Nippers, Mutton Snapper and other things

Nippers, Mutton Snapper and other things   ...   Sunday 27^th Jan 2013

After breakfast, we departed from the anchorage at Treasure Cay. Kathy and Dave took turns at the helm as we sailed beautifully to Great Guana Cay.  As we picked up the mooring we thought the depth was quite shallow. We spent some time convincing ourselves that we would still be floating at low tide.  That settled we went ashore to have lunch at Nippers.  We were all delighted to find that the Sunday Pig Roast dinner was being served when we arrived.  Having eaten (too much), we toddled back to the boat with a view to doing some fishing off Man of War Cay.

We set off sailing once we got out of Settlement Harbor.  As we crossed the area opposite north Man of War passage we threw out the hand line with the planing device, pink squid lure and day old squid bait.  To our surprise within a few minutes we could tell we had a fish on the line.  Mike pulled in the line to reveal a good-sized Mutton Snapper—possibly three pounds.  The dinner menu was determined. 

A short way further along we turned into the bay where we meant to anchor.  This was where the depth sounder abruptly went from 11 ft to < 6ft.  With a distinct set of thumps, we ran aground.  We tried reversing off and going forward to no avail.  Dave got into the water to assess the situation.  Apparently the keel was partially imbedded on a sand / rock bank.  He thought we needed about 8 inches to float off.  Thankfully we were on a rising tide, but in the mean time we tried a number of approaches to get off more quickly. Firstly we tried hanging two large water containers off the boom and swinging that out to one side in order to heel the boat over and raise the keel. We attempted to kedge off by attaching the bow to the secondary anchor and pulling on the anchor line, and when that didn’t wok either we tried attaching the stern to the secondary anchor.  Then with the help of a small powerboat we carried the main anchor forward to try to kedge with that anchor.  Finally, we had both anchors out ahead of the boat with about a 90 degree angle between them.  By this time the tide had come in enough that Dave could see that the leading and trailing edges of the keel were free and we only needed a few inches of water to float off.  Mike put the engine into forward and managed to force the boat forward into deeper water.  We could tell that we had come free because the boat swung round to a position downwind of the anchor.  Everyone was much relieved.  They say there are two kinds of sailors in the Bahamas – those that have run aground and those that have yet to run aground. All in all it took us about an hour to get off. There remained a lot of stuff to clear up but we were happy to do the work.  Once most things were back in place, we tried to find a better way into that particular bay – but even avoiding the bar we were not happy with the depth or bottom so we motored to a different area where we were very happy to set a secure anchor. 

26 35 58.6 N, 77 00 51.5 W

The famous "Nippers" bar - Great Guana Cay

Sting Ray from the dock in Settlement Harbor - Great Guana Cay