The longest 15 miles

The longest 15 miles   ...   23rd March 2013

The boat was doing plenty of dancing at anchor yesterday morning.  There wasn’t that much fetch across the bay at Black Rock but somehow the southerly wind was kicking up a lot of chop.  Our plan was to travel to Cambridge with our friends Lynn and Lee.  This involved going out the cut and then travelling northwest on Exuma sound for about fifiteen miles. While we were waiting for “slack tide” to leave, I had plenty of time to worry about what conditions we would encounter in the cut and the sound.  At about 10:30 am we got underway. 

Clearly there was a large current flowing out of the cut.  We found ourselves pounding through big seas, taking lots of spray over the bow.  Once past the rip current flowing out of the cut, the swells were substantial.  Turning northward, we were sailing down wind and being tossed around by the swell.  Despite the meclizine I had taken at breakfast, I started to feel unwell.  More meclizine was consumed.  I found myself often checking the distance remaining and our boat speed to calculate how many hours remained.  As the wind diminished around noon, it seemed that the result of the calculation was always the same—2 hours.  I started to thing we would never arrive at Bell Cut.

A boat, tacking to windward toward us, provided some distraction.  When it got closer, this vessel appeared to be a large racing yacht with dark sails (made of some high tech material, no doubt).  Our thought was that they were headed down the Exuma chain.  Shortly after they passed by us, they turned down wind and sailed around us for quite a while.  Perhaps it was some kind of tune up sail.  There certainly were enough people on the foredeck staring up into the rigging.  At once stage I counted ten people on the deck. 

The other distraction was the fishing.  After completing a gybe that slowed the boat down substantially, we got a bite on the line.  Mike pulled the fish in enough to see that it was a mahi-mahi.  We got out the gaff hook but somehow in the process, the fish slipped off the gaff and fell back into the sea.  It’s the classic “fish that got away” story.

Happily for us we had been invited to have dinner with Lynn and Lee.  We had a fantastic meal of chicken piccatta, quinoa, sugar snap beans and green bean salad.  It was great to be able to chat with them about sailing, books, music and politics.    

Gloria

Looking out over Exuma Sound from Cambridge Cay

Cambridge Cay anchorage