A Tale of Two Chemists: A Strange day … Friday 11th May 2018

A Strange day … Friday 11^th May 2018

note: we just found out we can buy a 24 hour wifi access from Exuma Land and Sea, Wardewick Wells ... so we have done this and will post some blogs. After today we expect to be off line until next weekend

p.s just realized we are missing one of Gloria's blogs. Will add in when we next have acces

From chatting with my brother Mart I gather that when he read my previous blog entry (Return to Georgetown) he got the impression we are having a terrible time. That’s really not the case. For sure the past week or so has been a bit of a challenge, but as anyone who’s been on any sort of expedition knows, there are always some tough times and sometimes these actually become the more memorable experiences. When I wrote the last blog I wanted to try and give a sense of what it’s really like when it’s not all going smoothly, rather than paint a rosy picture that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Today marked the ninth day in a row that we have had to deal with squalls and thunderstorms, but the trough that has been causing the latest bad weather is due to move northwards this afternoon. We awoke in the idyllic anchorage behind Galliot Cay to grey skies and thunder. We planned to sail up to Staniel Cay on the shallow “banks” side of the Exuma island chain and were keen to make the most of the remaining high tide to cover the first three miles across a very shallow area, so with some misgivings about the weather, we set out at 7.30 am. However, after covering less than two miles we realized that we were motoring right into the heart of the storm and decided to turn back and re-anchor until things settled down. As we headed back we passed another boat called “Honeymoon” that had also been in the same anchorage. After some discussion on the radio they too decided to turn back. Their major concern was that their diesel engine was “shot” and the two 15 HP outboard engines that they had jury-rigged to the stern of their yacht could easily get swamped if the waves picked up. As we were travelling to the same destination we offered to stick close to them on the trip to Staniel Cay and they gratefully accepted. We discovered that their names were Andre and Louise and that they came from Ottawa. They sounded like lovely people.

One bizarre little event occurred shortly after we re-anchored at the same spot as last night. We had set the hook in 12 feet of water on a sandy bottom, but a few minutes later, as I turned around in the cockpit, I saw 7 feet on the depth gauge, then 6 feet … holy shit, we’re aground! But we weren’t, we hadn’t dragged, the tide hadn’t dropped 6 feet in as many minutes and we were floating quite comfortably. We even checked the depth with a plumb line! After some thought, we concluded that the anchor chain that was running backwards directly below the boat, a weird consequence of the strong currents, was interfering with the depth sounder.

Around 10 am the storm had mostly passed and we and “Honeymoon” got under way again. It was pretty close to low tide by this point and we saw depths of 8.7 feet, but nothing less than this. “Honeymoon” was only able to make 3.5-4 knots under power and there was absolutely no wind at this point so it was slow going. When the wind finally filled in from the south-east, we were itching to set some sail and get a move on. Nothing happened on “Honeymoon” so we put up our genoa and slowed our engine in an attempt to prompt then to start sailing. They responded by partially unfurling of handkerchief-sized portion of their genoa. We subsequently learned that their roller furling was broken. After four hours we finally arrived off Staniel Cay. We opted to anchor a mile to the north at Big Major island, whilst “Honeymoon” wanted to head directly into Staniel Cay Yacht Club. They already knew there were no slips available, but planned to tie up to the fuel dock, which was a bit odd as that’s not somewhere you could tie up for long. The last radio message we had from them was a request for instructions of how to get to the marina. We have never been to the marina, but gave them our best interpretation of the chart, including key waypoint data. We dropped anchor around 3pm and after the obligatory cold drinks whilst we check the boat isn’t dragging, we put the engine on the dinghy and motored over to Staniel Cay Yacht club to try and find Andre and Louise. We found “Honeymoon” anchored just off the marina, but no one on board. We had heard them chatting on the radio with other people they knew and assume they had been picked up by them. We headed to the bar and enjoyed another cold drink.

Andre and Louise sounded so grateful that we had kept them company and we were happy to have helped if only with moral support. We’ve had so much help from other boaters over the years it seemed the least we could do. But the whole situation seemed quite strange. Their overall plan was to arrange a tow from Staniel Cay to Nassau. This is a 65-mile journey, which if you could find someone willing and able to do it, would take 12+ hours one way and cost thousands of dollars. We would have loved to catch up with them in person to hear the full story of how they come to be in this predicament, but we never found them so we’ll never get the full scoop. All in all it seemed a bit of a strange day.

Mike