Comer Channel

Comer Channel

Tuesday 1st April, 2025

When we initially contemplated coming to the Ragged Islands we were concerned that this would mean we would have to backtrack fifty miles or more to the east to circumvent Long Island on it’s Atlantic (east) side. I suspect that this would have been enough to put us off visiting this remote area, but friends (Dean and Chris on Charm) told us that it was possible to sail up the the west (banks) side of the Ragged islands and Jumentos Cays and reach the northern end of Long Island via the Comer Channel. We subsequently met another family in Samana who had made the passage in a boat with a 7.5 foot draft, so we were convinced it was feasible. The Comer Channel has a minimum depth of 6 feet, similar to our draft, so we knew that we wanted to go through on the top half of the tide.

It’s interesting that weather forecasts get a bad reputation in some quarters, but for more than a week the models in PedictWind have been consistent in saying that today would be the best weather for such a passage. This also aligned with an early afternoon high tide in the Comer Channel … perfect time for us. We weren’t the only boat to have figured this out and there was much discussion amongst cruisers in the Ragged Islands over the past several days.

This morning we were up at 6am and on the move by 7am. It was hilarious … I counted 14 boats all heading out in the same direction at approximately the same time! We looked like a convoy of AIS blips on the chart plotter and it turned out the biggest challenge of the day was staying out of each others way, whilst trying to remain on the precise recommended track. We had been quite nervous about this passage in case depths were not as deep as advertised because of winds driving the water off the banks, or waves causing us to ground out when in a trough, but it turned out to be quite straightforward. We sailed the first 20 miles to the west end of the channel, reducing sail to a reefed main and a partial Genoa, so that we travelled at the right speed to arrive ~ 2 hours before high. We then switched on the engine and motor-sailed directly into the wind (~10 -12 knots) and slight chop, following the line between published waypoints as precisely as possible. We never saw less than 9 feet of depth, although it has to be said we didn’t see more than 9.5 feet for about 10 miles! The water was a beautiful turquoise color and it was a pleasant if somewhat tiring journey.

Our plan a few days ago had been to turn northwards after the channel and go directly to Georgetown. However, we found out that there is a good anchorage at Thompson Bay on the west side of Long Island where we might be able to fill water, diesel and gasoline as well as re-provision. So that is where we headed. We arrived mid afternoon and anchored in the large bay. The water is flat, and as of now (hopefully close to low tide), we have 14 inches of water below our keel!

We are excited that we got to spend the first couple of weeks of our Bahamas visit in places we have never been before (Inagua and Ragged Islands). It’s also worth noting that since leaving the DR we have used 70 gallons of water or less for an average consumption of ~ 3.5 gallons per day … for everything! Next time we will have a functioning water maker! 

Mike

23 21.181 N, 75 08.315 W

You may think the colors in the photos below have been enhanced, but that is not the case. The ocean really looks this intense turquoise color. With some squall clouds around and lots of sunshine the lighting was really dramatic.

Looking back towards the Comer Channel with squall clouds darkening the sky

Looking forward towards Long Island after exiting the Comer Channel

A sail boat follows us along the defined track in the Comer Channel. His sail shape wasn't great because he was too close to the wind, constrained by the channel. (This is a Valiant, one of my favorite designs).

Sea and sky in on the banks west of Long Island

Ditto

A shell that we picked up on our walk on Water Cay yesterday

Ditto

BIG waves

BIG waves

Sunday 30th and Monday 31st March, 2025

Over the last two days, we have been moving Northeast through the Ragged Island.  Our plan is to position the boat ready to cross the “Comer Channel” on Tuesday April 1st (no this is not a joke). Previously we had been waiting out several days of very strong winds.  By Saturday night it was clear that conditions were moderating, so we planned to start moving on Sunday.  We have been traveling on the Great Bahama Bank.  Our expectation was that we might have to dodge some shallow areas but otherwise expected mellow conditions.  Talk about making assumptions!  When we started our 35 mile journey on Sunday, we were behind Raccoon Key and things seemed pretty mild.  We unfurled the genoa but thought we weren’t moving along that well.  We prepared to raise the mainsail, but by the time we got the sail cover off, we were making 6.2 knots.  We elected not to raise the mainsail.  As we progressed, the seas started to build and went right on growing larger with a short period.  Careful scrutiny of the paper chart indicated that large breaking waves could be encountered in this area when strong winds opposed the tide.  Naturally, we were on a falling tide—water flowing off the banks to the east, while the winds was blowing 15-18 kts. from the east!  Yep, we were seeing those large waves and plenty of whitecaps. After six hours, we anchored off Flamingo Cay.  

