Clarence Town to
Calabash Bay … Sun 6th – Mon 7th May
2018
We pulled out of the Flying Fish Marina on Sunday morning.
We weren’t going far, just out into the harbor to anchor. It would have been
nice to spend an extra night on the dock but it just gets harder to leave and
because we need some help with our lines, it makes it difficult to get a really
early start. I had been dreading actually getting the boat out of the marina;
close quarter maneuvering in Cotinga isn’t straightforward and always has the
potential for disaster, but in this case it went really well. We backed out of
the dock and the inherent tendency of the propeller in reverse pulled the boat to
port in the direction we needed to turn, and we just kept going round the
corner and out to the entry. When I came to spin the boat round Cotinga wasn’t
keen to turn to windward … so we just kept going backwards. The only
disconcerting aspect is that in reverse the propeller stirs up sand on the
bottom and drives it forward under the boat and the depth gauge stops
functioning. Once out in the harbor we
found a suitable spot, dropped the hook and made sure it was really secure.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out on the boat
relaxing. A whole series of squalls and thunderstorms rolled through and we saw
winds gusting to 35 knots. We’ve become somewhat used to squalls, but
thunderstorms are another thing. The lightening terrifies both of us. We’d
likely survive a direct hit on the boat, the current would hopefully go down
the mast and along the copper bands connecting it to a large grounding plate.
However, it’s almost certain that all our navigational electronics would be
totally fried, so it’s something we really dread.
On Monday morning we listened carefully to Chris Parker’s
6.30 am weather forecast on the single side band radio. Chris runs a well-known
and highly respected business providing weather and routing information to
sailors. I like to hear an overtone of boredom in his forecasts – but the last
several days he’s been sounding really excited about the complexity of the
Bahamas weather! “Nasty trough”, “Squalls and thunderstorms between Jumentos
Cays and Long Island”, “The European model is showing development of a surface
low, but I think that’s really unlikely
… but I’d make sure I was in secure harbor this evening!”. We are faced
with a 40 mile passage along a lee shore, open to the Atlantic swells with no
harbors of refuge of any sort. Should we go or wait yet another day? In the end
we decided to go and it worked out just fine, although I have to say we almost
didn’t get going. When we came to pull up our anchor it was stuck. We could see
it clearly 15 feet below the bow and it looked like it might be stuck under a
cable. Sometimes we attach a second line with a float to the head of the anchor
for situations just like this, but not in this case. We let out 20 feet of
chain and motored forward and then tried again to pull up the anchor. Bingo! It
came up cleanly. The passage itself was OK. Gradient winds were light and dead
astern so we simply set to motoring the whole way as comfortably as we could.
There were many dark clouds and passing showers but we got away with only a
little rain. By mid afternoon we had rounded Cape Santa Maria on the northern
tip of Long Island and anchored a couple of miles south in the very lovely
Calabash Bay. Time for a swim, some drinks and then a fine meal!
Postscript: I’m an
optimist and an idiot … I thought the weather was settled … at 2 am a massive
storm system moved in and we had an awful night. Read all about it in our next
post!
Mike
Anchored in Clarence Town Harbor ... squalls to 35 kts ... but securely anchored (to an undersea cable as it turns out!)
Clarence Town Harbor ... wicked squalls
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