Life in the Ragged Islands

Life in the Ragged Islands

Sunday 23rd - Wednesday 26th March, 2025

(We initially thought there was no cell phone service here, but it turns out that when we arrived the local tower had a technical problem, which appears now to be resolved.)

The Ragged Islands represent one of the most remote areas of the Bahamas. The chain of islands runs approximately south-north for about 50 miles before curving eastwards towards Long Island. The ocean to the east is thousands of feet deep whereas the banks to the west are shallow. Between the individual islands are ‘cuts’, some of which are navigable, and all of them act as funnels to vast amounts of water flowing on and off the banks as the tides rise and fall. The islands themselves are low lying and covered in scrub. There are beautiful beaches on both sides, and the water is crystal clear. Unfortunately, the ocean side beaches are covered by an astonishing amount debris, mostly plastic, washed up from the sea, driven by the prevailing trade winds from the east.

We had heard that the local people were very friendly, but nothing prepared us for the warm welcome we received when we went ashore at Ragged Island. We tied up the dinghy at the government dock, planning to hike the 2 miles into town. However, the supply boat, which comes every two weeks, was on the dock and a local guy offered to drive us into town in his pickup truck once he had finished collecting his goods. Gloria sat up in the cab with the ‘boss’ and I jumped in the bed of the truck with three other guys and a lot of boxes! We were dropped off in the center of Duncan Town, which consists of maybe 20 homes and a few commercial or community buildings, mostly under construction. The whole place looks pretty beaten up, but everyone we met gave us a warm smile and cheery “hello”. We bumped into our driver a couple more times - he invited us round to his house (which we didn’t follow up on), offered to drive us back to the dock, and on the final time we saw him he stopped to give us a bag of local salt that is produced here. We decided to walk back to the dinghy so that we could look at the views, but at least half a dozen vehicles, on route to pick up or drop off stuff from the supply boat, offered to give us a lift.

As sparsely inhabited as these islands are, there are plenty of fellow boaters. I counted 13 vessels at anchor last night off Hog Cay (just to the north of Ragged island itself). The island is uninhabited, but there is a Tiki hut on the beach and cruisers gather there in the late afternoon to chat, drink and barbecue. There are chairs and small tables, games and books that previous visitors have left, and even a volleyball court marked out in the sand. The hut itself is covered in dozens of plaques made from driftwood with boat names emblazoned on them. We believe that during Covid a large group of cruisers were gathered here for several months and spent a lot of time and energy setting up and decorating these facilities. Someone also created trails across the island that are well marked with a whole variety of trash, such fishing nets, shoes, kids dolls and plastic construction hats.

I didn’t particularly enjoy our second evening ashore as I got in to a conversation with four other sailors who all turned out to be climate change deniers. Honestly, I was shocked at what I was hearing and surprised to be in a minority of one in believing that humanity’s generation of greenhouse gases is the most significant contributor to the current global warming. I have spent some time trying to rationalize why I found the discussion so upsetting and I think it’s because of the lack of belief or trust in science and the scientific community that was so apparent. 

The evening didn’t improve as we were later awakened by a squall / storm. I had seen lightning in the distance before coming to bed, but it was 1.30 am when Gloria realized it was raining and got up to close the windows. Then our anchor alarm went off, which got me up. It turned out that we weren’t dragging, but we were experiencing 20 knot winds from the west and had swung through 180 degrees. With no protection from that direction, it soon became very bumpy, which was a particular concern as we were by this point in 8 feet of water. We ended up watching the instruments and checking on the boat for the next two hours, and then spent the rest of the night in the main cabin.

Today, was a better day! We moved Cotinga about a mile up the shore for a change scenery and slightly deeper water. We took a short walk in the morning and then went snorkeling off the north side of Hog Cay with our South African friends Paul and Jo from s/v Arabella. The location of the reef out in the ‘cut’ was quite bumpy, with strong currents, but we saw some great fish, including Queen Triggerfish, Queen Angelfish and French Angelfish. 

Here is hoping for a better night’s sleep this evening!

Mike

22 15.151 N, 75 45.209 W

Gloria overlooking a beach on the south side of Hog Cay

The calm waters on the west side of Hog Cay - our first anchorage

The west side of Hog Cay - a panorama created from a set of ultra-wide angle (17 mm) images. The colors are true but the perspective is an artifact of the overlay process and is unrealistic ... but interesting!

