Captains Log 02/24/07

Located in NW harbor of Manjack Cay, Abaco

Today we ran into our first trouble in paradise. No we didn't hit the bottom and good thing that we didn't because the boat would have definitely suffered serious hull damage. The weather report was calling for SW-W winds which makes it hard for our 7'+ draft to find shelter in this part of Abacos. So the only cove I found was on the NW tip of Manjack Cay. It's a harbor with plenty of water but the guide never mentioned that its exposed to swell from the N, NE. And it was. Coming in we felt 4-6 foot swell bouncing off the razor sharp limestone rocks and coral heads and making the passage to the cove very bouncy. On top of that the afternoon breeze had picked up and we were very uncomfortable. Especially when our depth sounder started reading 10s. These charts are from 2003, and the area might have gotten shoaled up a bit. But in these swells its no time to be seeing shallow water. We dropped the sails immediately, and started motoring. Paper chart was in the cockpi
t and Crystal was plotting our position every 5 minutes. Because of the waves due to wind out of the south and the large swell out of the north, we were barely moving. Everyone says that your best navigation tool in Bahamas is your eyes, and reading the color of the water. I think that does not apply to us. We have to be able to read water of 10' or more. That's hard if the sand was stirred up due to swell and wind. Anyhow charts confirmed that water should be 10' MLW but it soon went up to 11 and 12, and before you know it was 14. Much better. At the end of all the frustration we realized that the cove is not that calm and although it provides good protection from the wind and wind induced waves, the boat was rolling viciously from the NE swell that was coming from atlatnic ocean. So bad that we couldn't do anything, we got no sleep and didn't eat dinner that night. On top of that the swell unhooked the anchor at about 1AM, so I had to re-anchor in the dark. We
somehow managed to do that and we'll reconsider our strategy tomorrow morning. I think the swell will subside in a day or so.
The next day we got up and I added a second anchor, danforth, so that we no loner drift towards a heavy surf over hard sharp limestone. The surf looked very pretty, but not if you are getting closer and closer to it by the minute. Anyway, I got the rode and a danforth anchor into the dinghy and rode out about 100 yards away from the surf. Dropped the anchor which amazingly hooked in pretty well on first try. So I picked up the man 45lbs CQR and decided to rest for a bit. The swell was noticeably dying down and after a sleepless night we got few hours in the morning. By noon Crystal was already making brunch and a pot of coffee, and I was anxious to snorkel and see how the danforth anchor was holding. Since I was already in the water, we decided to get the danforth out and hook the main anchor. That took some work as the sand was reinforced by thick roots of the sea-grass, and was hard. After few tries, we got the anchor to stay in. But it again required my assistanc
e in angling the nose and pressing it into the sand while Crystal was reversing. I went back later on in the day and saw that the nose was digging deeper and deeper into the sand. That's it! But I would hate to see what happens if it blows 30knots. We'll have to reconsider our strategy in stormy weather. Both of our big anchors are CQR, which is having a terrible time hooking into Bahamian seafloor. I hope this changes.

Captains Log 02/22/07

Located in Sale Cay Rocks, Little Bahama Bank

Today we did the old ancient way of traveling, no motor. YES the entire day was quiet. I got everything ready while Crystal was still sleeping. Raised the mainsail while still at anchor. Packed everything away, got all the sheets ready, and manually lifter the anchor via the windlass winch. The wind was light out of the NW but in calm seas I had no hard objectives to make it anywhere. Well, on the back of my mind was the Great Sale Cay, where all the other boats would go. But my main thing was to not use the engine. Great Sale Cay was 21NM away on the west side and 30 NM on the east side. So off we went in beautiful sunny morning with light breeze, gliding through swimming pool water, at a whooping 2.6kts. Wow! But who cares. Anyhow since the wind was astern I rolled the gib back in and pulled out the radial floater. The light weight spinnaker. It took Crystal and me several tires but we got the sail up. It was great. Traveling in style and fast. Our speed got up to 4.5 knots. Yeah. We laid on deck catching sun all day while the autopilot was steering. Anyhow, by early afternoon the wind picked up even more and we decided to use it and sail passed Great Sale Cay. One thing that I have to get used to is sailing in the middle of nowhere with 12 feet of water under you. The little mangrove cay island was a patch of grass with mangroves on it. And before that we didn't see any land all day. At least we managed to go two days in bahamas without running aground. That calls for a celebration! This time I wanted to be anchored before sunset because there were some tricky shallow areas to maneuver by. So we decided to anchor just NE of Great Sale Cay. This gives us a head start next day. With W-NW winds forecasted I think we can have another day of no motor! But this time I think its a little silly to anchor or raise the anchor by hand, it just takes too long and you have to make sure the anchored is hooked in the sand so you have to reverse the engine, so the anchor sets. So we need the engine for about half hour in the morning and half hour in the evening. With this plan I think our fuel supply will last over a month. But we'll see.
Anyway, its so dark here with no lights in sight. We did hear few people on the radio, but even that is sparse. We are literally in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow we'll head for the harbor where we'll check in, Spanish Cay. It's a straight shot of about 30NM and no tricky shoaling areas. So that should be ok. I just saw a small tanker drive by on route to West Palm Beach. I saw that same tanker at west palm beach few times while waiting on weather. That's probably how mail gets to Abacos. Anyway its good to know that this rout is deep. Hopefully we'll make 3 days in a row without running aground.

