Tough Going … Sunday 29th April 2018

Tough Going   …   Sunday 29^th April 2018

French Cay was an anchorage like no other. It seemed as if we were stopped in the middle of the ocean at the end of the world. Magical in many ways, isolated except for the sounds of the sea birds, we saw the lights of just one other distant boat during the night. However, the tiny island did not provide much shelter, even though we had carefully worked our way round to the lee side. The vast amounts of water that flow on and off the bank with each tide create a turbulence of their own and it was a surprisingly bumpy night. We have taken to sleeping in the main cabin when the anchorages are poor because there is less motion than in the V-berth, our regular bedroom. I can’t remember when I last spent a full night in the V-berth.

We have been on the move more or less continuously since we left St Croix twelve days ago. Cockburn harbor, rated the best harbor in the Turks and Caicos, turned out not to be as restful as we expected because it was so rolly. We are basically exhausted.

We pulled up anchor at French Cay about 7.30 am, not too early because you need good light to be able to read the water (identify coral and shallow patches). We then picked our way back to the east side of the Cay and headed north across the banks to Providencales. This was a 14 mile “visual piloting rules” transit, meaning the depth should be adequate, but it’s poorly charted and it’s up to you to identify the rocks, corals and shallow sections and avoid them. It’s tiring work trying to differentiate the real dark patches from cloud shadows. As we approached Providencales we started to appreciate just how little protection from the south east there is in the Sapodilla Bay anchorage and how much fetch builds up across the banks even in fairly light winds. We decided to call South Side marina and see if they had a slip for us. They did … yippee! A good price … double yippee! Like a millpond …   triple yippee! Marginal depth to get to the marina … not so great, but we were only an hour and a half past high tide. We made our way carefully to the start of their buoyed channel and then followed the buoys precisely. Gloria called the marina for advice on which side of the boat we should prepare to tie up to the dock… and as she chatted to the guy we ran aground. Nothing spectacular, the shallow depths just kept getting lower and lower until we felt ourselves touch bottom and gradually come to a stop in soft sand. Gloria stayed remarkably cool and steered the conversation in another direction! The advice of the marina, given the tide was going out, was to turn around and give up. We backed off and managed to complete the turn and powered off the sand to go back the way we came. Half an hour later we were anchored in Sapodilla Bay, totally shattered.

Whilst the anchorage is bumpy, it’s not as bad as we had feared, mostly because the boat is facing into the chop. After a brief rest we decided on cooking a hearty meal and 30 minutes later had some very fine burritos! We managed to get some boat jobs done – replacing the inlet valve assembly on the forward head, clearing the inlet valve assembly on the aft head, cleaning the paddlewheel of the knot meter, replacing a fuel water separator and washing the cabin floor. It seems as if everything is salty. We relaunched the dinghy and I went to look for a dinghy dock to land on. There is no such thing – it has to be a beach landing, which creates some challenges. The dinghy with it’s engine is heavy to haul up the beach and leaving it anchored off the beach requires wading or swimming to shore and also seems somewhat insecure. Anyway that’s a problem for tomorrow. We recognize that we are tired and need more food and rest. We cooked up some cheese scones which were delicious and sat eating them as we started to watch Series 6 of Game of Thrones.

Tomorrow is another day.

 Motor-sailing Caicos Bank

This looks almost the same, but I include it here because if you look carefully you can see a line of dark blue ocean between the sky and the turquoise banks. This the edge of the bank where depths drop off drastically ... 20 feet to 5000 feet in a quarter mile