Leaving the beach at Hog Cay

The tiki hut on Hog Cay

Chairs, small tables and countless ship placards

Paul arrives in the late afternoon with firewood for the barbecue (found elsewhere on the shore) 

A pit fire started after the barbecue was completed

Government dock, Ragged Island, with the supply vessel at the dock. It comes ~ every two weeks from Nassau and also serves Great Inagua, Mayaguana,  Acklins and Crooked Islands

The (former) police station in Duncan Town, Ragged Island. We suspect the island was recently hit by a hurricane and is still struggling to recover

Shallow water and mangroves off the west side of Ragged Island

Down wind sailing

Down wind sailing

Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd March, 2025

(When we arrived at Ragged island there was no cell service at all. This turned out to be due to technical issues with the local tower, which appear to have now been resolved.)

Over the course of this Caribbean trip, we had done a lot sailing on a beam reach.  When traveling north and south between the Windward and Leeward Islands, the prevailing easterly winds result in some lovely sailing.  However, as we have started to make our way back toward the US (north-westerly direction), we are experiencing a lot of travel with the wind coming across the stern of the boat.  While this arrangement of boat and wind seems like it would be easy, we have always thought that Cotinga is very slow down wind.  In reality, there is a fundamental problem with down wind sailing,  If the wind is blowing at 10 knots and the boat is moving forward at 5 knots, the effective wind on the sails is only 5 knots.  Usually, for us, that’s not really enough to keep the boat moving at a decent speed.  When we are faced with a long passage, say 130 nautical miles, moving along at three knots seems unacceptable (we have limited patience).  Often we have resorted to motoring when going downwind in fairly light breezes.  Another option would be to wait for stronger winds.  The problem there is that stronger winds lead to bigger waves.  Big swell taken on the stern of the boat can lead to some pretty unpleasant conditions aboard.  So we have been trying to work on our down wind sailing techniques.  

When the wind was fairly strong and the distance not so great, we have sailed with just the genoa.  Often we have both the main and genoa up at once.  There are two problems that can occur with this arrangement.  The first is the problem of keeping the mainsail from gybing across the boat as the waves come from behind and roll the hull.  Typically we use a preventer (a line from the boom to the deck and back to the stern of the boat) to mitigate this risk.  The second issue is that, depending on the angle of the wind to the boat, the large mainsail can block the wind from filling the genoa.  So in recent sails, we’ve been trying different approaches.  On our passage from the DR to Great Inagua, we tried sailing “Wing on Wing”.  In this case the genoa is out on the starboard side of the boat, while the mainsail is out on the port side of the boat (with the preventer locked down).  In calm waters or for short trips, you would usually hand steer the boat while the sails are out in this fashion, to ensure that both sails stay filled.  In our case, we attached the spinnaker pole to the genoa and let the auto pilot steer.  Eventually, the wind started to come more from our side so we moved the genoa to the port side (still poled out).  Of the 33 hours of the trip, we motored 22 hours.  

On the most recent passage from Great Inagua to the Ragged Islands, we were determined to sail more.  We put up the main sail while still at anchor.  We motored out of the harbor while Mike set up the Gennaker (also known as a "code zero” sail) on the foredeck. We shut off the engine and sailed.  Even though my brother Rod refers to this sail as the “Storm Gennaker” it had us moving along smartly in about 12 knots of breeze.  For the first seven hours we averaged 6.6 knots per hour. We started to get worried that we would arrive on the shallow bank behind Ragged Island in the dark (going too fast!). Another concern was that to quench that sail, you must get onto the foredeck and pull down the “sock”.  Then the sail gets packed into a large bag on the bow.  This didn’t seem like an operation that should be carried out after sunset, so we took down the “Code zero” at five pm.  We chose to partly unroll the genoa, as we were still moving along quite fast.  The night was quite a different thing.  The wind went lighter and lighter!  The sails were banging around as we rolled.  After midnight we were averaging something like 4.5 knots per hour.  As Mike pointed out, it was better than on some earlier trips when we were barely making 4 knots! It did feel slow and our fears of arriving in the dark soon dissipated.  It was light about 6:30 am but took us until about 10:30 am to enter Coco Bay off Little Ragged Island. We sailed the entire 130 nm at an average speed of 5.4 knots. We did run the engine for 1 hour, every 8 hours or so, to drive the fridge compressor and charge our batteries, but we never put the engine in gear. 

As it transpired, Coco Bay harbor is not the best.  There was a lot of swell, I managed to get some sleep but Mike couldn’t sleep.  We had some lunch and quickly got back underway.  Now, we are anchored off Hog Cay about six miles north. It was quite a circuitous route, about 10 miles in total, so I was glad to have had some down time before making the extra trip.  The seas are flat!  Marvelous! 