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Captains Log 02/06/07

Located in Lake Worth Inlet, FL

Long waiting period got us a bit lazy. Weather is not cooperating and we are just patiently waiting the right moment to raise the anchor and head for Bahamas. We just did a large grocery run. Got all the drinks, perishable and semi perishable groceries for the next month. But the small window of weather that we had, we didn't use and now we have either no wind, or northerly winds. In both cases it's not a good idea to cross the gulf stream. I have firmly decided to make our fuel supply last more than two months. So I don't want to motor 60 miles to Bahamas. I would like to sail. The problem is that 3 knots of Norhterly current in the form of Gulf Stream will push us very far north if we don't maintain at least 5 knots of speed. The second case is the northerly winds against the gulf stream current creates an equivalent of 30 mile wide tide rip with waves very steep and high. This is the reason not to go on any northerly wind component. And with three cold fronts lining up over the next week or so, this mean lots of 20kts of NW, N or NE winds creating hazardous waves. So we are just hanging out here in west palm beach chipping away at our supplies. I guess will have to do one more grocery run. One thing I fixed while waiting was the watermaker. But I have discovered a crack in one of the pressure vessels, so we are running on one membrane with water production about 20GPH. Still ok for our needs.

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Captains Log 02/21/07

Located in Mangrove Cay, Little Bahama Bank

Finally, patience paid off. We are off and running. Where, I didn't know until we got out into the gulf stream. Maybe Miami, maybe West end Grand Bahama island, maybe Little Bahama Bank and Abacos. I was ready to go wherever she let me. The sea that is. Well the forecast was completely wrong. It called for 5-10 kts of S winds and I was looking forward to sailing, but instead, we got 5 kts out of NW. So despite wanting to preserve gas, we motored all the way across to Little Bahama Bank. I wanted to maintain 5 knots of speed across the Gulf Stream, so I ended up motoring. At least we got to Bahamas. The ride was great. Seas were as flat as Narragansset bay back at home. Now we are in Mangrove Cay on the banks. It was a long ride. We left at 4AM and motored till 1PM to make it to the Banks. There the water color turned to bimini blue and the bottom was visible in 30 feet of water! How nice is that. We knew the night would set before getting anywhere meaningful but all the guides I read mentioned that you can anchor almost anywhere on the banks, so that didn't wary me. The rolling and waves of the open ocean completely subsided on the banks and pretty soon we were sailing at sunset in near calm water and some 10 knots of SW winds. The banks, and endless body of sandy bottom water less than 20 feet deep. Its like a 100 squared mile giant swimming pool. But we did see dozens of Portuguese man-o-war jelly fish which can be deadly if they sting you. Anyway the ride was so great, that we kept on going another 30 miles to where bunch of other boats were anchored. We overheard other cruisers on the radio about were they were going, so we decided to anchor near by. I am not quite ready to be anchored in pitch black and far away from any living soul. But pitch black it was. Other than anchor lights on 8-9 other boats, there is nothing in sight. Just stars. We were so tired that Crystal just make quick soup and salad for dinner and we passed out. The next day I got up pretty early to flush the watermaker with fresh water, and check up on some other items. The sunrise was magnificent. Morning dew was drying off my solar panels and the air was heating up. I sensed it was gonna be a hot day. I enjoyed the view over the side, where every little rock, fish coral, and sea plant was clearly visible. I can't wait to check in and go snorkeling!

