Chub Cay to Bimini - the Grand Bahama Bank from hell, revisited

I woke up on Tuesday morning to troubleshoot an issue with the running lights.  As usual, when you need something to work, it stops working.  I tested it the night before precisely for that reason and discovered it wasn't turning on.  It only took me a few minutes to figure out the problem and fix it.  Afterwards I made breakfast, raised the dinghy, and left around 9 AM.  Undaunted followed closely behind.

The winds were a bit stronger than forecasted, I got to the nortwest channel during an ebb and the current was ripping, it was bumpy and steep but not difficult or scary...  On my way to the channel, I observed what looked like an exposed reef just a few feet from my boat.  I rushed to check my GPS location while at the same time keeping an eye on the reef.  The GPS confirmed that I was in good water, then I realized the "reef" was actually the dark topsides of some type of whale, and that there were a few of them swimming around!  Obviously this only happens when there is no one around to confirm your story when you are telling it at the bar. 

Once on the banks, I set my course for the Cat Cay waypoint... ETA 2am... I figured I might end up anchoring somewhere in the banks.  The wind fell and so did my speed, so I shaked out the reef in my main. The wind shifted direction a few times, sometimes it would be just behind the beam, other times it would be directly on my stern.  For a while, I even rigged a sort of whisker pole  by putting a block at the end of the boom, and running a line from the cockpit, through the block, and into the jib clew.  Undaunted chose the northern route through the banks. I wanted to check the cat cay route, so we slowly parted ways.  They reported having caught a 12 pound Mutton Snapper while trolling on the banks, so i threw a line out to test my luck... We chatted on the VHF until we could tell our distance was making our comunication difficult, so we said goodbye, like I've had to do with so many awesome people during this trip.  I caught a chunk of seaweed on my lure, the ocean sure owes me a large amount of fish by now, the odds have to be stacking up in my favor.  I have a feeling that the ocean is like "the house" at a casino, the odds are stacked in it's favor, but if you spend enough credits, it gives you a couple back to make you think you will win in the end, but sailors, fishermen, and other gamblers should know that in the end, "the house" always wins... but I digress.

A lonely dolphin swam along my boat for a while in the middle of this featureless dessert of sand and sea called the Great Bahama Bank.  Night fell and although the wind was not strong enough to warrant putting a reef in the main, I did so anyway just so I might not have to do it at night.  To my surprise, my speed did not drop, and the jib filled up with better wind than before.  By this time, the stars had started to shine and everything was perfect.  There were no boats around and it felt kind of spooky to be sailing alone in the middle of nowhere, headed towards even shallower banks which I would have to navigate by moonlight (and GPS).  I took a couple of short naps.  My speed rarely dropped under 5.5 knots and the wind was building at the rate of a third world construction site (slowly).  I got to the east side of  North Cat Cay at around 11:45 PM and started to look for an anchorage.  I couldn't find any calm water so I ended up sailing all the way to South Bimini through some really shallow spots, in strange waters, super tired, and at night... basically begging for something to go wrong... somehow, Murphy spared my last night and I made it to Nixon's Harbour in South Bimini around 2:00AM... not bad for 90 nautical miles.  By the way, the wind increased throughout the night while I was sailing, at the end, I was doing 5.5 knots with a deeply reefed main and deeply reefed jib! What ever happened to the promised night lee that Bruce Van Sant claims occurs in the banks after a sunny day and a forecast of under 15 knots????

Anyway, this morning I woke up and was pleased to find that the nameless Catalina 27 was anchored a few yards away, they made it around 5:00 AM!  We waited for slack high tide and motored over to Browns Marina.  Southern Blue and Wandrian are still somewhere on the banks...

Today I will experience the elusive activity called a proper shower, which, if I remember correctly, aids one in getting to that mythical state of being called "clean".

Chub Cay, an idyllic anchorage... maybe

Last night was awesome.  The wind was calm and the anchorage was dead flat.  The skies cleared and the moon was casting our shadow on the sandy bottom below.  The water was so clear that I could see the individual strands of seagrass and starfish in the boat's moonshadow, now imagine how clear it was in the moonlight.  As opposed to Andros, I've seen no bugs besides the ones that managed to catch a free ride on the boat... it cost them dearly though when they tried to bite me at night!

Dawn brought to my eyes one of the most idyllic scenes so far during this trip.  The clear glassy water lay interrupted only by the nearby islands and by Undaunted.  The morning was also very silent except for some seagulls scavenging on the beach under the high tide line, in the distance I could also faintly hear the rumbles of the generators that power the failed project also known as Chub Cay Marina.  I made myself some breakfast and once I finished, I could not tolerate the tower of dirty dishes so I went to work on cleaning them up.  I am philosophically opposed to any kind of activity that can be labeled as work, but I suppose it is the price one pays to enjoy yet another day in paradise.

