Out of the frying pan … Monday 30th April – Wednesday 2nd May

Out of the frying pan …   Monday 30^th April – Wednesday 2^nd May

After a demanding couple of weeks covering large distances with sub-optimal anchorages, we were keen to make life a little easier moving forward. On Monday morning, after a better night of sleep, our brains at least partially re-engaged and we were able to think more creatively about our options and we came up with a plan. We needed to move on from Turks and Caicos, not least because our weekly permit was almost done and we didn’t want to spend $200 extra on a cruising permit. The weather forecast predicted things would deteriorate on Wednesday and none of the anchorages on the next leg of our journey look that safe or comfortable in winds and swells with a northerly component. So we decided to skip those places (Mayaguana, Plana Cays, Acklins and Crooked Island) and make a longer overnight sail on Tuesday directly to Clarence Town on Long Island, which has a decent harbor, but more importantly a good marina where we could spend a few nights and relax a bit.

Part 1 … The Preparation. We phoned the “Flying Fish marina” and were able to get a reservation for a slip. We were lucky, they are pretty much jam-packed all through May. We spent most of Monday checking out of customs and immigration and re-provisioning. We took the dinghy to shore and dragged it up the beach and then hiked round to the offices at South dock, which turns out to be an extremely busy commercial port with rigorous security. We had to show passports and be signed-in at the main gate and then wear i.d. badges, day-glow vest and hard hats just to walk round to customs. The immigration / customs people were very pleasant and helpful. Once finished we asked about the possibility of a taxi to the local supermarket and one of the agents called a friend of hers. Unfortunately, we waited over 30 minutes at the gate but no one showed, so we wandered over to the police station and the officer behind the desk called a taxi for us. We were waiting for it to arrive when a local guy, Martin Theodore, stopped and offered us a lift. He thought the taxi would take ages, so we cancelled it and Martin drove us out to the supermarket. What a great guy – thanks Martin! The supermarket was excellent and we loaded up with everything we needed. When we asked about calling a taxi to take us back, one of the staff offered to drive us in the company van. What an awesome experience – we have been so impressed by how friendly and helpful everyone has been in the Turks and Caicos.

Later, in the evening a young Canadian couple, Jeff and Olena, from the only other boat anchored in Sapodilla Bay, came over to chat and have a drink. They are taking time out from their regular lives and are trying to sail as far south as Bonaire. In sailing south they have the added challenge of going against the trade winds.

Part 2 … The Journey. The weather forecast was for mild conditions on Tuesday with increasing winds and waves on Wednesday (15-20 kts winds from east and 6 foot seas from north east). This didn’t sound too terrible to us, particularly as we were headed north-west. Nonetheless, it’s a 180 nautical mile passage and we were keen to make good speed so as to arrive as early as possible on Wednesday. We pulled up the anchor on Tuesday a little before 7.30 am, raised full mainsail and motor sailed west across the banks and out of the Sandbore channel. Then we adjusted course to the north west and deployed the genoa, but the winds were too light to sustain a decent speed so we carried on motor sailing. Around 2pm we were finally able to switch off the engine, and for the next several hours the sailing was excellent. After passing Myaguana the winds were pretty steady at around 15 knots from the east, but we needed to turn more to the west, which was pretty close to dead down wind. There were already several squalls visible and we didn’t want sail wing-on-wing with the genoa polled out at night and so once again we reverted to motor sailing. As the night went on conditions got increasingly bumpy and at dawn we greeted by the sight of squalls all around us. The wind became erratic both in terms of speed and direction and the seas were large and disorganized. At one point the wind was solid at 25 knots gusting 30 knots and waves were 8 feet or more and really swinging the boat around. This of course was the point at which the engine conked out, presumably because of crud in the tanks getting shaken up and sucked into the fuel line. With that much wind you don’t need the engine, however, getting onto a slip in a marina under sail power alone is not something I would try. Anyway, we were able re-start after switching filters and fuel tank selection. There was some rain in the morning, but it wasn’t until around noon when we were starting our entry into the harbor that the worst squall hit with strong winds and torrential rain. We opted to drop anchor and have some lunch before proceeding on to the marina. Since then the wind and rain have not let up. It’s now 9pm and as I write this blog in the comfort of our navigation station, our wind gauge is pegged in the low thirties and gusting over 40 knots. Today has been by far the worst weather we have seen on the whole trip. In fact at this moment it feels very similar to the conditions we experienced whilst on the dock in North Carolina during hurricane Sandy. I hate to think what conditions might be like now out in the open ocean. This was one of the more demanding passages we have made and on the one hand I think we were wise (and lucky) to complete it by mid-day on Wednesday. On the other hand, despite weather information from multiple sources I don’t think either of us appreciated how badly conditions would deteriorate and we might have been smarter not to set out as we did.