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Captains Log 01/31/07

Located in Lake Worth, FL

Some parts came but some just got ordered to come in West Palm Beach instead of waiting in Stuart. Watermaker needs new membranes, some more plumbing is on the way, as well as the new boat registrations. We need those before going to Bahamas. But we had a great time in Stuart FL. Unfortunately, we had to move on. We met a wonderful community of cruisers and will make it a point to come back and visit again. Now we are heading to West Palm Beach, our last stop in the US. From there we’ll head for Bahamas once the weather opens up. After finnaly getting to West Palm Beach area, I realized that this was the worst day of our voyaging life. We must have run aground about 6 times. Just got into anchorage before dark. Its less than 30 miles and it took us almost 9 hours to get there. Lets see, where do we begin describing this horroble experience... the Crossroads at St. Lucie and Okeeshobee canal, disaster. Comming into Okeechobee and Stuart few weeks earlier, I guess I favored the red side too much so we ran aground back then. Coming out I thought I stay away from that side. Well the green side turned out to be even worse. But this time water tanks were loaded and we were probably few inches lower. And to make matters worse, there was a barge about 1/2 mile behind us, closing in. As we ran aground, tide was ebbing about 2 knots and I knew I had to work fast before we really get stuck in the sand. I got on the radio and made a security call so that the barge doesn't run me over. Then we got the gib out and managed to get on a close reach, which healed the boat. Full throttle, and we were slowly moving but bouncing on sand. Just as the current took us and we were moving again towards the middle of the crossroads, again, bouncing and bouncing about 5-6 times but managed to run through the crossroads just as the barge was on our stern. But the guy was nice, since I did some reconnaissance for him, and he could stay away from the shoal. I really really hate this place, St. Lucie Inlet. We have no business beeing here, and there's no way in hell we'll ever come back through this area. Then we took a starboard turn for ICW south. That was not so bad, but any little shallower area that got below 10 feet got me frantic, and putting full reverse to slow the boat down. And there was plenty of them. So we were basically slowing down to few knots every once in a while.
Then we got near the Jupiter inlet... This is the worse junction on the entire east coast!! Shoaling spots everywhere. Those markers need to be relocated in a serious way. Ebbing tide got us going a bit faster than I wanted on the ICW before the actual inlet junction, and we ran onto the sand bar at about 4-5 knots which grounded us pretty good. But we ended up bouncing right over that one and few additional ones and got to a stop and the third sand bar. At the very inlet for about 5 hundred yards there were shoals everywhere. It took us over an hour to get through there. Its like a mine field. You have no idea which way to go. And it turned out the eastern most 10 yards of channel was passable. I kind of wiggled my way out of there. That got us to the very junction of the inlet and ICW which was even worse. Ran aground hard because the ebb was pushing us fast and I tried to stay in the middle. Bridge operator, few hundred yard down the road, which I called few minutes earlier thinking I will need an opening, was helping me out. He's like: Stay in the middle... Right, what middle? I am in the middle and I am on the ground. That's the worst feeling ever, you're in the middle of the channel between all the markers and yet bouncing on the ground. I ended up lifting the dinghy on a halyard with the spinnaker pole supporting it away from the mast. This actually heeled the boat a little and it helped. But not after revving and revving the engine till it reached over 200F. I ended up looking at my inlet guide book and managed to get the boat heading for the deepest water sounding, like 17 feet which was actually only about 12 feet but kept us afloat. Then I did some tight circles to stay in the deep spot, re-think where to go and let the engine idle for a bit to cool off. By then the tide was rising. My mistake was that we were there at the very end of the ebb! Then the cop went by just smiling and waving. I didn't even bother calling him. What was he gonna do, call sea-tow for me. And the bridge guy knew all along that we were in deep trouble. He told me that the entire area is shoaled. But with tide coming up, we proceeded at about less than 1 knot to the bridge. Just one more little bounce and the rest was ok. I was just thinking how fun it would be to get stuck under an opened bridge and make the entire Rt. 1 traffic come to a stall. Yeah stop all those SUVs and trucks that almost run us over whenever we walk or bike to the grocery store. That would be a nice revenge.. Anyway, we made it through the bridge and bounced just one more time after that. Luckily this was on a strong rising tide, which was a totally different story. Got off in a matter of minutes. But the sad part is that windvane punctured a small hole in the dinghy during one of the groundings. Dinghy just got stuck under it in a strong current and a heeling boat. One of the sharp metal edges punctured a pin size hole. We’ll have to patch it in West Palm Beach. The rest of the ICW was ok, One probelm was the fact that three additional bridges over a next 8 mile stretch of ICW were NOT synchronized and we had to wait at each one of them. The schedule is supposedly synchronized, but we got to one of them at 1 minute before the hour and he said that he had already opened! And I was watching him for about 15 minutes coming in, and he never opened. Then after we waited for 30 minutes iddling and trying to keep the boat in the channel, he took his sweet time and opened few minutes after the half-hour opening, which made us late for the next bridge. Then the same story again and wait another 30 minutes. Next time we'll just sail outside and bypass this horrible place. Anyway, we’ll make it a point to never go through this section of ICW again! At least now wea re finnaly here. We'll get propane, gasoline and pick up mail. Then we'll wait for weather to open up. As it stands we have a strong cold front sweeping through which will make gulf stream impassable for the next 5 days. So we are stuck here for at least a week.