One scary anchorage, one devious deviation and one awesome deep-water sail ... Tuesday 15th – Friday 18th May 2018

One scary anchorage, one devious deviation and one awesome deep-water sail ...   Tuesday 15^th – Friday 18^th May 2018

At various times one or other of us comment “oh that would be a good title for the blog” … like on Thursday “WTF no thunder or lightening today” when we finally had a squall free day, or “triple bypass” to describe our cunning route deviation on the middle of our three day passage from Wardewick Wells to the Abacos. But in the end we stuck with “One scary anchorage, one devious deviation and one awesome deep-water sail” ... three days in the lives of cruising sailors.

Before we go further we just want to mention that on Monday, before we left Wardewick Wells, "Apres Ski" one of the rally boats, came into the mooring field and on Monday evening we had a chance to catch up with Susan and Joe and their friend Brenda. Great to see them and a fun evening.

Our sail, or I should say motor-sail from Wardewick Wells to Allen Cay went smoothly enough. We spent the time watching the skies to try and tell whether the squalls and thunderstorms would actually hit us. In the end we were lucky and just got a bit wet. As an aside I want to mention the Exumas Land and Sea Park mooring system, which I think is great. They are all first-come first-served, but the ones in the north-channel where we stayed are managed more pro-actively. You can call the park during office hours on the VHF radio and check availability and make a reservation for that day. If there’s nothing free you can add your name to the wait list. At 9am every morning the park hosts a radio net where they request any boats that are leaving to call in and then assign moorings to the wait list and then other applicants. It works really well and avoids long trip to the mooring field if nothing is open. So on Tuesday we got to radio in that we had departed … very exciting! Anyway, when we go to Allen’s Cay we entered the narrow channel and dropped the anchor in a sandy spot. The holding was good, but by this time the wind was blowing fairly strongly as we swung around we got closer to the sand bar in the middle and the depth was uncomfortably low. So we pulled up the anchor and headed across the cut to a small cove about half a mile south. This anchorage has “room for one boat” according to the guide book and there were already two boats inside. We found reasonable depth and good holding on the edge of the cove, but the current rushing by was really strong and we were jiggling in a lively way from wind and current. We had a nasty looking rocky shore behind us, but the real issue was what would happen when the tide turned, which wasn’t due to happen until after dark. Current always seems to trump wind when anchoring. (An interesting sentence given that trump = fart = wind). We weren’t 100% convinced that we had adequate swinging room in the opposite direction without hitting the rocks on the other side. Al this lead to a somewhat sleepless night in which we got up at regular intervals to check our position on the GPS and relative to the other boats. Amazingly, at no point during the night did our position or direction change. The wind was howling, but we concluded that the current must flow around these islands and through this cut very differently on ebb and flow. The one comforting thing about Tuesday evening was that we came up with a great plan to get us past the shallow banks to the north without taking the direct route over the middle ground or detouring to Nassau or south Eleuthera.

Mike

 

With the prospect of crossing the “Middle Ground” –ten miles of shallows with numerous coral heads, which the guide-book variously describes as “not recommended”, “testing”, “essential to have good light, flat seas and visual piloting skills”, we studied the chart for a better alternative.  There seemed little or no chance that we would be able to see coral ahead under these conditions. Five years ago we had negotiated the “yellow bank”(not nearly so shoal area with some coral heads) on our way from Allens Cay to Nassau.  Mike figured out that we could take this route again, then make our way “mostly North” to the Douglas cut.  That would lead out to the Northeast Providence Channel.  From there, about 20 miles would put us near Royal Harbour.  This semi-detour would add 10 miles to the journey but we reckoned might reduce our stress significantly.

Our aim was to leave the anchorage at Allen’s Cay by 6am.  Daybreak was looking pretty “red-sky” as we pulled up the anchor.  There were many clouds around—the occasional rumble of thunder added that extra special element.  In fact, just as we reached the area near the start of the yellow bank, a squall was threatening.  We elected to put in the second reef.  This was accomplished while continuing to motor sail down wind.  Naturally, the dark clouds didn’t help us to “read the water depth”! Eventually we were through the shallow section.  Turning to the northeast, we soon became aware of the nasty chop that had developed on the bank.  A tense ten miles followed. Finally we were lining up for the cut. Once through to the Northeast Providence Channel, we stopped the engine and sailed in deep water keeping watch on the squalls.  After another four hours we crossed onto the shallow water of the Eluthera Bank and were soon entering Royal Harbour.  The conditions in the harbor itself bore little resemblance to our previous visit.  There was chop in the harbor, giving the impression that we were still underway.

We had a quick swim and shower followed by dinner.  Then it was time to get ready for the big open water passage for tomorrow. Coffee was prepared, lunch was made, snacks were set out.  And, in my case, a scopolamine patch was applied.  It was another night of sleeping in the main salon!

On reflection, neither Mike nor I can remember ever putting in the second reef in earnest. My other thought for the day was “squalls are like mice, once you see one, there will be more”. 

Gloria

Leaving Royal harbor was significantly less stressful than entering as it was now approaching high tide, as opposed to low, and we new we had enough depth going over the bar. It was a quick motor-sail over the banks to the cut between Little Egg and Egg islands and shortly after that we headed north under sail in deep water. The winds were consistently 15-20 knots from the south east and for the first hour or so the coat of Eleuthera gave us some protection from the ocean swells. We soon opted to take out the reef in the main sail and we were really fortunate that the wind angle was just large enough to allow us to sail the direct course without our genoa being blanketed by the main causing it to flap. We had a fabulous trip. Every hour we record our position in the log as well as our average speed and general conditions. The waves increased to 6-7 feet as we progressed northwards, but seemed to come in our beam and the boat rode them quite comfortably. Our average speed each hour increased although we did little to trim sails or adjust direction. For three consecutive hours in the middle we averaged over 7 knots. We fished the entire journey with two hand-lines but only caught one small barracuda that we put back. Our fishing efforts have been pretty abysmal overall.

There were several boat making the same passage from Royal Harbor to the Abacos and we actually overtook a couple of them! As we approached land there was much chatter on the radio about which “cut” to take through the barrier islands and onto the Abacos banks. It’s an important decision as the “cuts” can be come extremely dangerous under what are called “rage” conditions, where large swells can form big breaking waves and steep troughs over shallow sand bars as you enter. We didn’t expect this type of situation, but the seas were big enough for us to be concerned. We chose the North Bar channel as it’s the deepest, widest and straightest cut and we felt confident it would be the safest. There were big swells as we passed through, but no breaking waves and plenty of depth. The tide was also dead low so there were no wind-over-tide effects. However, once inside the following 5 miles on a zig-zag path across the banks to an anchorage was nerve wracking in the skinny water. You have to be very precise in your navigation and we still saw depths of 8 feet. At least if we went aground it would be on a rising tide. It was 5.30 pm by the time we dropped anchor behind Tilloo Cay. We rustled up some chili and one of us had a beer and tequila and orange! We had just covered 65 miles in ten hours, for a total of 155 miles over the past three days. Both of us slept well!

Mike

I didn't take any photos over the past three days ... so here's a photo of my beautiful wife that I shot in Wardewick Wells