Flying Fish Marina, Clarence Town, Long Island, Bahamas

23^o 06.1 N, 74^o 57.6 W

What a fashion statement - Gloria at South Dock, Providencales, visiting customs and immigration. Not everyone can carry off that "hard hat on top of bush hat" look ...! (iPhone photo)

The first of many squalls - Tuesday evening, sailing west of Mayaguana. By Wednesday morning it was all squalls and no blue sky.

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

Three impossible things before breakfast ... Saturday April 28, 2018

Three impossible things before breakfast

Saturday April 28, 2018

While they aren’t “impossible” things, I have seen three things on this trip that I thought had vanished from the world. 

Firstly, I have noted that “Tang” was for sale in a number of supermarkets around the Caribbean. This powdered product is added to water to make an erzats orange juice.  When I was a child this product was heavily advertised on the television and billed as the drink of astronauts.  Later in the US fresh orange juice became widely available and “tang” seemed to disappear from the supermarket shelves.  Apparently “Tang” is alive and well in other parts of the world.

The second item that is very uncommon now in the US would be clip on sunglasses that can flip up (for when you go inside).  Last summer, I had a conversation with my brother about the problems of sunglasses for the visually impaired (those of us who need corrective lenses). He had opted to go down the route of prescription sunglasses, which means that he has to carry a case with his clear-lensed glasses and be changing back and forth.  He said that he thought it was a shame that the clip on sunglasses that can be flipped up had died the death. Admittedly, once you flip up the colored lenses you do look pretty foolish.  I imagine that dorky look was the reason those lost popularity.  I was stunned to see a couple of people checking in at one island or another using those flip-up clip-ons. I couldn’t say what fashion-impaired nation they came from.

The third item will be one that really shows my age!   In the early 60’s there was a type of shorts made of denim that looked for all the world like blue jeans that had been cut off at the knee.  The bottom was neatly hemmed and was worn rolled up to show the reverse side of the fabric.  When we look back at family photos from that era, there we are my sister and myself in these strange-looking long shorts.  I have spotted shorts of this type on several young girls.  I could barely restrain myself from approaching them to point out that they should never have their picture taken in those shorts. I fear these garments may be making a comeback.

Probably I should tell you about what we did today.  We set an alarm for 5:30 am and awoke to darkness.  We had coffee and got ready, donning our life jackets, applying sunscreen, removing the sail cover, etc. By 6:30 we were underway.  Our route took us out the cut at South Caicos and turned southeast to parallel the coast of Long Cay.  We traversed back onto the bank at a place called Fish Cays and headed almost due west across the Caicos bank.  This route across the bank is considered to be the “deep water route”.  It started off at about 26 ft. By the western end, the depths were more like 12 ft.  The lowest we saw was 10.4 but that got our attention.  The issue on the shallow bank is patches of coral.  These can be seen as dark colored areas if the light is good (the sun is high in the sky).  Inevitably some clouds intervene and it becomes very difficult to determine where the coral is.  The coral areas are likely to be much more shallow and have to be avoided. After 30 miles we exited the bank at “west sand spit”.  Turning north-westerly, we tried to sail but found that the course was directly down wind. The wind speed had dropped off a bit since morning and we found the boat speed unacceptably slow.  After about 7 miles we re-entered the bank at French Cay and anchored behind the island. 

French Cay is a low-lying sandy island with only avian inhabitant.  It’s very idyllic looking.  The island is a nature preserve and you require a permit to land on it.  So we are just admiring from afar (not that far).

