,
but there was an eerie silence. Seemed something was going on. I
decided to just sit tight and wait to see what might be brewing. Good
thing I did. 15 minutes later, a gentle south wind started to blow.
Hmmm. Then, it veered a bit west. Uh, oh. Then the lightning and
thunder hit. At first it was miles away, then when the wind got over
30 knots out of the west northwest, the lightning was on top of us.
Simultaneous lightning and thunder. And a lot of it, and buckets of
water. Whew. Our first squall. As we got clocked around,
our lee shore was just a sandy beach. And we had a really good hold
all the way around. Once the wind was northwest and back down in the
20's, I just went back to bed. In the morning, we were back where we
started from with SE wind. We waited another day for the seas to
settle.
Our next stop, our last Bahamian island, was Mayaguana. They had a Customs and Immigration there, so I thought we might see people, maybe a boat. I saw four people in the settlement, but no boats. It was a little unnerving to be the only boat, and traveling in hurricane season, and with no weather information. The birds, the people, the boats, everything and everybody is going north, or is already there. And yet here we are pounding upwind, working our way south. I got a weather report, thanks to Ms. Burrows at the Batelco office. She patched me through to weather and I got a report. SE wind 15 knots, no tropical disturbances. A few hours later, at midnight, we set off (upwind, of course). I figured we could turn around if things got bad, but I wanted to get to Turks and Calicos quickly.
We were a bit low on fuel as we had to motor the whole way, and the seas built up. It seemed we were sucking air sometimes, with all of the fuel sloshing around. Well, at about the midpoint, the motor shut off again. I'm sure there was still some dirty fuel in the one tank that I didn't empty out and we were low. So, we had to sail the rest of the way (upwind in about 6-8' seas). Instead of an estimated arrival of 10:30AM, the new goal was before dark, which we made arriving just after sundown, with a last bit of light.
Now, we came across the banks, and were coming in to the anchorage (yeah, boats!) under sail with our motor up. I drew a nice line upwind of the spot I wanted, putting us in a really nice position. A large police boat came out straight towards us and decided to anchor directly in front of us in the middle of nowhere, and seemingly for no reason. Odd. I had to go downwind and around them and that made my line more difficult. Anyway it all went smooth. And we got several compliments the next day about our "seamanship".
Once here in Provo, we got more weather info. Looks like we are
"stuck" here for awhile due to weather. 9 foot seas on our nose - no
thanks. We'll wait. We have a lot to do anyway. Thanks to
Eric, who is single handing to St. Croix, I did a fuel polishing with his
polisher.
Now, once again, we have spotless ultra-clean fuel in each
tank. Looks like a couple of us are headed south, so we will likely
convoy across the Caicos banks and over to the Dominican Republic when the
weather is more favorable. In the meantime, we
are just hanging out, fixing things, and having fun. Yesterday I did a
couple rescues with my dinghy. One was a beach ball, the other a kite
surfer getting blown out to sea. A beautiful yellow butterfly took
refuge from the wind in our boat. It stayed for a few hours.
We got our local weather report this morning and it looked like we had a good shot at a weather window to leave in the morning, the 25th or the 26th. I was planning on leaving in the morning, but a squall came through an hour ago that our neighbor clocked at over 50 knots and there was word it was over 60 knots just outside. Two cargo ships got loose and were drifting out to sea near us. Two captains were arguing and cussing on the radio (a no-no) to get their ships. Tugs came out later to help. Other boats got loose as well and were drifting out. This was while Christine and I showered up and got a full-blown rinse off. We thought it was fun (others may have thought it crazy). I had two anchors down which were hand-set; we weren't going anywhere. After my shower, I took a nap - the wind was below 20 knots. Christine woke me up as there was a call for help "Chris come quick". I verified who but could not get the source of trouble. (Hole in boat taking on water? Medical emergency? Struck by lightning? Man overboard?) I raced over in the dinghy to our neighbor to find that their anchors were dragging and tangled up. Our other neighbors soon came dinghying over and we got it all straightened out. But not before an anchor fell off their deck and missed my head by about an inch. I think if I was wearing a hat, it would have been knocked off by the anchor. I think I'll invest in a hard hat for under deck anchor untangling.