After lunch, we dropped the dinghy in the water (observing a sizable shark circling the boat), got the engine on the dinghy and motored off to explore a cave.  Some other boaters had mentioned it, claiming the cave was large enough to dinghy into and look around.   Sure enough we got inside and anchored the dinghy.  Mike hopped out into the water with his camera and clambered about getting photos.  Back on Cotinga, we showered (electing not to swim with the shark!) and got ready to join Benge and Debbie on Makarios.  Paul and Jo from Arabella also joined us.  There was a bit of swapping stories of our travels, some delicious snacks and an enjoyable evening.  Once we got back to our boat, we realized that there was an increasing sideways roll that we weren’t really enjoying.  It was seasick meds and off to bed.

In the morning, our buddy boats took off from the anchorage pretty early.  Probably they were motivated by a desire to escape the rolling anchorage AND avoid more wind over tide.  We elected to go for a walk on shore traversing to the east side of the island to enjoy a lovely beach.  Conditions did not seem to have improved now that we were past high tide.  We pulled up the anchor and set out.  Almost immediately we were back in the steep waves.  If anything the waves seemed larger than yesterday, although it’s possible our direction of travel was having an influence.  We were glad that this jaunt was only twelve miles.  Now we are anchored behind Water Cay, part of the Jumentos Islands.  I’m not entirely looking forward to the trip up to and across the “Comer Channel” tomorrow.  In theory, the wind is going to be 12-20 knots from the southeast.  That’s more breeze than we would like but waiting for calmer conditions would mean another week here in the Ragged/Jumentos Islands.  With food and water getting scare, it’s time to get moving.   

Gloria

23 01.746 N, 75 42.958 W

Arabella sailing up the banks from Raccoon Cay to Flamingo Cay (It was rougher than the photos appear)

The entrance to the cave on the west side of Flamingo Cay

Gloria and the 'Dainty Dog' inside the cave

Ditto

Anchored off Flamingo Cay - it looks beautiful ... it is beautiful, but by Monday morning it was miserably rolly

A gorgeous beach on the far side of Flamingo Cay ... still protected by some outer reefs

A wide angle panorama of the beach on the far side of Flamingo Cay

A short video of Arabella sailing up the banks from Raccoon Cay to Flamingo Cay (a 35 nm passage)

Waiting out the weather

Waiting out the weather

Thursday 27th - Saturday 29th March 2025

With access to some of the best weather forecasts available, such as Predict Wind and Chris Parker, we had ample warning of the arrival of strong winds. We stayed in the Hog Cay anchorage until Thursday morning and then motored northwards to Raccoon Island. Whilst it was only about 6 miles ‘as-the crow-flies’, the actual journey was more like 10 miles as we needed to take westerly curving route to avoid shoals. The winds had already started to pick up and it was a salty affair, driving into short wind-driven chop. We arrived shortly before noon and anchored securely on the north end of House Bay. There were already almost a dozen boats in the anchorage.

Over the next 48 hours the winds steadily increased and peaked last night with sustained winds of 25 knots, gusting to 32 knots. We are anchored in ~ 15 feet of water, over a sandy bottom, with 120 feet of chain out. We haven’t moved from our original position and over time, started to feel quite secure. We took the dinghy to shore on Thursday afternoon for a brief walk along the beach and the went over to Arabella in the evening and enjoyed spending time with our friends Paul and Jo and Benge and Debbie (from Makarios). 

On Friday afternoon, with some trepidation, as it was by now blowing strongly, we again went to shore and hiked over to the eastern side of the island. The walk, along a well marked path through the scrub, was over heavily weathered and very sharp limestone. The sight of the ocean on the eastern side of the island was breathtaking. There was so much spray in the air it was difficult to keep my camera lens clear. We didn’t stay too long as it was obvious that there were squalls approaching and we did get soaked on the way back to the dinghy. 

It is pretty comfortable on board, some chop because there is a decent fetch to shore, but very little roll in the anchorage. The cell phone reception that we eventually were able to use at Ragged Island is no longer accessible. However, the couple aboard Off Trail, the boat adjacent to ours, kindly offered us access to their StarLink system, so we do have some internet connectivity. In fact we were even able to watch a movie! 

This morning, Saturday, the winds are finally starting to settle down. If the forecast holds up, we expect to move up the Ragged island chain on Sunday and Monday and pass through the Comer channel on Tuesday, with significantly moderated winds and high tide.

Mike

22 21.734 N, 75 49.044 W 

The east (windward) side of Racoon Cay

Scary looking seas

This is what sustained 25 knot winds generate in terms of waves and surf

Gloria, Erin, Mike and Benge

Bird Dog - 'King'

The west side, protected by Racoon Cay, has flat water close to shore and only wind chop out where we are anchored

Another beautiful beach on Racoon Island - a very shallow approach with many rays sunning themselves close to shore

The obligatory beach landing

We took a short walk to an inland 'blue hole' (salt water) and Benge and I took a swim. 'King' wanted to go in but wouldn't have been able to climb out

The weathered limestone is extremely sharp

This video was shot whilst motoring up from Hog Cay to Racoon Cay just as the strong winds were starting. There was quite a lot of spray. (Please excuse the wind noise - maybe turn the volume off)

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