Gloria

22 14.543 N, 75 45.276 W

We have no photos from the passage, but here are some photos from our final day in Man of War bay, Great Inagua, along with a single photo showing our current location off Hog Cay, Ragged islands. More to follow in the next blog!

On our final day in Man of War Bay, Great Inagua, we took the dinghy to shore and went for a walk

The views out across Man of War Bay were spectacular

Man of War Bay

We saw several birds including Broad Billed Vireo (life bird)

Ditto

La Sagra's flycatcher (life bird)

Blue Grey Gnat Catcher

Ditto

At anchor off Hog Cay, Ragged Islands. You can see Cotinga and our friends on Makarios. (We are anchored in about 8 - 9.5 feet depths, depending on tide)

Our first sunset off Hog Cay

Molasses Reef to Man of War Bay

Molasses Reef to Man of War Bay

Thursday 20th - Friday 21st March 2025

The cold front passed through quickly and the conditions, at least in the Molasses Reef anchorage, were not as bad as we feared. Whilst the winds were high it did get a little bumpy because of the long fetch to the shore north of us, but we were well protected from the ocean swells. We were able to get a few boat jobs completed, including patching a small hole in the main sail caused by rubbing on the lazy-jack lines. 

On Wednesday afternoon we re-launched the dinghy from the davits and went in search of areas of reef that we could snorkel. We found two suitable spots, and anchored the dinghy off to the side. The second area we explored was excellent. The rocks and corals rose from about 20 feet depth up to the sea surface and we snorkeled in a circle around this underwater island. The visibility was amazing and we saw lots of sea ferns and quite a few fish, including a school of chub that were 2-3 feet long and seemed quite friendly. Both of us felt the water was pretty cool and by the end of our second stop we were ready to call it a day. The breeze was still from the north and relatively cold, so by the time I had finished showering in the cockpit I was covered in goose bumps. It’s the first time I’ve actually been cold in months.

We awoke on Thursday to dead calm. The water is so clear and the details of the sea floor visible from the deck that you almost get a sense of vertigo. After breakfast (homemade toast and peanut butter) we prepared to depart and head back up to Man of War Bay. Pulling up the anchor was less than trivial because, despite our best efforts, the chain did get wrapped around some rocks. As we could see exactly what the situation was, it became an exercise of driving the boat in the right direction to pull the chain around the side of the rocks. We motored out of the anchorage following the track we had come in on and headed round to Matthew Town. In contrast to earlier in the week, there were no other boats anchored off the town. We dropped the hook and took a quick trip to shore to get rid of our trash and buy provisions, and then continued northwards up the coast. In the evening, our friends Paul and Tracy from Magic Pelagic came over for dinner (Butter Chicken Curry). It was lovely to catch up with them.

We plan to make Friday our last day at Inagua and if the weather forecast holds up, we will sail overnight Saturday to Sunday up to the Ragged Islands (~ 130 nm). This is a really remote area of the Bahamas and one that we have heard is beautiful. It comes with some challenges because the following leg of the journey up to Georgetown requires navigating the Comer Channel, which is only 6 feet deep, and consequently we need to make use of the high tide and settled weather. (Our draft is only slightly less than 6 feet). The next suitable high tide is not until the end of the month. (This is when the timing of the high is after noon so that we can get to the shallowest section without traveling over the banks at night.) So we may be out of contact for the next week or so …

Mike

21 05.515 N, 73 39.265 W

The chop in the Molasses Reef anchorage during the north winds (20 knots) is not so obvious, but you can see it's a long way to shore.

Juliet in the Molasses Reef anchorage

Molasses Reef anchorage Thursday morning

The anchor chain / rock issue

Anchored off Matthew Town (note: you can easily see our rudder in this picture!)

Juliet off Matthew Town

Great Inagua

 Great Inagua

Sunday 16th - Wednesday19th March, 2025

Most of Sunday, we rested and read our books.  Carl and Diane from S/V Sonas stopped by to invite us for a “sundowner”.  Sonas was the boat we could see about five miles away during the passage from the DR.  We went over and spent a pleasant late afternoon chatting and enjoying some fantastic snacks. One persistent topic of conversation was what to do about the incoming northwesterly winds.  We were leaning toward tucking in close to the north shore of Man of War Bay and riding out the weather.

Monday morning we motor-sailed down to the harbor off Mathew Town.  On the radio, we were puzzled  by some conversations about a boat blocking the harbor entrance.  Once we got close in the dinghy, it became apparent that a supply ship was unloading in the small harbor.  There was enough room for a dinghy to squeeze past the bow of the ship but no large vessel could possibly enter.  This explained the navy vessel that had overtaken us en route and was now anchored off the town. After tying up the dinghy to the very high docks, we were met by Antonia from the tourism office!  She advised us about the location of Customs and Immigration, the local grocery store and the availability of free wi-fi at various spots.  We chatted to her about the possibility of an island tour in the afternoon.  She gave us her contact details to try to set something up.  Off we went to Customs and Immigration.