I went for a swim around noon to manually reset my anchor into a safer direction in anticipation of the late afternoon northeasterlies being predicted by the different weather sources.  I also swam over to Undaunted and chatted with them for a while.  Then I spent some time cleaning the hull from all the nasty spilt fuel that inevitavely flows by your boat at the Nassau harbour.  I then grabbed the spear and went for yet another unsuccessful hunt.  I did see lots of fish and an easy lobster (but they are out of season).  As I swam on the edge of the abyss leading to the depths of the Tongue of the Ocean during flood tide, I could feel the rich cold water flooding the banks.  I managed to partially spear a good sized grunt but the barbs didn't go in deep enough and it managed to swim away.  Shortly thereafter, and at the same time, a 6-foot nurseshark and a barracuda swam over and paid me a visit... this spooked me enough to call it a day.

I swam back to the boat and started to prepare food for tomorrow's passage.  I had some lunch and now have a new pile of dirty dishes!

The wind picked up around 5:30PM and the anchorage doesn't seem as idyllic anymore.  I am a bit concerned about how my friends at Morgan's Bluff are dealing with this, hopefully the wind will turn sufficiently east such that the anchorage remains tennable.

Tomorrow, if everything stays as planned, I will be heading out across the banks for an overnight run down to Bimini.  I may end up anchoring somewhere in the middle of the featureless banks if conditions permit.

Morgan's Bluff and Chub Cay

Last night, Southern Blue and Wandrian had to make a night entry through the unmarked break in the reef which serves as a channel into the harbor.  It was tense, and we tried as much as possible to aid them from the relative comfort of Undaunted's cockpit.  We stressed as we heard their conversations on the VHF, there were a few lights from cars driving along the seawall, and from our boats at anchor, which must have been totally confusing to the boats coming in.  Add to that, an unlit mooring ball intended for really big ships, and the crazy horsefly looking insects locally called "Doctor Flies" which were attacking all boats near the harbour and you can begin to imagine how unnerving it must have been for them.  Fortunately though, the wind and seas were fair so they mostly only needed to focus on not ending up on the reef.

The anchorage was pleasant but the holding was bad, it seemed like there was a miniscule layer of sand over a flat sheet of rock, the boats were holding simply from the weight of their ground tackle and not much else.  One of the boats in the harbor (the only one that was there when we arrived) had found an old mooring and had tied up to it.  He was lucky to have found it because early that morning he had a squall pass by dumping about 40 kts of wind from the north (precisely the direction that the harbor is exposed to), had he not been tied up, he might have dragged onto the beach with such poor holding.

Anyway, it was a pleasant, albeit buggy night, and I got some good sleep.  I woke up to gray skies and a slightly different weather forecast than what I thought we had when we left Nassau.  It now seems that we might have some wind from the north-northeast which might make the harbor untennable, so I opted for making a quick run over to Chub Cay about 14 nautical miles away.  I discussed this with the captains of the other boats we sailed with while we strolled through town and Undaunted liked the proposition, so we decided to sail over to Chub Cay around 2PM.

We had some squalls all around us most of the way, but luckily we did not run into any of them.  One of the squalls even appeared to have a small funnel that never seemed to reach the ocean so that it could reach waterspout status, it was an amazing sight but only from a distance.  We reached the anchorage at Chub Cay shortly after 5PM and dropped the hooks in calm water.  Clark from Undaunted managed to find a spot with equally poor holding as Morgan's Bluff so he had to reanchor, I found a spot that was reportedly good deep sand (Clark dove on my anchor to check it) and set to work on getting the dinghy off the foredeck.

There isn't much to do here at Chub Cay and the marina has become prohibitively expensive since we last visited (north of $4/foot!!) So we will be waiting on the weather out here. 

I'm really dreading the next leg of the trip, it is really long and there are no anchorages on the way... but I suppose that I have no choice but to get it over with (on a good weather forecast).

Hopefully we'll catch up with Southern Blue, Wandrian, and the nameless Catalina in Bimini soon.

Seas the Moment crosses the Tongue of the Ocean

We organized a mini fleet of boats interested in going down to Morgan's Bluff from Nassau.  The fleet loosely consisted of Seas the Moment, Southern Blue, Wandrian, Undaunted, Catalina (a nameless sister ship that we simply call Catalina), and Southern Belle (who did not end up sailing today).

Undaunted left a little before everyone else and routinely relayed the wind and sea conditions.  The sea was confused and had at least two directions from which swells were coming in... this made for an uncomfortable ride, but it was bearable.

I left a little later than I was hoping for, and since I wanted to get to Morgan's Bluff in daylight, I started motorsailing in light winds from (you guessed it) the west! The odd west wind was likely caused by some small low pressure system to our north because eventually the wind direction shifted to south-southeast as was  forecasted and I was able to kill the engine and simply sail...