Really the only notable occurrence was a radio call from what we think was the coast guard at Providenciales (Provo).  They wanted to know what our plans were, where we had checked in, what was the boat registration number, what type of life raft did we have, who was on board and what were the nationalities, did we have an emergency beacon and what was the number.... We figure they were monitoring AIS signals and spotted us.  I’m not sure if all vessels out and about get this grilling or if we were just lucky.  Clearly someone is paying attention though. 

Another gorgeous sunset - we were having cocktails in the cabin at this point!

Cotinga at French Cay in the moonlight

Cotinga at French Cay in the moonlight

Cotinga at French Cay in the moonlight

Cockburn Harbor, South Caicos … Thursday 25th – Friday 26th April 2018

Cockburn Harbor, South Caicos … Thursday 25^th – Friday 26^th April 2018

We’ve spent the last couple of days catching up on sleep, doing some boat jobs and exploring the area. The area is interesting with the sea taking on colors you wouldn’t believe. But it’s also pretty run down. There are a few derelict boats either alongside the docks or hard aground on the sand banks. The orange brown colors of their rusting hulls are a spectacular contrast to the turquoise blue of the water. On land there are a couple of paved roads and many dirt roads. It’s hot and arid. The only way people survive here is by generating fresh water by reverse osmosis. It just doesn’t rain enough here to make rain-water collection enough. The original “prosperity” of the area was based on the quality of Cockburn Harbor as a port and the ability to make salt in vast salt flats. Slaves were imported for labor and their descendants are defined as British overseas territory citizens. They describe  themselves as the “belongers”, with a recognized status above and beyond the other “residents”. The salt business is no longer operational, although you can still see the areas where the work was carried out. It’s hard to tell how important tourism is to the area. There appear to be some hotel complexes on the Atlantic shore, but we read that other projects have fallen through as seems to be so often the case in this part of the world. The whole area took an incredible beating from last year’s hurricanes, Irma in particular. The majority of housing seems to have structural damage to a greater or lesser extent. Closer to the shore many building look to have been completely destroyed leaving piles of rubble and beams behind. The strange thing is that it doesn’t look like this devastation is all as recent as last year which makes us wonder whether the area has been declining for a much longer period. Having said all that, I don’t think I have been anywhere where the people are as warm and friendly.

Today, after walking around all morning, we returned to the “Sunset Café” for lunch.

Mike had spicy jerk chicken breast with peas and rice and coleslaw – it was excellent. Gloria had a fish burger, made with local fresh fish that was also very good. Yesterday we had bought a couple of snappers off the fishermen at the docks and cooked them up in the evening – pan fried with sautéed plantains, mushrooms, peppers and broccoli. Sounds like an odd combination but we had vegetables we needed to use up and it tasted great!

A couple of comments on the boat systems - we were able to purchase some diesel so we are in good shape there, but couldn’t buy any water. So we restarted our water-maker (de-salinator) with some trepidation. When we last shut it down the filters and some pipes were contaminated with black evil-smelling bacteria. Obviously, we cleaned and sterilized the system but were concerned that the “membrane” might also be contaminated and need replacing. Thankfully it all started up fine and it seems that the fresh water has reasonably low salinity (~400ppm) and no obnoxious odor or taste.

Well that’s about it for now. Tomorrow we will head out early and over the next two days make our way across the banks to Providenciales.

Laughing gulls at Government Dock, Cockburn Harbor

Grounded and rusting - I took the dinghy over and scrambled aboard for some colorful photos

The orange brown of the rust is such a contrast to the turquoise blue of the water

Sometimes the clouds in the Turks and Caicos have a strong blue green tint - colored bu the reflections of the water below

Cotinga anchored in ~10feet of water. She desperately needs some scrubbing on the undersides but it hasn't been calm enough in any of the recent anchorages

The pier adjacent to "deep cut" - an easily navigated entry on and off the banks to Cockburn harbor. Although Cockburn Harbor is completely open to the west and north, in practice it's a dead end because the water is too shallow for most boats. he pier and buildings along teh waterfront were devastated by recent hurricanes, Irma in particular

The pier

Waterside building destroyed by the hurricanes

Waterside building destroyed by the hurricanes

Another view of Government Dock at Cockburn Harbor