The Bahamas now has an on-line system for initiating the check-in process.  Mike had tried to access that system but our phone connectivity was poor and the system is not totally intuitive.  It turns out he was trying to do completely the wrong thing! The Customs officer seemed quite helpful and soon we were finished.  The next boaters in line chatted to us about the weather.  They said that Man of War Bay was unlikely to provide enough protection from the swell “as it always wraps around”.  Immigration was fairly straightforward, the helpful chap pointed out that we might wish to “over estimate” our length of stay as an extension would cost $200 per person!  In the end, they granted us a stay of 90 days, more than we need.

We got back in touch with Antonia and managed to set up a tour for four o’clock.  We went back to Cotinga for cameras, binoculars and more water.  A wander around the town (taking pictures) filled the time until our tour should start.  Our tour guide, Casper Burrows,  picked us up in his truck.  We stopped by his house for the scope and set off.  First up was the area around the Morton Salt plant.  The area of salt pans was staggeringly large.  The sea water is pre-concentrated in a series of steps that I didn’t fully understand, but takes about two years.  Then the saturated salt solution is pumped into the crystallizing “dishes” of perhaps an acre each.  As the water evaporates, the salt is deposited on the bottom.  Once the salt pack is thick enough any excess brine is drained off and heavy equipment is used scrape up the salt.  Naturally, this isn’t the most pure of salt.  Thankfully, it’s used to treat snowy roads in the north, not for table use!

Once past the salt operation, we drove through an area of mangroves with shallow water.  Here we started to see birds.  A few flamingos appeared to whet the appetite.  We saw many roseate spoonbills, great egrets, snowy egrets, least grebes, pied billed grebes, white cheeked pintails, blue winged teal, a sora, kingfishers, black necked stilts, green herons, reddish egrets (dark and white morphs), great blue herons, pelicans, osprey, black bellied plover, snowy plover, killdeer, kestrel, burrowing owl.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few!  We thought we saw at least 25 species during the 3 hour trip. Not only were there many species but also so many birds all over.   Most amazing were the sheer number of flamingos.  On a few mangrove “islands”, at a great distance,  one could see this pink haze.  Through the scope, the birds could be seen.  Casper estimated that there were about five thousand birds between the few areas.  He explained that the eggs are incubated for 28 days and the first birds had been nesting that long.  He thought there might be some chicks already with other nests more recently constructed.  

The sun was setting before we got back to the dock. We decided to stay overnight outside Matthew Town. We got the engine off the dinghy, hoisted the dinghy on the davits and generally got ready for an early departure in the morning.  Our plan was to go around to the south of the island to an anchorage behind the Molasses Reef.  

In the morning the wind was very light.  We pulled up the anchor and motored around to the south and entered the anchorage from the east.  No sooner had we got settled than a squall blew in bringing rain and the start of the winds from the northwest.  The anchorage developed a lot of white caps with winds about 20 knots.  Slowly over the afternoon the winds diminished down to about 10 knots.  Today there’s residual swell and still some wind from the northeast.  We are trying to formulate our plans for the next phase of the journey.  Today though we need to repair a small hole in the mainsail.  Fingers crossed!

Gloria

20 55.308 N, 73 36.563 W

Looking north to the anchorage off Matthew Town

The supply freighter that was parked almost completely across the harbor entrance provided some cool 'rusty boats and bits' photos

We liked this community building at the local playground - painted in flag colors

The road across the salt pans

Lake Rosa is not always wet. For the previous three years large sections of it have been dry, but this October heavy rains re-filled it (and diluted / dissolved the salt production). Flamingo nesting is greatly reduced in dry periods

Looking back along the road we drove by Lake Rosa

Casper Burrows, local tour guide, National Park warden and one of the most impressive birders we have ever met.

Flamingos in Lake Rosa

Ditto

Salt piles awaiting export. Casper estimated only 3-4 shiploads remain until they produce another batch

There were 11 boats in the Molasses reef anchorage last night. Most had arrived the previous day, but three boats, including ourselves, stayed off Matthew Town and motored around in the early morning

The Molasses reef anchorage is huge but completely open to the east - through south west. It is protected from the north. It took us two attempts to find a spot where we were reasonably happy we would not drag our chain across small rocks and patches of coral. You can easily see the bottom in 25 feet of water.