The channel markers on the entrance to the harbour were characteristically absent, so I had to follow the Garmin GPS electronic charts which seemed to be spot-on (as has been the case for every single cut or channel in the Bahamas).  The actual anchorage is littered with Casuarinas and loosely resembles the Marine Stadium anchorage in Miami.

As I'm writing this stuff, Undaunted, Seas the Moment, and Catalina lay peacefully at anchor, Wondrian and Southern Blue are still sailing and may have to make a night entry... which is kind of sketchy, but given the current conditions, it will be fine (crossing fingers).

Where did my day go?

Where did my day go? I used to wonder what people without jobs did all day, now I think I can answer that myself...

I wake up usually around 8:00AM and check my phone, this means that I check my various email accounts and ongoing text message conversations.  After that, I'll invest some time playing a video game on my phone as well.  Soon thereafter, hunger or thirst will strike, at which point I'll clumsily manage to crawl out of this coffin of a bed called a V-berth.  Depending on my energy level, I will either cook some sort of breakfast, or prepare some cereal.  After I'm done, I'll observe the growing pile of dirty dishes and cringe.  However, I'll usually determine that I'll wash dishes later at a "better time" (as if there was such a thing).  I may spend a few minutes organizing the boat, then I'll gather up all the necessary items for taking a shower and brushing my teeth.  As soon as I'm ready to take a shower, the familiar tingling in my lower abdomen comes knocking to inform me of a late appointment with the restroom.  I'll then put my toothbrush, towel, etc back on the boat and head over to the gas station to use their "head".  I patiently get in line at the gas station until I get to the attendant which I politely ask to open the restroom for me.  Sometimes the restroom will be occupied and I'll have to wait in a light panic for it to be vacated.  I use the restroom while playing video games on my phone and then come back to the boat to get my stuff so I can take my shower.

My showers here consist of standing on the dock in my boardshorts while using a hose to pour water over myself... I like to check out the expression in people's faces while they see me taking a shower on the dock in plain view.

At some point between the restroom and the shower, friends from nearby boats show up to use the internet at the gas station, so after my shower I'll walk up there to determine what to do for the rest of the day.  We chat for a bit and we realize that it is about noon! We usually start to slowly walk towards downtown which is about two good miles west.  On the way there, I'll figure that it must be 5:00PM somewhere, so it might as well be right here! So I'll purchase a cold refreshing Kalik to make the long walk bearable. 

Once we get to downtown, we'll find a public space with some shade and spend some time discussing upcoming passages, cruising plans, the weather, travel, boats, etc.  Hunger will creep in and the conversation will start to focus on hunting down our next meal.  We will walk to different places until we find something suitable, then have lunch.  Later we might end up going to the public library and chill on its fresh and shaded wraparound balcony overlooking downtown Nassau and the harbor.  After a while there, the sun will have dropped significantly, and walking around town becomes more pleasurable.  So we might check out some sights and slowly make our way back to our boats while discussing dinner plans...

$630 later

I started the day with 3 tasks to do.

Fix/replace phone
I walked the steamy streets looking for cell phone stores, after multiple stores, haggling prices, and losing about 10 pounds worth of sweat, I ended up buying a Samsung Galaxy III mini for $479!

Spare GPS
After checking out the units available, I determined that this would be prohibitively expensive... so I'll keep the ones I have.

Handheld VHF
I ended up buying a Uniden unit for $149, it will be stored in my ditch bag when not in use...

Hopefully the rest of my stay here will turn out cheaper...

Self healing engine... Mmmmh

Today, the engine appears to have woken up feeling better... I found a sweet spot in the throttle range where the engine would crank up instantly like it used to... With the help of a fellow cruiser, we adjusted the idle jet and throttle cable a bit, and it looks like I'm back in business... Surely the engine will work properly until I really need it, at which point it will probably fail.

I had dinner last night with a few friends that I had met back in Georgetown, the boat where we had dinner belonged to a couple of 17/18 year old sisters, they are just out there cruising on their own, their engine is overheating, their mainsail is blown, and they don't seem to be particularly stressed about it! How humbling is that?  They have been buddy-boating with some guys in a Southern Cross 28 and are headed towards Miami as well, so I may tag along as a third boat on the fleet.

We will be heading to Bimini soon, but we will probably stop at Morgan's Bluff before crossing the banks.  We will probably load up on free water while there, and maybe even some local produce...

A couple of nights ago there was a quick rainshower over the harbor and my cell phone got soaked... It was working well yesterday but it doesn't seem to be taking a proper charge today!  My phone is the single most used tool on board! I hope it has a quick chat with my engine so it can learn how to heal!